Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-mlc7c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-08T16:24:52.410Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Understudied factors contributing to variability in cognitive performance related to language learning

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 November 2019

Madeleine R. Long ,
Mariana Vega-Mendoza ,
Hannah Rohde ,
Antonella Sorace  and
Thomas H. Bak
Madeleine R. Long*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway Department of Linguistics, School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK
Mariana Vega-Mendoza
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden Department of Psychology, School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK
Hannah Rohde
Affiliation:
Department of Linguistics, School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK
Antonella Sorace
Affiliation:
Department of Linguistics, School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK
Thomas H. Bak
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK Centre for Cognitive Ageing and Cognitive Epidemiology, (CCACE), Edinburgh, UK
*
Address for correspondence: Madeleine R Long, E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

While much of the literature on bilingualism and cognition focuses on group comparisons (monolinguals vs bilinguals or language learners vs controls), here we examine the potential differential effects of intensive language learning on subjects with distinct language experiences and demographic profiles. Using an individual differences approach, we assessed attentional performance from 105 university-educated Gaelic learners aged 21–85. Participants were tested before and after beginner, elementary, and intermediate courses using tasks measuring i.) sustained attention, ii.) inhibition, and iii.) attention switching. We examined the relationship between attentional performance and Gaelic level, previous language experience, gender, and age. Gaelic level predicted attention switching performance: those in higher levels initially outperformed lower levels, however lower levels improved the most. Age also predicted performance: as age increased attention switching decreased. Nevertheless, age did not interact with session for any attentional measure, thus the impact of language learning on cognition was detectable across the lifespan.

Keywords

language learningcognitionattentionindividual variability
Type
Research Article
Information
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition , Volume 23 , Special Issue 4: Interpreting: A window into bilingual processing , August 2020 , pp. 801 - 811
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019

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.)

