Hostname: page-component-f554764f5-nwwvg Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-11T13:15:24.881Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The effects of bilingualism on efficiency and lateralization of attentional networks*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 October 2012

ANNA MARZECOVÁ ,
DARIUSZ ASANOWICZ ,
L'UBA KRIVÁ  and
ZOFIA WODNIECKA
ANNA MARZECOVÁ*
Affiliation:
Institute of Psychology, Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland
DARIUSZ ASANOWICZ
Affiliation:
Institute of Psychology, Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland
L'UBA KRIVÁ
Affiliation:
Military Rehabilitation Centre Slapy, Slapy, Czech Republic & Clinic of Addictology, General University Hospital and Charles University in Prague, Prague, Czech Republic
ZOFIA WODNIECKA
Affiliation:
Institute of Psychology, Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland
*
Address for correspondence: Anna Marzecová, Institute of Psychology, Jagiellonian University, Al. Mickiewicza 3, 31-120 Kraków, Poland[email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The present study investigated the impact of bilingualism on efficiency of alerting, orienting and executive attention by means of the Lateralized Attention Network Test (LANT). Young adult bilinguals who had been exposed to their second language before the age of four years showed a reduced conflict cost and a larger alerting effect in terms of response time (RT), while no difference between bilinguals and monolinguals was observed in overall RT. Bilinguals also outperformed monolinguals on accuracy in both conflict and non-conflict trials, though the effect in the latter condition was very small. Moreover, while a left visual field advantage for accuracy of conflict resolution was present in the monolingual group, bilinguals did not show the asymmetry. The findings suggest that bilingualism enhances the efficiency of executive network while reducing its lateralization. The larger alerting effect in bilinguals is hypothesized to be related to bilinguals’ more efficient executive control, which may support processes of response anticipation or temporal orienting.

Keywords

bilingualismattentional networkshemispheric asymmetryexecutive controlattention network test
Type
Research Article
Information
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition , Volume 16 , Issue 3 , July 2013 , pp. 608 - 623
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Footnotes

*

We would like to thank Juan Lupiáñez, the anonymous reviewer, and the editor, David Green, for their many constructive comments and suggestions. We also acknowledge all participants. Anna Marzecová and Zofia Wodniecka were supported by a subsidy from the Foundation for Polish Science awarded to Zofia Wodniecka (FOCUS program).

References

Abutalebi, J., Annoni, J. M., Zimine, I., Pegna, A. J., Seghier, M. L., Lee-Jahnke, H., Lazeyras, F., Cappa, S. F., & Khateb, A. (2008). Language control and lexical competition in bilinguals: An event-related MRI study. Cerebral Cortex, 18 (7), 1496–1505.Google Scholar
Abutalebi, J., & Green, D. W. (2007). Bilingual language production: The neurocognition of language representation and control. Journal of Neurolinguistics, 20 (3), 242–275.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Aron, A. R., Robbins, T. W., & Poldrack, R. A. (2004). Inhibition and the right inferior frontal cortex. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 8 (4), 170–177.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Asanowicz, D., Marzecová, A., Jaśkowski, P., & Wolski, P. (2012). Hemispheric asymmetry in the efficiency of attentional networks. Brain and Cognition, 79 (2), 117–128.Google Scholar
Bialystok, E. (2005). Consequences of bilingualism for cognitive development. In Kroll, J. R. & de Groot, A. M. B. (eds.), Handbook of bilingualism: Psycholinguistic approaches, pp. 417–432. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Bialystok, E., Craik, F. I. M., Green, D. W., & Gollan, T. H. (2009). Bilingual minds. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 10 (3), 89–129.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bialystok, E., Craik, F. I., Klein, R., & Viswanathan, M. (2004). Bilingualism, aging, and cognitive control: Evidence from the Simon task. Psychology and Aging, 19 (2), 290–303.Google Scholar
