Advantage In Executive Control Research Articles

The Relationship Between Bilingualism and Control Aspect of Intelligence: A Study of Persian-speaking Individuals.

The study of the relationship between bilingualism and the possible impact it might have on the control aspect of intelligence of adults in general and preschool children, in particular, has always been the subject of controversy for researchers. This research, following the related findings and gaps in the literature and inspired by Craik and Bialystok's (2005) framework, tries to divulge whether bilingualism could be related to the control aspect of intelligence. As our secondary goal, we also tried to see whether there are correlations between different tests assessing control. In this descriptive correlational study, via the convenience sampling method, we selected our participants. Methods: In doing so, 10 age-gender-matched Mazandarani-speaking monolinguals and the same matched bilinguals have been selected. Moreover, the literacy and socioeconomic status of subjects have been controlled. The tests for assessing subjects' executive control included day-night Stroop, the dimensional change card sort (DCCS), test of variables of attention (TOVA), and the computerized attention network test (ANT). Our participants' performance in language proficiency task as well as control tasks was demonstrated. Furthermore, via the conduction of the Pearson correlation statistics, the relationships between the participants' performance in diverse control tasks and language task were investigated. The results showed that bilinguals outperform monolinguals in all control tests except DCCS. Bilingualism could provide children with an executive control advantage promoting them in tasks demanding thought and action control. Language proficiency is not necessarily related to an advanced attentional control.Mazandarani-speaking monolinguals and bilinguals perform equally in the "knowledge" domain of intelligence.Bilinguals' performance in the control task of intelligence was better than their monolingual counterparts.It was corroborated that intelligence is not a homogeneous psychological construct.Generally, in tasks requiring suppression, bilinguals outperform monolinguals. The investigation of the relationship between control aspect of intelligence and the statue of monolingualism or bilingualism has always been the subject of controversy. "Control" aspect signifies the ability of an individual to suppress the provoking stimuli, that is, to ignore the external stimuli in favor of an intended linguistic or non-linguistic element. Our major objective in this research was to compare the performance of Mazandarani-speaking bilinguals and monolinguals in diverse control as well as vocabulary assessment tasks. Specifically, we wanted to see whether bilingual children could perform better than monolingual children in tasks requiring the inhibition capability. Furthermore, we attempted to investigate whether there were correlations between different control assessment tasks. Extending previous researches, we administered two additional cognitive tasks, namely, test of variables of attention (TOVA) and day and night task to evaluate our participants' control capability. In linguistic (vocabulary) proficiency assessment task, Peabody picture vocabulary task (PPVT), we did not find bilinguals' advantage over monolinguals. In contrast, bilinguals outperformed their monolingual counterparts in all other control tasks except dimensional change card sort (DCCS). Meanwhile, strong correlations between most control tasks were observed. The results corroborated that bilingual children outperformed their monolingual counterparts in tasks demanding strong thought and action control. Also, the conduction of most control tasks might be more challenging for monolinguals, and bilingual children, thanks to their linguistic statutes, could ignore irrelevant response or stimuli more easily, and perform better in the majority of cognitive control demanding tasks.

The role of bilingualism in executive functions in healthy older adults: A systematic review

Aims and Objectives: Bilinguals have been claimed to develop superior executive functioning compared to monolinguals due to their continuous experience of controlling two languages. Given the developmental trajectory of executive functions, a bilingual advantage could be more pronounced at an advanced age. To gain a clearer understanding, we reviewed the effect of bilingualism executive functions in healthy older adults. Methodology: The present paper systematically examines the methods and the results of 24 studies from 22 articles comparing healthy older monolinguals and bilinguals in at least one domain of executive functions. Data and Analysis: Data of each study were extracted for sample characteristics, country, language background and measures, controlled confounders and task paradigms. Study quality was also calculated for each study. Findings and Conclusions: In general, nine out of the 24 studies fully supported the notion of a bilingual advantage. Four studies showed a bilingual disadvantage. The rest of the studies challenged the existence of a bilingual advantage, as neither full support for bilingual advantages nor bilingual disadvantages were seen in various domains. The available data did not clearly support the widespread notion that bilingualism is related to a general advantage in executive control. However, when looking at the domains of executive functions separately, bilingualism was reliably associated with an advantage in inhibition, especially in two commonly applied tasks: the Stroop test and the Simon task. Originality: This is the first systematic review aimed at exploring the link between bilingualism and executive functions in healthy older adults. Significance/Implications: Heterogeneity in study characteristics and control of confounding variables may partially explain some of the inconsistencies found between studies. Therefore, well-designed studies that measure all core domains of executive functions and consider confounding variables are urgently needed.