References

Abutalebi, J and Green, D (2007) Bilingual language production: The neurocognition of language representation and control. Journal of neurolinguistics 20, 242–275.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Abutalebi, J, Guidi, L, Borsa, V, Canini, M, Della Rosa, PA, Parris, BA and Weekes, BS (2015) Bilingualism provides a neural reserve for aging populations. Neuropsychologia 69, 201–210.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Alladi, S, Bak, TH, Duggirala, V, Surampudi, B, Shailaja, M, Shukla, AK, Chaudhuri, JR and Kaul, S (2013) Bilingualism delays age at onset of dementia, independent of education and immigration status. Neurology 81, 1938–1944.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Alladi, S, Bak, TH, Mekala, S, Rajan, A, Chaudhuri, JR, Mioshi, E, Krovvidi, R, Surampudi, B, Duggirala, V and Kaul, S (2016) Impact of bilingualism on cognitive outcome after stroke. Stroke 47, 258–261.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Antoniou, M (2019) The advantages of bilingualism debate. Annual Review of Linguistics 5, 395–415.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bak, TH (2016a) Cooking pasta in La Paz: Bilingualism, bias and the replication crisis. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism 6, 699–717. DOI: 10.1075/lab.16002.bakCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bak, TH (2016b) The impact of bilingualism on cognitive aging and dementia: Finding a path through a forest of confounding variables. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism 6, 205–226.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bak, TH, Long, M, Vega-Mendoza, M and Sorace, A (2016) Novelty, challenge, and practice: The impact of intensive language learning on attentional functions. PLoS One 11, [PONE-D-15-47787R2]. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0153485CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bak, TH, Vega-Mendoza, M and Sorace, A (2014) Never too late?: An advantage on tests of auditory attention extends to late bilinguals. Frontiers in Psychology 5. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00485CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Baum, S and Titone, D (2014) Moving toward a neuroplasticity view of bilingualism, executive control, and aging. Applied Psycholinguistics 35, 857–894.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beauvillain, C and Grainger, J (1987) Accessing interlexical homographs: Some limitations of a language-selective access. Journal of Memory and Language 26, 658–672.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bialystok, E, Craik, FI and Freedman, M (2007) Bilingualism as a protection against the onset of symptoms of dementia. Neuropsychologia 45, 459–464.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bialystok, E, Craik, FI, Klein, R and Viswanathan, M (2004) Bilingualism, aging, and cognitive control: evidence from the Simon task. Psychology and aging 19, 290.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bialystok, E and Viswanathan, M (2009) Components of executive control with advantages for bilingual children in two cultures. Cognition 112, 494–500.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bjork, RA and Kroll, JF (2015) Desirable Difficulties in Vocabulary Learning. The American Journal of Psychology 128, 241–252. pmid:26255443CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Blumenfeld, HK and Marian, V (2011) Bilingualism influences inhibitory control in auditory comprehension. Cognition 118, 245–257.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Braver, TS (2012) The variable nature of cognitive control: a dual mechanisms framework. Trends in cognitive sciences 16, 106–113.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Brysbaert, M, Van Dyck, G and Van de Poel, M (1999) Visual word recognition in bilinguals: Evidence from masked phonological priming. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 25, 137–148.Google ScholarPubMed
Calabria, M, Hernández, M, Branzi, FM and Costa, A (2012) Qualitative differences between bilingual language control and executive control: evidence from task-switching. Frontiers in Psychology 2(January), 1–10.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Chertkow, H, Whitehead, V, Phillips, N, Wolfson, C, Atherton, J and Bergman, H (2010) Multilingualism (but not always bilingualism) delays the onset of Alzheimer disease: evidence from a bilingual community. Alzheimer Disease & Associated Disorders 24, 118–125.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cenoz, J (2003) The additive effect of bilingualism on third language acquisition: A review. International Journal of Bilingualism 7, 71–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clare, L, Whitaker, CJ, Craik, FI, Bialystok, E, Martyr, A, Martin-Forbes, PA, Bastable, AJ, Pye, KL, Quinn, C, Thomas, EM and Gathercole, VCM (2016) Bilingualism, executive control, and age at diagnosis among people with early-stage Alzheimer's disease in Wales. Journal of Neuropsychology 10, 163–185.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Colomé, À (2001) Lexical activation in bilinguals' speech production: Language- specific or language-independent?. Journal of memory and language 45, 721–736.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Colzato, LS, Bajo, MT, van den Wildenberg, W, Paolieri, D, Nieuwenhuis, S, Heij, W. La and 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, 302–312.Google ScholarPubMed
Costa, A (2005) Lexical Access in Bilingual Production. In Kroll, JF and de Groot, AMB (eds), Handbook of bilingualism: Psycholinguistic approaches. New York, NY, US: Oxford University Press, pp. 289–307.Google Scholar
Costa, A, Hernández, M, Costa-Faidella, J and Sebastián-Gallés, N (2009) On the bilingual advantage in conflict processing: Now you see it, now you don't. Cognition 113, 135–149.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Costa, A, Hernández, M and Sebastián-Gallés, N (2008) Bilingualism aids conflict resolution: Evidence from the ANT task. Cognition 106, 59–86.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Costa, A and Santesteban, M (2004) Lexical access in bilingual speech production: Evidence from language switching in highly proficient bilinguals and L2 learners. Journal of Memory and Language 50, 491–511.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Costa, A, Santesteban, M and Ivanova, I (2006) How do highly proficient bilinguals control their lexicalization process? Inhibitory and language-specific selection mechanisms are both functional. Journal of Experimental Psychology. Learning, Memory, and Cognition 32, 1057–74.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
de Bruin, A, Treccani, B and Della Sala, S (2015) Cognitive Advantage in Bilingualism An Example of Publication Bias? Psychological science, 0956797614557866.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
de Groot, AM and Christoffels, IK (2006) Language control in bilinguals: Monolingual tasks and simultaneous interpreting. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 9, 189–201.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
de Groot, AM, Delmaar, P and Lupker, SJ (2000) The processing of interlexical homographs in translation recognition and lexical decision: Support for non-selective access to bilingual memory. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, Section A 53, 397–428.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dijkstra, T, Van Heuven, WJ and Grainger, J (1998) Simulating cross-language competition with the bilingual interactive activation model. Psychologica Belgica.Google Scholar
Dörnyei, Z and Ushioda, E (eds.), (2009) Motivation, language identity and the L2 self (Vol. 36). Multilingual Matters.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ehrman, ME and Oxford, RL (1995) Cognition plus: Correlates of language learning success. The modern language journal 79, 67–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Festman, J and Münte, TF (2012) Cognitive control in Russian–German bilinguals. Frontiers in Psychology 3, 115.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Finkbeiner, M, Almeida, J, Janssen, N and Caramazza, A (2006) Lexical selection in bilingual speech production does not involve language suppression. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 32, 1075.Google Scholar
