Age of Acquisition and Cognitive
Advantage in Bilingualism
Willie Lin and Vivian Cardona
Bilingual Have Cognitive Benefits !
Better Executive Function: The primary processes in the executive system
are inhibition, shifting of mental sets (task switching or cognitive flexibility), and
updating information in working memory (Miyake et al., 2000).
Protection: More resistant than others to the onset of dementia and other
symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease: the higher the degree of bilingualism, the
later the age of onset. (Gollan, UCSD)
WHY ?
Interference: In a bilingual’s brain both language systems are active even
when he is using only one language, thus creating situations in which one
system interfers the other.
Language Switch: A heightened ability to monitor (Attention Control) the
environment. Bilinguals have to switch languages quite often (Conflict
Processing) — you may talk to your parents in one language and your peers
in another language.
Most research reporting cognitive
gains in bilinguals examined
bilinguals who learnt their two
languages relatively early in life.
But what about Monolinguals that
want these cognitive advantages.
It seems that one need to be an
early bilingual to enjoy the benefits
of improved executive functions.
Research: Do you have to be
bilingual from a young age to
experience cognitive benefits?
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PARTICPANTS: Study #1
Tested 100 subjects (University of South Wales)
1) Monolinguals
2) Early Bilinguals
3) Late Bilinguals
Chinese - English Bilinguals
L1: Chinese L2: English
The age of immersion in the L2 environment was considered as the
age of onset of bilingualism and used in the classification of bilinguals
Tao et al.
•
•
•
Monolinguals: Born, and had spent
most of their lives, in Australia or
other English-speaking countries. All
were of Caucasian descent. People
whose parents spoke other languages
were excluded.
The Early Bilingual: Individuals who
had arrived in Australia at or before
age six. The average age of arrival for
the group was 0.3 years, due to the
large majority (30) being born in
Australia.
The Late Bilinguals: Individuals who
had arrived in Australia at or after
age 12. The average age of arrival in
Australia for the group was 16.2 years
(ranging from 12 to 19 years).
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Tao et al. Methodology
Efficiency of the three attentional networks:
alerting, orienting, and executive control
Non-verbal intelligence test
Lateralized Attention Network Test
A) Which way is the middle arrow pointing to ?
B) Cues: Valid (same visual hemishpere as the row of arrows) , Invalid & Center ,
None.
Reaction Time and Mean Error Rate
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RESULTS
• Monolinguals showed the smallest alerting affect (34.6 ms),
the intermediate result was obtained for early bilingual group
(38 ms), and late bilinguals obtained the largest effect (49 ms).
• The three groups did not differ significantly in the orienting
benefit effect (valid).
• For the orienting cost (invalid): monolinguals vs. early
bilinguals, monolinguals vs. late bilinguals, and early vs. late
bilinguals. The difference between late bilinguals and
monolinguals was significant, but the other two comparisons
were not.
• Early bilinguals seemed to show enhanced monitoring
processes.
• Efficiency of the executive network: The late bilinguals were
found to be most efficient in resolution of conflict
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Conclusion
• Both early and late bilinguals found to have more
efficient executive network than monolinguals.
• Continual practice in monitoring and switching
between two language systems can lead to the
enhanced executive control due to involvement of
inhibitory control processes that are required to
select and produce the intended language (Green,
1998).
• Regardless of the age at which bilinguals have
acquired their second language, and regardless of
the similarity between the two languages.
PARTICPANTS: Study #1
• 150 students
• Monolinguals: English the only language they
spoke fluently and used for communication.
• Early bilinguals: started active bilingualism
before age 10.
• Late bilinguals: started active bilingualism
after age 10.
*Measured when they actively started to use
the second language.
Tests Used
• Peabody Picture Video Task, 3rd edition
(PPVT) to asses receptive vocabulary.
• Cattell Cultural Fair Intelligence Task (CFIT), to
assess non-verbal intelligence.
• Spatial Span Subtest from the Wechsler
Memory Scare 3rd edition (WMS).
• Flanker Task
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Results
1) Found an association between an earlier onset of
active bilingualism and higher performance in English
receptive vocabulary test.
2) The onset age of active bilingualism had a positive
correlation with the Flanker Effect meaning that those
who were "Early" active bilinguals had a smaller flanker
effect. They showed less interference on the flanker
task.
*The effect of bilingualism on executive control shows
increased cognitive benefits and a higher proficiency in
second language for those who start to speak it early
and continue to use their second language regularly.
Luk et al.
The early and late bilingual participants spoke a large
variety of languages in addition to English: Cantonese
(early: 10 participants, late: 8 participants), French (early:
5, late: 5), Korean (early: 4, late: 2), Hebrew (early: 2,
late: 3), Hindi (early: 2, late: 3), Italian (early: 3, late: 2),
Mandarin (early: 1, late: 3), Farsi (early: 1, late: 2), Russian
(late: 3), Tamil (early: 2, late: 1), Urdu (early: 2, late:
1), Spanish (early: 1, late: 2), Polish (early: 2), Punjabi
(early: 1, late: 1), Vietnamese (early: 1, late: 1), and
some languages were spoken by just one of the bilingual
speakers: Marathi (early), Indonesian (late), Portuguese
(early), Japanese (late), Gujarati (early), Toisan (early),
Twi (early), Turkish (late), Ukrainian (late), Swahili
(early), and Bulgarian (late)
CONTROLLED SES
TAU ET AL.
Demographics details were
also collected to allow any
major differences between
groups, such as age, gender,
and socioeconomic
background, to be identified.
In particular, lower
socioeconomic status (SES)
has been shown to be
associated with deficits in
aspects of attention,
especially in tasks that
require filtering information
and managing response
conflict.
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