Bialystok, E., Craik, F. I., & Luk, G. (2012). Bilingualism: Consequences for mind and brain. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 16 (4), 240–250.Google Scholar
Bialystok, E., Martin, M. M., & Viswanathan, M. (2005). Bilingualism across the lifespan: The rise and fall of inhibitory control. International Journal of Bilingualism, 9 (1), 103–119.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boles, D. B., & Barth, J. M. (2011). “Does degree of asymmetry relate to performance?”: A critical review. Brain and Cognition, 76 (1), 1–4.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Boles, D. B., Barth, J. M., & Merrill, E. C. (2008). Asymmetry and performance: Toward a neurodevelopmental theory. Brain and Cognition, 66 (2), 124–139.Google Scholar
Callejas, A., Lupiáñez, J., & Tudela, P. (2004). The three attentional networks: On their independence and interactions. Brain and Cognition, 54 (3), 225–227.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Carrasco, M., Ling, S., & Read, S. (2004). Attention alters appearance. Nature Neuroscience, 7 (3), 308–313.Google Scholar
Coggins, P. E., Kennedy, T. J., & Armstrong, T. A. (2004). Bilingual corpus callosum variability. Brain and Language, 89 (1), 69–75.Google Scholar
Colzato, L. S., Bajo, M. T., van den Wildenberg, W., Paolieri, D., Nieuwenhuis, S., La Heij, W., & Hommel, B. (2008). How does bilingualism improve executive control? A comparison of active and reactive inhibition mechanisms. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 34 (2), 302–312.Google Scholar
Corbetta, M., & Shulman, G. L. (2002). Control of goal-directed and stimulus-driven attention in the brain. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 3 (3), 201–215.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Correa, A. (2010). Enhancing behavioural performance by visual temporal orienting. In Nobre, A. C. & Coull, J. T. (eds.), Attention and time, pp. 357–370. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Costa, A., Hernández, M., Costa-Faidella, J., & Sebastián-Gallés, N. (2009). On the bilingual advantage in conflict processing: Now you see it, now you don't. Cognition, 113 (2), 135–149.Google Scholar
Costa, A., Hernández, M., & Sebastián-Gallés, N. (2008). Bilingualism aids conflict resolution: Evidence from the ANT task. Cognition, 106 (1), 59–86.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dehaene, S., Dupoux, E., Mehler, J., Cohen, L., Paulesu, E., Perani, D., Van de Moortele, P. F., Lehéricy, S., & Le Bihan, D. (1997). Anatomical variability in the cortical representation of first and second language. Neuroreport, 8 (17), 3809.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dien, J. (2009). A tale of two recognition systems: Implications of the fusiform face area and the visual word form area for lateralized object recognition models. Neuropsychologia, 47 (1), 1–16.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Doricchi, F., Macci, E., Silvetti, M., & Macaluso, E. (2010). Neural correlates of the spatial and expectancy components of endogenous and stimulus-driven orienting of attention in the Posner task. Cerebral Cortex, 20, 1574–1585.Google Scholar
Engle, R., & Kane, M. (2004). Executive attention, working memory capacity, and a two‐ factor theory of cognitive control. In Ross, B. (ed.), The psychology of learning and motivation (vol. 44): Advances in research and theory, pp. 145–199. New York: Elsevier.Google Scholar
Eriksen, B. A., & Eriksen, C. W. (1974). Effects of noise letters upon the identification of a target letter in a nonsearch task. Perception & Psychophysics, 16 (1), 143–149.Google Scholar
Evert, D. L., McGlinchey-Berroth, R., Verfaellie, M., & Milberg, W. P. (2003). Hemispheric asymmetries for selective attention apparent only with increased task demands in healthy participants. Brain and Cognition, 53 (1), 34–41.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fan, J., Gu, X., Guise, K. G., Liu, X., Fossella, J., Wang, H., & Posner, M. I. (2009). Testing the behavioral interaction and integration of attentional networks. Brain and Cognition, 70 (2), 209–220.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fan, J., Kolster, R., Ghajar, J., Suh, M., Knight, R. T., Sarkar, R., & McCandliss, B. D. (2007). Response anticipation and response conflict: An event-related potential and functional magnetic resonance imaging study. The Journal of Neuroscience: The Official Journal of the Society for Neuroscience, 27 (9), 2272–2282.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fan, J., McCandliss, B. D., Fossella, J., Flombaum, J. I., & Posner, M. I. (2005). The activation of attentional networks. Neuroimage, 26 (2), 471–479.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fan, J., McCandliss, B. D., Sommer, T., Raz, A., & Posner, M. I. (2002). Testing the efficiency and independence of attentional networks. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 14 (3), 340–347.Google Scholar