11791 Gray matter volume differences in bilingual compared to monolingual children

ABSTRACT IMPACT: This study examines gray matter volume differences resulting from the bilingual experience in children and adults allowing us to better understand the brains of over half of the world’s population that speaks more than one language. OBJECTIVES/GOALS: Literature is mixed regarding a bilingual advantage in executive control (EC). While it has been shown that young adult bilinguals have greater gray matter volume (GMV) than monolinguals in EC regions, there is behavioral evidence that suggests such difference would be more pronounced in children. METHODS/STUDY POPULATION: Using SPM12 to test this hypothesis, we used a whole-brain t-test to compare GMV in 35 English-speaking monolingual and 20 Spanish-English early (learned both languages before 6 years old) bilingual children. Next, we submitted both groups of children to an ANOVA with 42 English speaking monolingual and 26 Spanish-English bilingual adults to test for an interaction of Language Experience by Age Group at the level of the whole brain. RESULTS/ANTICIPATED RESULTS: e between-group comparison of bilingual and monolingual children, revealed more GMV in bilingual compared to monolingual children in regions associated with EC (right middle and inferior frontal gyri, superior parietal lobule, and precuneus). Our second analysis, an ANOVA comparing bilingual and monolingual children and adults, revealed an interaction in which bilingual>monolingual GMV in children was greater than any bilingual>monolingual GMV (or bilingual=monolingual GMV) in the adult groups in the right superior parietal lobule (BA1). No regions indicated that bilingual>monolingual GMV was more pronounced in adults. DISCUSSION/SIGNIFICANCE OF FINDINGS: These results provide further evidence for GMV differences in early bilinguals in regions associated with EC and indicate that more GMV differences exist between bilingual and monolingual children than adults.

Attentional abilities of children enrolled in immersion education in French-speaking Belgium

ABSTRACT There is currently much controversy surrounding the cognitive advantages that are often associated with bilingualism, especially regarding the so-called executive control advantage. Recently, it has been suggested that bilingualism emerging from immersion education may not lead to an advantage in executive control, but rather to an improvement specifically at the level of attentional abilities. In order to test this hypothesis, the current large sample study involving over 500 participants investigated whether foreign-language immersion education can be associated with an advantage in attentional functions. We recruited 12-year-old children and 18-year-old adolescents enrolled in immersion education in French-speaking Belgium for at least 6 years. They were compared to non-immersed children and adolescents on tasks assessing auditory sustained attention, auditory and visual selective attention and divided attention. Several control variables such as nonverbal intelligence, socioeconomic status and other potentially relevant background variables were also considered. The results indicate no measurable difference between the immersed and the non-immersed participants, for none of the examined attentional abilities. These findings are discussed in the light of the cognitive implications of becoming bilingual through a formal education experience.

Comparing bilingual and monolingual performance on the attention network test: meta-analysis of a literature inspired by Albert Costa

Are there differences between bilinguals and monolinguals in non-linguistic cognitive processes related to attention? Recent interest in this question, which has a long history, was stimulated by ideas presented in Bialystok’s 2001 book: Bilingualism in development: Language, literacy, and cognition. Because attention is a multi-faceted construct Costa et al. (Cognition 106(1):59–86, 2008, Cognition 113(2):135–149, 2009) sought to answer this question using the attention network test (ANT), a simple-to-administer tool that was designed to measure the efficacy of three attention networks: alerting, orienting and executive control. Using the ANT Database, a recently developed repository of data extracted from studies that have used the ANT to answer any question, we identified 16 papers that followed Costa’s pioneering use of the ANT to address the question whether bilingualism is associated with differences in attention. In this paper we begin by reviewing the methods and findings from Costa’s studies, and then report the results of three meta-analyses (conducted separately for children, young adults and middle-aged adults) of the data reported in these 16 papers. Whereas, there were no noteworthy effects of language status on alerting or orienting in any group, our meta-analysis of the studies that tested young adults revealed, in agreement with Costa et al. (2008) a bilingual advantage in executive control. A similar bilingual advantage was not observed in the other age groups.

