Bilingual Experience Research Articles

Individual differences in bilingual experience modulate executive control network and performance: behavioral and structural neuroimaging evidence

AbstractDual/multiple language use has been shown to affect cognition and its neural substrate, although the replicability of such findings varies, partially due to neglecting the role of interindividual variability in bilingual experience. To address this, we operationalized the main bilingual experience factors as continuous variables, investigating their effects on executive control performance and neural substrate deploying a Flanker task and structural magnetic resonance imaging. First, higher L2 proficiency predicted better executive performance. Second, neuroimaging results indicated that bilingualism-related neuroplasticity may peak at a certain stage of bilingual experience and eventually revert, possibly following functional specialization. Importantly, experienced bilinguals optimized behavioral performance independently of volumetric variations, suggesting a degree of performance gain even with lower GMV. Hence, the effects of bilingualism on cognition may evolve with experience, with improvements in functional efficiency eventually replacing structural changes. We conclude that individual differences in bilingual experience modulate cognitive and neural consequences of bilingualism.

Bilingual gatekeepers' experiences of immigrant women's acculturative stress and mental health improvement in Korea: A qualitative analysis

Immigrant women married to Korean men usually experience pressure to adapt to Korean family culture, which leads to increased vulnerability to mental health problems. I trained mental health gatekeepers who spoke both Korean and the women's original language to work with such women from Thailand, Vietnam, China, Mongolia, Uzbekistan, and Japan. I explored the gatekeepers' experiences with their clients in focus group interviews, to identify comprehensive perspectives on the provision of services for community mental health practitioners. Data were analyzed using qualitative content analysis, and I identified 17 codes, 8 interpretive codes, and 4 themes (gatekeepers building relationships from heart to heart, soothing hardship by speaking in the same mother tongue, encouraging mental health literacy, and instilling a sense of fulfillment), all of which motivated the core theme of caring for acculturative stress with fulfillment and pride. As cultural affinity plays a key role, more bilingual gatekeepers should be trained and employed to improve community mental health literacy and the effectiveness of multicultural services.

Language proficiency, sociolinguistic factors and inhibitory control among bilinguals

Bilingualism interacts with cognitive control mechanisms, particularly inhibitory control. It is believed that language proficiency as a measure of the degree of bilingualism may influence inhibitory control. However, this interaction is modulated by sociolinguistic factors associated with bilingual experience. We examined the relationship between language proficiency and inhibitory control and the influence of sociolinguistic factors by comparing high and low proficient Hindi–English bilinguals, and by using a correlational design. A standard go/no-go task with varying proportions of go and no-go trials was used. Study-1 showed that age of acquisition, language use in formal/informal setting, and bilingual switching influenced the interaction between L2 proficiency and inhibitory control. In general, high proficient bilinguals were better at regulating inhibitory control when the demand on inhibition was high compared to that of low proficient bilinguals. Study-2 showed that contextual switching and setting-based use of L2 predicted inhibitory control in a high monitoring condition while use of L1 predicted inhibitory control irrespective of inhibitory demands. However, contextual switching strengthened the interaction between L2 proficiency and inhibitory control whereas use of L1 moderated the relationship between L1 proficiency and inhibitory control. We did not find a significant effect of non-language variables such as fluid intelligence, socioeconomic status, and participation in skilled activities on the relationship between language proficiency and inhibitory control. We emphasize on the role of both L1 and L2 proficiency and the use of a correlational design to investigate the relationship between bilingualism and inhibitory control.

Bilingual Infants are More Sensitive to Morally Relevant Social Behavior than Monolingual Infants

ABSTRACT Forming social evaluations of others is a core component of social cognition. In this study, the relationship between bilingual experience and social evaluations was investigated in 8-month-old infants. We compared monolingual and bilingual infants’ responses to third-party interactions where characters performed prosocial and antisocial actions toward a neutral actor. The same prosocial and antisocial characters were then rewarded by positive acts or punished by negative acts performed by “givers” and “takers,” respectively. Results demonstrated that bilingual infants preferred prosocial agents whereas monolingual infants did not prefer prosocial or antisocial agents. Moreover, bilingual infants demonstrated selective preferences for actors who rewarded prosocial actors as well as for those who punished antisocial actors. In contrast, monolingual infants preferred actors who rewarded prosocial characters, but demonstrated no preference for actors who punished antisocial characters. Results point to heightened social sensitivity on the part of bilingual infants in evaluating morally relevant social events. Findings are discussed in terms of possible mechanisms that may link bilingual exposure and social evaluations in infancy.

