Teasing apart factors influencing executive function performance in bilinguals and monolinguals at different ages

Abstract

This study attempts to tease apart a variety of factors that may contribute to performance on executive function tasks. Data from the Simon task is re-examined to determine the contributions of age, SES, language proficiency/vocabulary, general cognitive performance, and bilingualism on performance. The results suggest influence from a variety of factors, with a major contribution from relative age and from language proficiency, as measured by vocabulary. Bilingualism showed some effect in relation to older adults’ accuracy of performance, in both congruent and incongruent conditions, but not to reaction time.

Measures of bilingual cognition – from infancy to adolescence

“…One of these articles tested both preschool-aged and adolescent participants (Gathercole, Thomas, Viñas Guasch, Kennedy, Prys, Young, et al, 2016), and is also discussed in the adolescent section of our Results. As summarized in Barac, Moreno, & Bialystok, 2016;Bialystok, 1999;Bialystok & Martin, 2004, Studies 1, 2, and 3; Carlson & Meltzoff, 2008;Diaz & Farrar, 2018a;Diaz & Farrar, 2018b;Dicataldo & Roch, 2020;Gathercole et al, 2016;Goldman, Negen, & Sarnecka, 2014;Haft et al, 2019;Leikin & Tovli, 2014;Mehrani & Zabihi, 2017;Namazi & Thordardottir, 2010;Nguyen & Astington, 2014;Tran, Arredondo, & Yoshida, 2015;Tran, Arredondo, & Yoshida, 2019;Yoshida, Tran, Benitez, & Kuwabara, 2010;Yoshida, Tran, Benitez, & Kuwabara, 2011).…”

“…Inhibitory control and response inhibition were assessed in 14 experiments using the child ANT (Carlson & Meltzoff, 2008), a visually cued recall task (Carlson & Meltzoff, 2008), the Kansas Reflection/Impulsivity Scale (KRISP; Carlson & Meltzoff, 2008), the Comprehensive Test of Nonverbal Intelligence (C-TONI; Carlson & Meltzoff, 2008), the Statue task (Carlson & Meltzoff, 2008), the Delay of Gratification task (Carlson & Meltzoff, 2008), Stroop and 'Strooplike' (Day/Night, Happy/Sad) tasks (Diaz & Farrar, 2018a;Diaz & Farrar, 2018b;Dicataldo & Roch, 2020;Nguyen & Astington, 2014;Tran et al, 2019), Simon Says and Bear/Dragon Simon Says tasks (Carlson & Meltzoff, 2008;Diaz & Farrar, 2018a;Diaz & Farrar, 2018b;Tran et al, 2019), the Simon task ('interference suppression', Gathercole et al, 2016;Mehrani & Zabihi, 2017), the Gift delay task (Barac et al, 2016;Carlson & Meltzoff, 2008;Tran et al, 2019), a Go/No-Go task (Barac et al, 2016), and a non-symbolic numerical discrimination task (Goldman et al, 2014). The Dimensional Change Card Sort task (DCCS) was also used to measure inhibition (Aktan-Erciyes, 2020, Studies 1 and 2; Bialystok, 1999;Bialystok & Martin, 2004, Studies 1, 2, and 3;Carlson & Meltzoff, 2008;Tran et al, 2019); this task was additionally used as a measure of cognitive flexibility in three experiments (Diaz & Farrar, 2018a;Diaz & Farrar, 2018b;Haft et al, 2019), shifting in five experiments ('switching', Aktan-Erciyes, 2020, Studies BILINGUAL CHILDHOOD COGNITIVE MEASURES 20 1 and 2; 'attention-shifting', Dicataldo & Roch, 2020...…”

Multilingualism in older age: A research agenda from the cognitive perspective

“…Such an advantage may be more evident in older adults, due to the general declines that come with cognitive aging, as opposed to young adults, who are at the peak of their cognitive capacity. Many early studies in this field used monolingual/bilingual comparisons and found a bilingual advantage for older adults (e.g., Bialystok, Craik, Klein, & Viswanathan, 2004; Salvatierra & Rosselli, 2011; Cox et al, 2016; Gathercole et al, 2016); notably, though, others have not found such an advantage (e.g., de Bruin, Treccani, & Della Sala, 2015; Antón, Fernández García, Carreiras, & Andoni Duñabeitia, 2016).…”

Bilingual Children Adapt to the Needs of Their Communication Partners, Monolinguals Do Not

“…In the study by Grosse et al (2013), 33 children per age group participated. Here, we used a larger sample size to account for the fact that heterogeneous bilinguals (not all bilinguals speak the same two languages) might differ in terms of general cognitive abilities, cultural background, language similarity, language exposure, and balanced language status (Marton, 2016;Mueller Gathercole et al, 2016;Thomas-Sunesson, Hakuta, & Bialystok, 2018;Wood, Diehm, & Callender, 2016).…”