Fassbender, C., Foxe, J. J., & Garavan, H. (2006). Mapping the functional anatomy of task preparation: Priming task-appropriate brain networks. Human Brain Mapping, 27 (10), 819–827.Google Scholar
Fernandez-Duque, D., & Posner, M. I. (2001). Brain imaging of attentional networks in normal and pathological states. Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology, 23 (1), 74–93.Google Scholar
Forster, K. I., & Forster, J. C. (2003). DMDX: A windows display program with millisecond accuracy. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, & Computers, 35 (1), 116–124.Google Scholar
Foxe, J. J., Simpson, G. V., Ahlfors, S. P., & Saron, C. D. (2005). Biasing the brain's attentional set: I. Cue driven deployments of intersensory selective attention. Experimental Brain Research, 166 (3–4), 370–392.Google Scholar
Gainotti, G. (2007). Different patterns of famous people recognition disorders in patients with right and left anterior temporal lesions: A systematic review. Neuropsychologia, 45 (8), 1591–1607.Google Scholar
Garbin, G., Sanjuan, A., Forn, C., Bustamante, J. C., Rodriguez-Pujadas, A., Belloch, V., Hern[á]ndez, M., Costa, A., & Ávila, C. (2010). Bridging language and attention: Brain basis of the impact of bilingualism on cognitive control. Neuroimage, 53 (4), 1272–1278.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Green, D. W. (1998). Mental control of the bilingual lexico-semantic system. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 1, 67–81.Google Scholar
Greene, D. J., Barnea, A., Herzberg, K., Rassis, A., Neta, M., Raz, A., & Zaidel, E. (2008). Measuring attention in the hemispheres: The lateralized attention network test (LANT). Brain and Cognition, 66 (1), 21–31.Google Scholar
Hausmann, M., Durmusoglu, G., Yazgan, Y., & Güntürkün, O. (2004). Evidence for reduced hemispheric asymmetries in non-verbal functions in bilinguals. Journal of Neurolinguistics, 17 (4), 285–299.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hazeltine, E., Bunge, S. A., Scanlon, M. D., & Gabrieli, J. D. (2003). Material-dependent and material-independent selection processes in the frontal and parietal lobes: An event-related fMRI investigation of response competition. Neuropsychologia, 41 (9), 1208–1217.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Heilman, K. M. (1995). Attentional asymmetries. In Davidson, R. J. & Hugdahl, K. (eds.), Brain asymmetry, pp. 217–234. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Hernández, M., Costa, A., Fuentes, L. J., Vivas, A. B., & Sebastián-Gallés, N. (2010). The impact of bilingualism on the executive control and orienting networks of attention. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 13, 315–325.Google Scholar
Hilchey, M. D., & Klein, R. M. (2011). Are there bilingual advantages on nonlinguistic interference tasks? Implications for the plasticity of executive control processes. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 18 (4), 625–658.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hull, R., & Vaid, J. (2006). Laterality and language experience. Laterality, 11 (5), 436–464.Google Scholar
Hull, R., & Vaid, J. (2007). Bilingual language lateralization: A meta-analytic tale of two hemispheres. Neuropsychologia, 45 (9), 1987–2008.Google Scholar
Kane, M. J., Hambrick, D. Z., Tuholski, S. W., Wilhelm, O., Payne, T. W., & Engle, R. W. (2004). The generality of working memory capacity: A latent-variable approach to verbal and visuospatial memory span and reasoning. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 133 (2), 189–217.Google Scholar
Kousaie, S., & Phillips, N. A. (2011). Ageing and bilingualism: Absence of a “bilingual advantage” in Stroop interference in a nonimmigrant sample. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 65 (2), 356–369.Google Scholar