Auditory processing and high task demands facilitate the bilingual executive control advantage in young adults

Although bilingual children and elderly have been observed to outperform monolinguals in typical executive control tasks, this bilingual advantage is not consistently found in the young adult population. Proponents of the bilingual executive control advantage argue the reason for this is that task demands in the typical tasks used are not high enough, since young adults perform at ceiling level, whereas critics of the effect argue it has benefited from publication bias. Here we test the task-load hypothesis using a standard and a difficult version of the arrow-flanker task and identify stimulus processing characteristics underlying greater bilingual executive control. We increased task demands by using an “Opposite” task in which participants were to respond to the central arrow indicating its opposite direction whilst a task cue indicated which task was to be performed at each trial. Further increase in task difficulty was expected to arise from reducing the task preparation time by using different stimulus-onset-asynchronies between cue and target stimuli. As predicted, we observed no language group differences in the normal flanker task, whereas bilinguals displayed less errors than monolinguals and were less hampered by the difficult task than monolinguals when auditory task cues were used. Event-related potentials (ERPs) revealed that the bilinguals' conflict monitoring response occurred much earlier than the monolinguals’ when the task cue was auditory but less so when the cue was visual. Indeed, bilinguals appeared to prioritize the cue signal when it was auditory, but not when it was visual. Further ERP results showed bilinguals displayed greater attentional responses to the target stimulus than monolinguals. Finally, the behavioral and conflict-monitoring ERP responses correlated with language proficiency and usage scores. Together, these results show that when tasks demands are high and auditory processing is part of the task, bilingual adults outperform monolinguals due to better stimulus identification and greater efficiency in managing task demands. Highlights of: Kuipers & Westphal. Auditory processing and high task demands facilitate the bilingual executive control advantage in young adults. • A new variant of an arrow-flanker task increases task load • Bilingual adults outperform monolinguals in difficult task conditions • Greater bilingual performance is mediated by auditory processing • Language proficiency in bilinguals is related to behavioral performance • Learning a second language facilitates managing different task demands

Bilingual switching between languages and listeners: Insights from immersive virtual reality

Perhaps the main advantage of being bilingual is the capacity to communicate with interlocutors that have different language backgrounds. In the life of a bilingual, switching interlocutors hence sometimes involves switching languages. We know that the capacity to switch from one language to another is supported by control mechanisms, such as task-set reconfiguration. This study investigates whether similar neurophysiological mechanisms support bilingual switching between different listeners, within and across languages. A group of 48 unbalanced Dutch-English bilinguals named pictures for two monolingual Dutch and two monolingual English life-size virtual listeners in an immersive virtual reality environment. In terms of reaction times, switching languages came at a cost over and above the significant cost of switching from one listener to another. Analysis of event-related potentials showed similar electrophysiological correlates for switching listeners and switching languages. However, it was found that having to switch listeners and languages at the same time delays the onset of lexical processes more than a switch between listeners within the same language. Findings are interpreted in light of the interplay between proactive (sustained inhibition) and reactive (task-set reconfiguration) control in bilingual speech production. It is argued that a possible bilingual advantage in executive control may not be due to the process of switching per se. This study paves the way for the study of bilingual language switching in ecologically valid, naturalistic, experimental settings.