On Language and Thought: Bilingual Experience Influences Semantic Associations.

Language can influence cognition in domains as varied as temporal processing, spatial categorization, and color perception (Casasanto & Boroditsky, 2008; Levinson & Wilkins, 2006; Winawer et al., 2007). Here, we provide converging behavioral and neural evidence that bilingual experience can change semantic associations. In Experiment 1, Spanish- and English-speaking bilinguals rated semantically unrelated picture pairs (e.g., cloud-present) as significantly more related in meaning than English monolinguals. Experiment 2 demonstrated that bilinguals who were highly proficient in Spanish and English rated both semantically related (e.g., student-teacher) and unrelated picture pairs (e.g., wall-fruit) as more related than monolinguals and low-proficiency bilinguals. Experiment 3 added ERP measures to provide a more sensitive test of the bilingual effect on semantic ratings, which was assessed through the use of linguistic stimuli (related and unrelated words instead of pictures) and a different bilingual population (Korean-English bilinguals). Bilingualism was associated with a significantly smaller N400 effect (i.e., N400 for unrelated - related), suggesting that bilinguals processed related and unrelated pairs more similarly than monolinguals; this result was coupled with a non-significant behavioral trend of bilinguals judging unrelated words as more related than monolinguals did. Across the three experiments, results show that bilingual experience can influence perceived semantic associations. We propose that bilinguals' denser and more interconnected phonological, orthographic and lexical systems may change the links between semantic concepts. Such an account is consistent with connectionist models of language that allow for phonological and lexical influences on conceptual representations, with implications for models of bilingual language processing.

Bilinguals’ and monolinguals’ performance on a non-verbal cognitive control task: How bilingual language experience contributes to cognitive performance by reducing mixing and switching costs

Aims and objectives/purpose/research questions: The study investigated whether language experience predicts cognitive performance in bilingual and monolingual adults. As indicators of language experience, we focused on language context, typological proximity/distance between two languages and onset age of active bilingualism. As indicators of cognitive performance, we measured mixing costs and switching costs to gauge proactive and reactive control processes during a computerized non-verbal cognitive control task. Design/methodology/approach: Demographic and language data were collected with the Language and Social Background Questionnaire. Mixing and switching costs were subsequently obtained using a cued non-verbal switching task. Data and analysis: The background and switching-task data obtained from 60 bilinguals from non-English-speaking backgrounds and 24 English monolinguals residing in Australia were analysed using linear fixed-effects regression analyses. Findings/conclusions: The results showed that the use of two languages in a dual-language context was associated with reduced switching costs relative to monolingual and bilingual separated-language contexts and with reduced mixing costs only relative to a bilingual separated-language context. Among the bilinguals, lower mixing costs were also associated with an earlier onset age of active bilingualism and smaller typological distance between two languages. Originality: This study’s design included bilinguals as a target group and monolinguals as a control group, thus enabling the identification of possible mixing and/or switching cost advantages in bilinguals. By targeting young/middle-aged adults and considering a set of potentially relevant language experiences, this work was, therefore, well placed to provide clarity on findings for an age group that previously returned mixed and inconclusive results regarding a bilingual advantage. Significance/implications: Our findings reinforce the idea that particular dimensions of bilingual experience rather than bilingualism per se are linked to enhanced cognitive performance.

Bilingualism in autism: Language learning profiles and social experiences.