Fisher, AJ, Medaglia, JD and Jeronimus, BF (2018) Lack of group-to-individual generalizability is a threat to human subjects research. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 201711978.Google ScholarPubMed
Gabrys-Barker, D (2017) Third Age Learners of Foreign Languages. Multilingual Matters.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gold, BT, Kim, C, Johnson, NF, Kryscio, RJ and Smith, CD (2013) Lifelong bilingualism maintains neural efficiency for cognitive control in aging. Journal of Neuroscience 33, 387–396.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gollan, T, Salmon, DP, Montoya, RI and Galasko, DR (2011) Degree of bilingualism predicts age of diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease in low-education but not in highly educated Hispanics. Neuropsychologia. 49:3826–30. PMID: 22001315; PMCID: PMC3223277.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Green, D (1998) Mental control of the bilingual lexico-semantic system. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 1, 67–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Green, D and Abutalebi, J (2013) Language control in bilinguals: The adaptive control hypothesis. Journal of Cognitive Psychology 25, 515–530.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hilchey, MD and Klein, RM (2011) Are there bilingual advantages on nonlinguistic interference tasks? Implications for the plasticity of executive control processes. Psychonomic bulletin & review 18, 625–658.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hosoda, C, Tanaka, K, Nariai, T, Honda, M and Hanakawa, T (2013) Dynamic neural network reorganization associated with second language vocabulary acquisition: A multimodal imaging study. Journal of Neuroscience 33, 13663–13672.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kavé, G, Eyal, N, Shorek, A and Cohen-Mansfield, J (2008) Multilingualism and cognitive state in the oldest old. Psychology and aging 23, 70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kovács, ÁM and Mehler, J (2009) Cognitive gains in 7-month-old bilingual infants. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 106, 6556–6560.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kroll, JF and Bialystok, E (2013) Understanding the consequences of bilingualism for language processing and cognition. Journal of Cognitive Psychology 25, 497–514.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kroll, JF, Bobb, SC and Hoshino, N (2014) Two languages in mind: Bilingualism as a tool to investigate language, cognition, and the brain. Current Directions in Psychological Science 23, 159–163. doi:10.1177/ 0963721414528511CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kroll, JF, Bobb, SC, Misra, M and Guo, T (2008) Language selection in bilingual speech: Evidence for inhibitory processes. Acta psychologica 128, 416–430.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kroll, JF, Dussias, PE, Bice, K and Perrotti, L (2015) Bilingualism, mind, and brain. Annual Review of Linguistics 1, 377–394.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Langner, R and Eickhoff, SB (2013) Sustaining attention to simple tasks: A meta-analytic review of the neural mechanisms of vigilant attention. Psychological bulletin 139, 870.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mårtensson, J, Eriksson, J, Bodammer, NC, Lindgren, M, Johansson, M, Nyberg, L and Lövdén, M (2012) Growth of language-related brain areas after foreign language learning. NeuroImage 63, 240–244.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Martin-Rhee, MM and Bialystok, E (2008) The development of two types of inhibitory control in monolingual and bilingual children. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 11, 81–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meuter, RFI and Allport, A (1999) Bilingual Language Switching in Naming: Asymmetrical Costs of Language Selection. Journal of Memory and Language 40, 25–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morales, J, Gómez-Ariza, CJ and Bajo, MT (2013) Dual mechanisms of cognitive control in bilinguals and monolinguals. Journal of Cognitive Psychology 25, 531–546.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morales, J, Padilla, F, Gómez-Ariza, CJ and Bajo, MT (2015) Simultaneous interpretation selectively influences working memory and attentional networks. Acta psychologica 155, 82–91.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Norman, DA and Shallice, T (1986) Attention to action. In Consciousness and self-regulation. Boston, MA: Springer, pp. 1–18.Google Scholar
Paap, KR and Greenberg, ZI (2013) There is no coherent evidence for a bilingual advantage in executive processing. Cognitive psychology 66, 232–258.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Paap, KR, Johnson, HA and Sawi, O (2016) Should the search for bilingual advantages in executive functioning continue?CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peal, E and Lambert, WE (1962) The relation of bilingualism to intelligence. Psychological Monographs: general and applied 76, 1.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pliatsikas, C, Moschopoulou, E and Saddy, JD (2015) The effects of bilingualism on the white matter structure of the brain. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 112, 1334–1337.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Posner, MI and Petersen, SE (1990) The attention system of the human brain. Annual review of neuroscience 13, 25–42.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Robertson, IH, Ward, T, Ridgeway, V and Nimmo-Smith, I (1994) The test of everyday attention: TEA: Thames Valley Test Company Bury St. Edmunds, UK.Google Scholar
Robertson, IH, Ward, T, Ridgeway, V and Nimmo-Smith, I (1996) The structure of normal human attention: The Test of Everyday Attention. Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society 2, 525–534.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Schlegel, AA, Rudelson, JJ and Tse, PU (2012) White matter structure changes as adults learn a second language. Journal of cognitive neuroscience 24, 1664–1670.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Steiber, N and Kohli, M (2017) You can't always get what you want: actual and preferred ages of retirement in Europe. Ageing & Society 37, 352–385.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stein, M, Federspiel, A, Koenig, T, Wirth, M, Strik, W, Wiest, R, Brandeis, D & Dierks, T (2012) Structural plasticity in the language system related to increased second language proficiency. Cortex 48, 458–465.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tao, L, Marzecová, A, Taft, M, Asanowicz, D and Wodniecka, Z (2011) The efficiency of attentional networks in early and late bilinguals: the role of age of acquisition. Frontiers in psychology 2.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Thomas, M and Allport, A (1995, September) The dynamic control of bilinguals' lexical representations. In British Psychological Society Cognitive Section Annual Conference, Bristol.Google Scholar
Vega-Mendoza, M, West, H, Sorace, A and Bak, TH (2015) The impact of late, non-balanced bilingualism on cognitive performance. Cognition 137, 40–46. DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2014.12.008CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Von Studnitz, RE and Green, DW (1997) Lexical decision and language switching. International Journal of Bilingualism 1, 3–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Woumans, E, Ceuleers, E, Van der Linden, L, Szmalec, A and Duyck, W (2015) Verbal and nonverbal cognitive control in bilinguals and interpreters. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 41, 1579–1586. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/xlm0000107Google ScholarPubMed
Wu, YJ and Thierry, G (2017) Brain potentials predict language selection before speech onset in bilinguals. Brain and language 171, 23–30.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Supplementary material: PDF

Long et al. supplementary material

Appendix A

Download Long et al. supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 60.4 KB