Language proficiency does not modulate executive control in older bilinguals

ABSTRACTWe examined if language proficiency modulates performance in tasks that measure executive control in older Telugu-English bilinguals (n = 50, mean age = 57.15 years). We administered numerical Stroop task, Attention Network Task, Dimensional Change Card Sorting task, and stop-signal task that are known to tap into different aspects of executive functioning on healthy aging Telugu-English bilinguals. Second language (English) proficiency was calculated as a cumulative score that considered both subjective and objective measures of L2 fluency and use. Bilinguals were divided into two groups based on the cumulative score and compared on each task. We did not find any effect of language proficiency on any of the executive control measures. The additional Bayesian analysis also supported these findings. Therefore, the results do not support the claim that bilingual language proficiency modulates executive control, at least in the elderly population. We discuss the results with regard to the issue of bilingual advantage in executive control and the role of age and language use.

Different Bilingual Experiences Might Modulate Executive Tasks Advantages: Comparative Analysis between Monolinguals, Translators, and Interpreters.

Many studies have shown that being bilingual presents an advantage in executive control. However, it appears that knowing two (or more) languages is not enough to improve executive control. According to the adaptive control hypothesis (Green and Abutalebi, 2013), the interactional context in which bilinguals behave is a key factor that modulates cognitive advantage in executive control. Translation and simultaneous interpretation are performed in a dual-language context: professional bi- and multilinguals use two or more languages within the same context (at work). Simultaneous interpretation differs from translation though, because of its higher level of time pressure, which increases the cognitive demands on executive control. The main objective of the present study is to investigate the relationship between simultaneous interpretation and some aspects of executive control. To this end, we compare the performance of three groups (60 interpreters, 60 translators, and 60 monolinguals) in five computerized tasks designed to assess different executive processes as well as the speed of information processing. The results show that the interpreters perform better than the monolinguals in all tasks and better than the translators in all tasks except for the one designed to assess flexibility. The results also show that the age variable does not have the same effect on performance in tasks designed to assess updating, flexibility, and resistance of proactive inhibition in bilinguals (both interpreters and translators), or in tasks designed to assess the speed of information processing and inhibition of a prepotent response in interpreters only. In addition to the advantage that being bilingual presents in some aspects of executive control, the results suggest that interpreters have an additional advantage that may be explained by the characteristics of their work activity (especially heavy time pressure) and by how much experience they have in this activity (in terms of magnitude of the bilingual management demands and amount of experience in managing the cognitive demands of simultaneous interpretation).

Is bilingualism losing its advantage? A bibliometric approach.

This study uses several bibliometric indices to explore the temporal course of publication trends regarding the bilingual advantage in executive control over a ten-year window. These indices include the number of published papers, numbers of citations, and the journal impact factor. According to the information available in their abstracts, studies were classified into one of four categories: supporting, ambiguous towards, not mentioning, or challenging the bilingual advantage. Results show that the number of papers challenging the bilingual advantage increased notably in 2014 and 2015. Both the average impact factor and the accumulated citations as of June 2016 were equivalent between categories. However, of the studies published in 2014, those that challenge the bilingual advantage accumulated more citations in June 2016 than those supporting it. Our findings offer evidence-based bibliometric information about the current state of the literature and suggest a change in publication trends regarding the literature on the bilingual advantage.

Bilingualism delays the onset of behavioral but not aphasic forms of frontotemporal dementia

Bilingualism has been found to delay onset of dementia and this has been attributed to an advantage in executive control in bilinguals. However, the relationship between bilingualism and cognition is complex, with costs as well as benefits to language functions. To further explore the cognitive consequences of bilingualism, the study used Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) syndromes, to examine whether bilingualism modifies the age at onset of behavioral and language variants of Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) differently. Case records of 193 patients presenting with FTD (121 of them bilingual) were examined and the age at onset of the first symptoms were compared between monolinguals and bilinguals. A significant effect of bilingualism delaying the age at onset of dementia was found in behavioral variant FTD (5.7 years) but not in progressive nonfluent aphasia (0.7 years), semantic dementia (0.5 years), corticobasal syndrome (0.4 years), progressive supranuclear palsy (4.3 years) and FTD-motor neuron disease (3 years). On dividing all patients predominantly behavioral and predominantly aphasic groups, age at onset in the bilingual behavioral group (62.6) was over 6 years higher than in the monolingual patients (56.5, p=0.006), while there was no difference in the aphasic FTD group (60.9 vs. 60.6 years, p=0.851). The bilingual effect on age of bvFTD onset was shown independently of other potential confounding factors such as education, gender, occupation, and urban vs rural dwelling of subjects. To conclude, bilingualism delays the age at onset in the behavioral but not in the aphasic variants of FTD. The results are in line with similar findings based on research in stroke and with the current views of the interaction between bilingualism and cognition, pointing to advantages in executive functions and disadvantages in lexical tasks.