Bilingualism changes how people relate to others, and lead their lives. This is particularly relevant in autism, where social interaction presents challenges. Understanding the overlap between the social variations of bilingualism and autism could unveil new ways to support autistic people. This research aims to understand the language learning and social experiences of mono-, bi- and multilingual autistic people. A total of 297 autistic adults (mean age = 32.4 years) completed an online questionnaire including general demographic, language history and social life quality self-rating items. The sample included 89 monolingual English speakers, 98 bilinguals, and 110 multilinguals, with a wide range of language profiles. Regression models were used to analyse how bilingualism variables predicted social life quality ratings. In the full sample, age negatively predicted social life quality scores while the number of languages known positively predicted social life quality scores. In the multilingual subset, age negatively predicted social life quality scores, while third language proficiency positively predicted social life quality scores. This is the first study describing the language history and social experiences of a substantial sample of bilingual and multilingual autistic adults. It provides valuable insight into how autistic people can learn and use a new language, and how their bilingualism experiences shape their social life.Lay abstractBilingualism changes the way people relate to others. This is particularly interesting in the case of autism, where social interaction presents many challenges. A better understanding of the overlap between the social variations of bilingualism and autism could unveil new ways to support the social experiences of autistic people. This research aims to understand the language learning and social experiences of autistic people who speak one, two or more languages. A total of 297 autistic adults (aged between 16 and 80 years) completed an online questionnaire that included general demographic questions, social life quality self-rating questions, language history questions, and open questions about the respondents’ bilingualism experience. Respondents had a wide range of language experiences: there were 89 monolingual English speakers, 98 bilinguals, 110 respondents knew three languages or more, all with a wide range of abilities in their languages. In the full group, younger respondents were more satisfied with their social life, and respondents with many languages were more satisfied with their social life than respondents with few languages. In the multilingual group, younger respondents were more satisfied with their social life, and the more skilled in their third language the more satisfied with their social life. This is the first study describing the language history and social experiences of a large group of bilingual and multilingual autistic adults. It highlights how autistic people can encounter a new language, learn it and use it in their daily life, and how their bilingualism experiences shape their social life.

Bilingualism modifies disengagement of attention networks across the scalp: A multivariate ERP investigation of the IOR paradigm

A recent approach to explaining the domain-general cognitive outcomes of bilingualism is to consider the role of disengagement of attention, rather than the engagement of focused attention or inhibition as typical in most accounts. The present study pursues this approach by examining the neurophysiological changes associated with disengagement of attention in young adults performing an inhibition of return (IOR) paradigm while EEG was recorded. Participants were drawn from a diverse community and varied widely in their bilingual experience. There were three main findings. First, dividing the sample into dichotomous groups based on language proficiency did not lead to reliable group differences on the task. Second, using instead continuous measures of bilingualism across the sample indicated that greater bilingual experience and proficiency were associated with the magnitude of the IOR effect, with more bilingual individuals showing larger and earlier IOR effects. Finally, a network of processes that are temporally and spatially distinct were found to work together to produce facilitation, disengagement of attention, and inhibition of return. These findings contribute to debates regarding the electrophysiological correlates of the IOR effect and provide additional evidence for how bilingualism affects domain-general cognition.

Understanding bilingual brain function and structure changes? U bet! A unified bilingual experience trajectory model

A growing body of research shows that the brain adapts functionally and structurally to specific bilingual experiences. These brain adaptations seem related to modulations in cognitive processes (specifically the executive functions). However, the trajectory of these adaptations is varied and seems at least partially dependent on different aspects of language exposure and use. Here we provide a review of the existing theoretical models covering bilingualism-induced neuroplasticity. Moreover, we propose a unifying framework (Unifying the Bilingual Experience Trajectories, UBET) to more comprehensively map the relationship between the various neurocognitive adaptations and different aspects of bilingual experience trajectories, focusing on intensity and diversity of language use, language switching, relative proficiency, and duration of bilingual experience. Crucially, we also outline predictions regarding both relationships between different bilingual experience factors and relationships between the measurable neurocognitive adaptations. Our framework offers a theoretical backdrop and clear testable predictions for future large-scale empirical studies on individual differences in bilingual trajectories and their effects on neurocognitive adaptations. • A framework linking together current models on bilingualism-induced neuroplasticity. • Distinct language experiences influence each other's neurocognitive effects. • Relationships between adaptations in brain structure, function, and cognitive processes.

The effects of bilingualism on attentional processes in the first year of life.