Kousaie, S., & Phillips, N. A. (2012). Conflict monitoring and resolution: Are two languages better than one? Evidence from reaction time and event-related brain potentials. Brain Research, 1446, 71–90.Google Scholar
Lasaponara, S., Chica, A. B., Lecce, F., Lupiáñez, J., & Doricchi, F. (2011). ERP evidence for selective drop in attentional costs in uncertain environments: Challenging a purely premotor account of covert orienting of attention. Neuropsychologia, 49 (9), 2648–2657.Google Scholar
Levy, B. J., & Wagner, A. D. (2011). Cognitive control and right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex: Reflexive reorienting, motor inhibition, and action updating. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1224, 40–62.Google Scholar
Li, P., Sepanski, S. A. A., & Zhao, X. A. W. (2006). Language History Questionnaire: A web-based interface for bilingual research. Behavior Research Methods, 38 (2), 202–210.Google Scholar
Liang, H., Bressler, S. L., Ding, M., Truccolo, W. A., & Nakamura, R. (2002). Synchronized activity in prefrontal cortex during anticipation of visuomotor processing. Neuroreport, 13 (16), 2011–2015.Google Scholar
Luk, G., Anderson, J. A., Craik, F. I., Grady, C., & Bialystok, E. (2010). Distinct neural correlates for two types of inhibition in bilinguals: Response inhibition versus interference suppression. Brain and Cognition, 74 (3), 347–357.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Luk, G., Bialystok, E., Craik, F. I., & Grady, C. L. (2011). Lifelong bilingualism maintains white matter integrity in older adults. The Journal of Neuroscience: The Official Journal of the Society for Neuroscience, 31 (46), 16808–16813.Google Scholar
Macleod, J. W., Lawrence, M. A., McConnell, M. M., Eskes, G. A., Klein, R. M., & Shore, D. I. (2010). Appraising the ANT: Psychometric and theoretical considerations of the Attention Network Test. Neuropsychology, 24 (5), 637–651.Google Scholar
Mesulam, M. M. (1999). Spatial attention and neglect: Parietal, frontal and cingulate contributions to the mental representation and attentional targeting of salient extrapersonal events. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences, 354 (1387), 1325–1346.Google Scholar
Milham, M. P., Banich, M. T., Webb, A., Barad, V., Cohen, N. J., Wszalek, T., & Kramer, A. F. (2001). The relative involvement of anterior cingulate and prefrontal cortex in attentional control depends on nature of conflict. Cognitive Brain Research, 12 (3), 467–473.Google Scholar
Moreno, S., Bialystok, E., Wodniecka, Z., & Alain, C. (2010). Conflict resolution in sentence processing by bilinguals. Journal of Neurolinguistics, 23 (6), 564–579.Google Scholar
Morton, J. B., & Harper, S. N. (2007). What did Simon say? Revisiting the bilingual advantage. Developmental Science, 10 (6), 719–726.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Niogi, S., Mukherjee, P., Ghajar, J., & McCandliss, B. D. (2010). Individual differences in distinct components of attention are linked to anatomical variations in distinct white matter tracts. Frontiers in Neuroanatomy, 4 (2), 1–12.Google ScholarPubMed
Nobre, A. C. (2001). Orienting attention to instants in time. Neuropsychologia, 39 (12), 1317–1328.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Padilla, M. L., Wood, R. A., Hale, L. A., & Knight, R. T. (2006). Lapses in a prefrontal-extrastriate preparatory attention network predict mistakes. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 18 (9), 1477–1487.Google Scholar
Paradis, M. (1995). Another sighting of differential language laterality in multilinguals, this time in Loch Tok Pisin: Comments on Wuillemin, Richardson & Lynch (1994). Brain and Language, 49, 173–186.Google Scholar
Paradis, M. (2003). The bilingual Loch Ness monster raises its non-asymmetric head again – or, why bother with such cumbersome notions as validity and reliability? Comments on Evans et al. (2000). Brain and Language, 87 (3), 441–448.Google Scholar
Paradis, M. (2008). Bilingual laterality: Unfounded claim of validity. A comment on Hull & Vaid (2007). Neuropsychologia, 46 (5), 1588–1590.Google Scholar
Park, H. R., Badzakova-Trajkov, G., & Waldie, K. E. (2012). Language lateralisation in late proficient bilinguals: A lexical decision fMRI study. Neuropsychologia, 50 (5), 688–695.Google Scholar