Executive control in older Welsh monolinguals and bilinguals

ABSTRACTEvidence for a bilingual advantage in executive control has led to the suggestion that being bilingual might protect against late-life cognitive decline. We assessed the performance of socially homogeneous groups of older (≥60 years) bilingual Welsh/English (n = 50) and monolingual English (n = 49) speakers on a range of executive control tasks yielding 17 indices for comparison. Effect sizes (>.2) favoured monolinguals on 10 indices, with negligible differences observed on the remaining 7 indices. Univariate analyses indicated that monolinguals performed significantly better on 2 of 17 indices. Multivariate analysis indicated no significant overall differences between the two groups in performance on executive tasks. Older Welsh bilinguals do not show a bilingual advantage in executive control, and where differences are observed, these tend to favour monolinguals. A possible explanation may lie in the nature of the socio-linguistic context and its influence on cognitive processing in the bilingual group.

Life-long music practice and executive control in older adults: An event-related potential study

Recent research has indicated that music practice can influence cognitive processing across the lifespan. Although extensive musical experience may have a mitigating effect on cognitive decline in older adults, the nature of changes to brain functions underlying performance benefits remains underexplored. The present study was designed to investigate the underlying neural mechanisms that may support apparent beneficial effects of life-long musical practice on cognition. We recorded event-related potentials (ERPs) in older musicians (N=17; average age=69.2) and non-musicians (N=17; average age=69.9), matched for age and education, while they completed an executive control task (visual go/no-go). Whereas both groups showed similar response speed and accuracy on go trials, older musicians showed fewer no-go errors. ERP recordings revealed the typical N2/P3 complex, but the nature of these responses differed between groups in that (1) older musicians showed larger N2 and P3 effects (‘no-go minus go’ amplitude), with the N2 amplitude being correlated with behavioral accuracy for no-go trials and (2) the topography of the P3 response was more anterior in musicians. Moreover, P3 amplitude was correlated with measures of musical experience in musicians. In our discussion of these results, we propose that music practice may have conferred an executive control advantage for musicians in later life.

The effect of childhood bilectalism and multilingualism on executive control

Several investigations report a positive effect of childhood bilingualism on executive control (EC). An issue that has remained largely unexamined is the role of the typological distance between the languages spoken by bilinguals. In the present study we focus on children who grow up with Cypriot Greek and Standard Modern Greek, two closely related varieties that differ from each other on all levels of language analysis (vocabulary, pronunciation, grammar). We compare the EC performance of such bilectal children to that of English–Greek multilingual children in Cyprus and Standard Modern Greek-speaking monolingual children in Greece. A principal component analysis on six indicators of EC revealed two distinct factors, which we interpreted as representing working memory and inhibition. Multilingual and bilectal children exhibited an advantage over monolinguals that was evident across EC factors and emerged only after statistically controlling for their lower language proficiency. These results demonstrate that similar EC advantages as previously reported for ‘true’ bilingual speakers can be found in bilectal children, which suggests that minimal typological distance between the varieties spoken by a child suffices to give rise to advantages in EC. They further indicate that the effect of speaking more than one language or dialect on EC performance is located across the EC system without a particular component being selectively affected. This has implications for models of the locus of the bilingual advantage in EC performance. Finally, they show that the emergence of EC advantages in bilinguals is moderated by the level of their language proficiency.

Bilingual advantages in executive control – A Loch Ness Monster case or an instance of neural plasticity?

Bilingual advantages in executive control – A Loch Ness Monster case or an instance of neural plasticity?