Bilingualism is a powerful experiential factor, and its effects have been proposed to extend beyond the linguistic domain by boosting the development of executive functioning skills. Crucially, recent findings suggest that this effect can be detected in bilingual infants before their first birthday indicating that it emerges as a result of early bilingual exposure and the experience of negotiating two linguistic systems in infants' environment. However, these conclusions are based on only two research studies from the last decade (Comishen, Bialystok, & Adler, 2019; Kovács & Mehler, 2009), so to date, there is a lack of evidence regarding their replicability and generalizability. In addition, previous research does not shed light on the precise aspects of bilingual experience and the extent of bilingual exposure underlying the emergence of this early bilingual advantage. The present study addressed these two questions by assessing attentional control abilities in 7-month-old bilingual infants in comparison to same-age monolinguals and in relation to their individual bilingual exposure patterns. Findings did not reveal significant differences between monolingual and bilingual infants in the measure of attentional control and no relation between individual performance and degree of bilingual exposure. Bilinguals showed different patterns of allocating attention to the visual rewards in this task compared to monolinguals. Thus, this study indicates that bilingualism modulates attentional processes early on, possibly as a result of bilinguals' experience of encoding dual-language information from a complex linguistic input, but it does not lead to significant advantages in attentional control in the first year of life.

Bridging ears and eyes when learning spoken words: On the effects of bilingual experience at 30months.

From the very first moments of their lives, infants selectively attend to the visible orofacial movements of their social partners and apply their exquisite speech perception skills to the service of lexical learning. Here we explore how early bilingual experience modulates children's ability to use visible speech as they form new lexical representations. Using a cross-modal word-learning task, bilingual children aged 30months were tested on their ability to learn new lexical mappings in either the auditory or the visual modality. Lexical recognition was assessed either in the same modality as the one used at learning ('same modality' condition: auditory test after auditory learning, visual test after visual learning) or in the other modality ('cross-modality' condition: visual test after auditory learning, auditory test after visual learning). The results revealed that like their monolingual peers, bilingual children successfully learn new words in either the auditory or the visual modality and show cross-modal recognition of words following auditory learning. Interestingly, as opposed to monolinguals, they also demonstrate cross-modal recognition of words upon visual learning. Collectively, these findings indicate a bilingual edge in visual word learning, expressed in the capacity to form a recoverable cross-modal representation of visually learned words.

Becoming bilingual in two-way immersion: patterns of investment in a second-grade classroom

ABSTRACT This article explores how second-grade students in a Spanish/English two-way immersion (TWI) program make sense of becoming bilingual. Drawing upon the expanded model of investment theory, I examine how and why students in this classroom “invest” in their emerging bilingualism, attending to the similarities and differences in the sense-making of Latinx students and their non-Latinx peers. Findings reveal that students across linguistic backgrounds held similar understandings of the perceived benefits of bilingualism, including bilingualism for global citizenship, to help others, and to increase their employment opportunities. Students sense-making differed, however, when it came to the uniqueness of the bilingual experience. That is, among White English home language students, there was a shared discourse of bilingual exceptionalism—their bilingualism making them ‘feel special,’ as if they had ‘a secret language’—while Latinx students framed bilingualism as a ‘normal’ phenomenon. I consider these findings in relation to systemic patterns of control and spaces of resistance and discuss implications for fostering and sustaining equitable models of bilingual education.

Differences in Working Memory With Emotional Distraction Between Proficient and Non-proficient Bilinguals.

The impact of bilingual education and bilingual experience on working memory has been an important and controversial issue in the field of psycholinguistics. Taking Chinese-English bilinguals as an example, this study aims to investigate the differences in emotional working memory between proficient and non-proficient bilinguals by using delayed matching-to-sample task paradigm and the more complex N-back task in emotional contexts. The results show that proficient bilinguals may have better performance on both of these two working memory tasks than non-proficient bilinguals, and the advantage effects can be more apparent under high memory load conditions. In addition, the negative emotion context could have a positive impact on complex N-back tasks. This study supports the notion that bilingual experience can promote the development of an individual’s cognitive ability and enable individuals to possess more advantages in working memory even in the presence of emotional contexts.