Peng, G., & Wang, W. S.-Y. (2010). Hemisphere lateralization is influenced by bilingual status and composition of words. Neuropsychologia, 49 (7), 1981–1986.Google Scholar
Posner, M. I. (1980). Orienting of attention. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 32 (1), 3–25.Google Scholar
Posner, M. I. (2008). Measuring alertness. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1129, 193–199.Google Scholar
Posner, M. I., & Boies, S. J. (1971). Components of attention. Psychological Review, 78 (5), 391–408.Google Scholar
Posner, M. I., & Petersen, S. E. (1990). The attention system of the human brain. Annual Review of Neuroscience, 13, 25–42.Google Scholar
Posner, M. I., & Rothbart, M. K. (2007). Research on attention networks as a model for the integration of psychological science. Annual Review of Psychology, 58, 1–23.Google Scholar
Prior, A., & MacWhinney, B. (2010). A bilingual advantage in task switching. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 13 (2), 253–262.Google Scholar
Raven, J., Raven, J. C., & Court, J. H. (1998). Manual for Raven's Advanced Progressive matrices (1998 edition). Oxford: Oxford Psychologists Press.Google Scholar
Rueda, M. R., Fan, J., McCandliss, B. D., Halparin, J. D., Gruber, D. B., Lercari, L. P., & Posner, M. I. (2004). Development of attentional networks in childhood. Neuropsychologia, 42 (8), 1029–1040.Google Scholar
Shulman, G. L., & Corbetta, M. (2012). Two attentional networks: Identification and function within a larger cognitive architecture. In Posner, M. I. (ed.), Cognitive neuroscience of attention (2nd edn.), pp. 113–128. New York: The Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Sylvester, C. M., d'Avossa, G., & Corbetta, M. (2006). Models of human visual attention should consider trial-by-trial variability in preparatory neural signals. Neural Networks, 19 (9), 1447–1449.Google Scholar
Tao, L., Marzecová, A., Taft, M., Asanowicz, D., & Wodniecka, Z. (2011). The efficiency of attentional networks in early and late bilinguals: The role of age of acquisition. Frontiers in Psychology, 2 (123), 1–19.Google Scholar
Treccani, B., Argyri, E., Sorace, A., & Sala, S. D. (2009). Spatial negative priming in bilingualism. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 16 (2), 320–327.Google Scholar
Triviño, M., Arnedo, M., Lupiáñez, J., Chirivella, J., & Correa, A. (2011). Rhythms can overcome temporal orienting deficit after right frontal damage. Neuropsychologia, 49 (14), 3917–3930.Google Scholar
Triviño, M., Correa, A., Arnedo, M., & Lupiáñez, J. (2010). Temporal orienting deficit after prefrontal damage. Brain, 133 (4), 1173–1185.Google Scholar
van Heuven, W. J., Schriefers, H., Dijkstra, T., & Hagoort, P. (2008). Language conflict in the bilingual brain. Cerebral Cortex, 18 (11), 2706–2716.Google Scholar
Weissman, D. H., Roberts, K. C., Visscher, K. M., & Woldorff, M. G. (2006). The neural bases of momentary lapses in attention. Nature Neuroscience, 9 (7), 971–978.Google Scholar
West, R. (1999). Age differences in lapses of intention in the Stroop task. The Journals of Gerontology. Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, 54B (1), P34–P43.Google Scholar
Westerhausen, R., & Hugdahl, K. (2008). The corpus callosum in dichotic listening studies of hemispheric asymmetry: A review of clinical and experimental evidence. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 32 (5), 1044–1054.Google Scholar
Westlye, L. T., Grydeland, H., Walhovd, K. B., & Fjell, A. M. (2010). Associations between regional cortical thickness and attentional networks as measured by the attention network test. Cerebral Cortex, 21 (2), 345–356.Google Scholar
Witelson, S. F. (1995). Neuroanatomical bases of hemispheric functional specialization in the human brain: Possible developmental factors. In Kitterle, F. L. (ed.), Hemispheric communication: Mechanisms and models, pp. 61–84. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Yazgan, M. Y., Wexler, B. E., Kinsbourne, M., Peterson, B., & Leckman, J. F. (1995). Functional significance of individual variations in callosal area. Neuropsychologia, 33 (6), 769–779.Google Scholar
Ye, Z., & Zhou, X. (2009). Executive control in language processing. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 33 (8), 1168–1177.Google Scholar