Bilingual advantage in executive control when task demands are considered

To examine how task demands influence bilingual advantage in executive control over monolinguals, we tested 32 Chinese monolinguals and 32 Chinese–English bilinguals with four versions of a color-shape switching task. During switching trials, the task required participants to suppress one set of conflicting (or non-conflicting) responses and simultaneously to activate another set of conflicting (or non-conflicting) responses. The results showed that compared to monolinguals, (i) when suppressing conflicting responses or (ii) activating non-conflicting responses, bilinguals had significantly smaller switching costs though similar mixing costs; (iii) when suppressing one set of conflicting responses and simultaneously activating another set of conflicting responses, bilinguals had significantly smaller switching costs though larger mixing costs; and (iv) when suppressing one set of non-conflicting responses and simultaneously activating another set of non-conflicting responses, bilinguals had similar switching costs and mixing costs. These findings indicate that task demands affect bilingual advantage in executive control.

Balanced bilingualism and early age of second language acquisition as the underlying mechanisms of a bilingual executive control advantage: why variations in bilingual experiences matter.

Recent studies revealed inconsistent evidences of a bilingual advantage in executive processing. One potential source of explanation is the multifaceted experience of the bilinguals in these studies. This study seeks to test whether bilinguals who engage in language selection more frequently would perform better in executive control tasks than those bilinguals who engage in language selection less frequently. We examined the influence of the degree of bilingualism (i.e., language proficiency, frequency of use of two languages, and age of second language acquisition) on executive functioning in bilingual young adults using a comprehensive battery of executive control tasks. Seventy-two 18- to 25-years-old English–Mandarin bilinguals performed four computerized executive function (EF) tasks (Stroop, Eriksen flanker, number–letter switching, and n-back task) that measure the EF components: inhibition, mental-set shifting, and information updating and monitoring. Results from multiple regression analyses, structural equation modeling, and bootstrapping supported the positive association between age of second language acquisition and the interference cost in the Stroop task. Most importantly, we found a significant effect of balanced bilingualism (balanced usage of and balanced proficiency in two languages) on the Stroop and number–letter task (mixing cost only), indicating that a more balanced use and a more balanced level of proficiency in two languages resulted in better executive control skills in the adult bilinguals. We did not find any significant effect of bilingualism on flanker or n-back task. These findings provided important insights to the underlying mechanisms of the bilingual cognitive advantage hypothesis, demonstrating that regular experience with extensive practice in controlling attention to their two language systems results in better performance in related EFs such as inhibiting prepotent responses and global set-shifting.

The influence of language-switching experience on the bilingual executive control advantage

In an ongoing debate, bilingual research currently discusses whether bilingualism enhances non-linguistic executive control. The goal of this study was to investigate the influence of language-switching experience, rather than language proficiency, on this bilingual executive control advantage. We compared the performance of unbalanced bilinguals, balanced non-switching, and balanced switching bilinguals on two executive control tasks, i.e. a flanker and a Simon task. We found that the balanced switching bilinguals outperformed both other groups in terms of executive control performance, whereas the unbalanced and balanced non-switching bilinguals did not differ. These findings indicate that language-switching experience, rather than high second-language proficiency, is the key determinant of the bilingual advantage in cognitive control processes related to interference resolution.

Effects of script similarity on bilingual advantages in executive control are likely to be negligible or null.

Effects of script similarity on bilingual advantages in executive control are likely to be negligible or null.

Cognitive control, cognitive reserve, and memory in the aging bilingual brain.

In recent years bilingualism has been linked to both advantages in executive control and positive impacts on aging. Such positive cognitive effects of bilingualism have been attributed to the increased need for language control during bilingual processing and increased cognitive reserve, respectively. However, a mechanistic explanation of how bilingual experience contributes to cognitive reserve is still lacking. The current paper proposes a new focus on bilingual memory as an avenue to explore the relationship between executive control and cognitive reserve. We argue that this focus will enhance our understanding of the functional and structural neural mechanisms underlying bilingualism-induced cognitive effects. With this perspective we discuss and integrate recent cognitive and neuroimaging work on bilingual advantage, and suggest an account that links cognitive control, cognitive reserve, and brain reserve in bilingual aging and memory.