Earlier age of second language learning induces more robust speech encoding in the auditory brainstem in adults, independent of amount of language exposure during early childhood

Learning a second language (L2) at a young age is a driving factor of functional neuroplasticity in the auditory brainstem. To date, it remains unclear whether these effects remain stable until adulthood and to what degree the amount of exposure to the L2 in early childhood might affect their outcome.We compared three groups of adult English-French bilinguals in their ability to categorize English vowels in relation to their frequency following responses (FFR) evoked by the same vowels. At the time of testing, cognitive abilities as well as fluency in both languages were matched between the (1) simultaneous bilinguals (SIM, N = 18); (2) sequential bilinguals with L1-English (N = 14); and (3) sequential bilinguals with L1-French (N = 11).Our results show that the L1-English group show sharper category boundaries in identification of the vowels compared to the L1-French group. Furthermore, the same pattern was reflected in the FFRs (i.e., larger FFR responses in L1-English > SIM > L1-French), while again only the difference between the L1-English and the L1-French group was statistically significant; nonetheless, there was a trend towards larger FFR in SIM compared to L1-French.Our data extends previous literature showing that exposure to a language during the first years of life induces functional neuroplasticity in the auditory brainstem that remains stable until at least young adulthood. Furthermore, the findings suggest that amount of exposure (i.e., 100% vs. 50%) to that language does not differentially shape the robustness of the perceptual abilities or the auditory brainstem encoding of phonetic categories of the language.Statement of significance:Previous studies have indicated that early age of L2 acquisition induces functional neuroplasticity in the auditory brainstem during processing of the L2. This study compared three groups of adult bilinguals who differed in their age of L2 acquisition as well as the amount of exposure to the L2 during early childhood. We demonstrate for the first time that the neuroplastic effect in the brainstem remains stable until young adulthood and that the amount of L2 exposure does not influence behavioral or brainstem plasticity. Our study provides novel insights into low-level auditory plasticity as a function of varying bilingual experience.

The moderating effect of bilingualism on lifespan cognitive development

A growing amount of studies have explored the possible effects of bilingual experience on cognitive processes such executive functions; the early positive findings were followed by recent studies that have failed to replicate the so-called bilingual advantage. So far, evidence remains scarce with regard to developmental cognitive trajectories through the lifespan, as a function of bilingual experience. In the present work, we analyse a relatively large (N = 326) and comprehensive set of data from Albanian-Greek bilingual and Greek monolingual children (N = 119) and adults (N = 207), who were matched on SES level, intelligence and gender. Participants were assessed with the ANT and the Simon task. Results suggest that bilingual experience moderates age-related changes in monitoring in childhood, with overall RTs negatively related to age in both language groups, yet this relationship is weaker among bilingual children. Similar findings were also observed among adults, with age and monitoring correlated among monolinguals, but not in the bilinguals. Finally, only the monolingual participants showed a significant correlation between age and resistance to interference capacity (Simon effect). In conclusion, bilingualism seems to exert a differential influence on the relationship between age, attentional monitoring and resistance to interference capacity depending on the developmental phase studied and the measures obtained.

One language or two? Navigating cross-language conflict in statistical word segmentation.

Bilingual infants must navigate the similarities and differences between their languages to achieve native proficiency in childhood. Bilinguals learning to find individual words in fluent speech face the possibility of conflicting cues to word boundaries across their languages. Despite this challenge, bilingual infants typically begin to segment and learn words in both languages around the same time as monolinguals. It is possible that early bilingual experience may support infants' abilities to track regularities relevant for word segmentation separately across their languages. In a dual speech stream statistical word segmentation task, we assessed whether 16-month-old infants could track syllable co-occurrence regularities in two artificial languages despite conflicting information across the languages. We found that bilingual, but not monolingual, infants were able to segment the dual speech streams using statistical regularities. Although the two language groups did not differ on secondary measures of cognitive and linguistic development, bilingual infants' real-world experience with bilingual speakers was predictive of their performance in the dual language statistical segmentation task.

Early childhood bilingualism: effects on brain structure and function.

Growing up in a bilingual environment is becoming increasingly common. Yet, we know little about how this enriched language environment influences the connectivity of children's brains. Behavioural research in children and adults has shown that bilingualism experience may boost executive control (EC) skills, such as inhibitory control and attention. Moreover, increased structural and functional (resting-state) connectivity in language-related and EC-related brain networks is associated with increased executive control in bilingual adults. However, how bilingualism factors alter brain connectivity early in brain development remains poorly understood. We will combine standardised tests of attention with structural and resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in bilingual children. This study will allow us to address an important field of inquiry within linguistics and developmental cognitive neuroscience by examining the following questions: Does bilingual experience modulate connectivity in language-related and EC-related networks in children? Do differences in resting-state brain connectivity correlate with differences in EC skills (specifically attention skills)? How do bilingualism-related factors, such as age of exposure to two languages, language usage and proficiency, modulate brain connectivity? We will collect structural and functional MRI, and quantitative measures of EC and language skills from two groups of English-Greek bilingual children - 20 simultaneous bilinguals (exposure to both languages from birth) and 20 successive bilinguals (exposure to English between the ages of 3 and 5 years) - and 20 English monolingual children, 8-10 years old. We will compare connectivity measures and attention skills between monolinguals and bilinguals to examine the effects of bilingual exposure. We will also examine to what extent bilingualism factors predict brain connectivity in EC and language networks. Overall, we hypothesize that connectivity and EC will be enhanced in bilingual children compared to monolingual children, and each outcome will be modulated by age of exposure to two languages and by bilingual language usage.

Cognitive and brain reserve in bilinguals: field overview and explanatory mechanisms

There is an ongoing debate on potential neuroprotective effects of bilingualism against cognitive decline during healthy aging. In this paper, we consider the neural and cognitive mechanisms through which these protective effects may operate. We review the evidence suggesting that bilingualism can act as a booster of neuroplasticity and/or as a brain protection mechanism providing effective compensation. Our main aim is to better define the linkage between reserve and lifetime bilingual experience and their effects on the mind and brain. We first illustrate the concept of reserve and contextualize existing results of bilingualism research within the reserve framework. Then, we discuss how bilingualism-induced enhancements of certain cognitive functions may constitute the basis for the neural underpinnings of reserve, i.e., brain reserve (BR) and cognitive reserve (CR). Finally, we discuss how the interplay between BR and CR fostered by multiple language use can provide protection to the aging brain.

Bilingualism and Processing Speed in Typically Developing Children and Children With Developmental Language Disorder.

Purpose The aim of the current study was to investigate whether dual language experience modulates processing speed in typically developing (TD) children and in children with developmental language disorder (DLD). We also examined whether processing speed predicted vocabulary and sentence-level abilities in receptive and expressive modalities. Method We examined processing speed in monolingual and bilingual school-age children (ages 8-12 years) with and without DLD. TD children (35 monolinguals, 24 bilinguals) and children with DLD (17 monolinguals, 10 bilinguals) completed a visual choice reaction time task. The Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals, the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, and the Expressive Vocabulary Test were used as language measures. Results The children with DLD exhibited slower response times relative to TD children. Response time was not modified by bilingual experience, neither in children with typical development nor children with DLD. Also, we found that faster processing speed was related to higher language abilities, but this relationship was not significant when socioeconomic status was controlled for. The magnitude of the association did not differ between the monolingual and bilingual groups across the language measures. Conclusions Slower processing speed is related to lower language abilities in children. Processing speed is minimally influenced by dual language experience, at least within this age range. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.12210311.

What Does Language Have to Do With It? The Impact of Age and Bilingual Experience on Inhibitory Control in an Auditory Dichotic Listening Task.

Purpose The purpose of the current study was to examine inhibition of irrelevant information in younger and older English monolingual and Spanish-English bilingual adults. Method Sixty-one participants divided into four groups: 15 younger English monolinguals, 16 younger Spanish-English bilinguals, 15 older English monolinguals, and 15 older Spanish-English bilinguals participated in this study. Younger participants were 18-25 years of age, and older participants were 47-62 years of age. Bilingual participants had learned Spanish from birth and began learning English by the age of 3 years old (SD = 3.1). All participants had hearing thresholds of < 25 dB HL from 250 to 4000 Hz, bilaterally (American National Standards Institute [ANSI], 2004) and were right-handed. Inhibition was measured using a forced-attention dichotic consonant vowel listening task with a prime stimulus and the Simon task, a nonverbal visual test. Results Younger participants were better able to inhibit the irrelevant auditory and visual stimuli and modulate their attention according to the instructions that they were given compared to the older participants. However, no significant differences in inhibition performance or attention modulation were evidenced between the monolingual and bilingual groups in any of the dichotic listening conditions or on the Simon task. Conclusions No significant differences in performance on an auditory or a visual test of inhibition of irrelevant information was evidenced between the monolingual and bilingual participants in this study. These findings suggest that younger and older adult, early balanced Spanish-English bilinguals may not exhibit an advantage in the inhibition of irrelevant information compared to younger and older adult English monolinguals.