Language experience changes language and cognitive ability

Frontiers Research Topics, 2013

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Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 2014

The goal of my keynote article, “Bilingualism and Cognition” (Valian, 2014), was to resolve the inconsistencies in effects of bilingualism on executive functions, whether the individuals were children, young adults, or old people. To summarize (and sharpen) my argument: 1.Especially in children and young adults, benefits of bilingualism for executive functions are not reliable. In old people, there are benefits for executive functions but contradictory results on delay of cognitive impairment, depending on whether studies are retrospective or prospective.2.All experiences that have benefits for executive functions and aging – and there are many – yield inconsistent effects. Bilingualism is not alone.3.Three reasons for inconsistencies in bilingualism and other experiences are: a.Executive function and cognitive reserve are broad cover terms for a variety of mechanisms, most of which are ill-understood. Because we mean different things by ‘executive function’ from one experiment to t...

The present paper summarizes research showing that bilingualism affects linguistic and cognitive performance across the lifespan. The effect on linguistic performance is generally seen as a deficit in which bilingual children control a smaller vocabulary than their monolingual peers and bilingual adults perform more poorly on rapid lexical retrieval tasks. The effect on cognitive performance is to enhance executive functioning and to protect against the decline of executive control in aging. These effects interact to produce a complex pattern regarding the effect of bilingualism on memory performance. Memory tasks based primarily on verbal recall are performed more poorly by bilinguals but memory tasks based primarily on executive control are performed better by bilinguals. Speculations regarding the mechanism responsible for these effects are described.

International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 2019

The investigation into bilingualism has shown robustness since the Millennium, strongly associated with the integration of cognitive linguistics, psycholinguistics, theoretical linguistics, second language acquisition and bilingual education. In particular, the rise of bilingualism research from a perspective of executive functions in the past decade has become an integral part in observing the interplay between bilingualism and cognition. Researchers wishing to look at the effects of bilingualism on executive functions tend to describe various forms of being bilingual, identify idiosyncrasies of language processing in bilingualism and investigate different facets of executive function. In this respect, Sekerina et al.'s edited volume Bilingualism, Executive Function, and Beyond: Questions and Insights appears to be a timely and popular contribution pertaining to bilingual education and bilingualism, because it elucidates for readers a valuable collection of scholarly works which deals with both theoretical and practical issues central to bilinguals' performance on executive functioning. Such an edited volume has offered bilingualism researchers a robust platform to share minds, and would appeal to a broad spectrum of audience.

Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 2014

The relation between bilingualism and cognition is informative about the connection between language and mind. From the perspective of language, the question is how bilingualism might help or hinder cognition – narrowly interpreted here as executive function. From the perspective of higher cognition, the question is what kinds of experiences improve executive function. Reported cognitive benefits from bilingualism range from none to substantial as a function of age, type of bilingualism (e.g., life-long balanced vs later-onset or infrequent use of the other language), syntactic relation between the two languages, socio-economic and immigrant status, task, and laboratory. To understand the variability and inconsistencies in results with bilingualism, I analyze concepts of executive function and cognitive reserve and examine the range of factors (such as active video game playing, education, musical training, and aerobic exercise) that are known to correlate with or to improve executi...

Recent evidence suggests a positive impact of bilin-gualism on cognition, including later onset of demen-tia. However, monolinguals and bilinguals might have different baseline cognitive ability. We present the first study examining the effect of bilingualism on later-life cognition controlling for childhood intelligence. We studied 853 participants, first tested in 1947 (age 5 11 years), and retested in 2008-2010. Bilinguals performed significantly better than predicted from their baseline cognitive abilities, with strongest effects on general intelligence and reading. Our results suggest a positive effect of bilingualism on later-life cognition, including in those who acquired their second language in adulthood. ANN NEUROL 2014;75:959-963 R ecent studies suggest that bilingualism improves later-life cognition 1 and delays the onset of demen-tia. 2,3 The main limitation of this research lies in the bilingualism-associated confounding variables (eg, ethnic/ environmental differences, immigration). 4 Although a recent study succeeded in minimizing the environmental factors, 5 another confound remains extremely difficult to tackle: reverse causality. Bilinguals might have different baseline characteristics from monolinguals; instead of bilingualism leading to cognitive differences, original differences (eg, childhood intelligence [CI]) could lead to bilingualism. This confound is particularly difficult to address, because it requires knowledge of prior levels of intelligence. The Lothian Birth Cohort 1936 (LBC1936) 6,7 offers an opportunity to overcome this confound. The participants took an intelligence test in 1947 at age 11 years, and were retested in 2008-2010. Reflecting the society of its time, the cohort is remarkably homogeneous ; they are English native speakers, of European origin, born, raised, and living in and around Edinburgh. None was an immigrant. Thus, LBC1936 data allowed us to address, for the first time, the question whether learning a second language influences later cognitive performance after adjusting for CI. We predicted the strongest influence of bilingualism on frontal executive functions , 8,9 additional benefits of multilingualism, 1,4 and a better performance in bilinguals using both languages actively, although this variable has not been studied. Subjects and Methods Participants LBC1936 Wave 1 testing included 1,091 participants of the Scottish Mental Survey 1947. 6,10 Of those, 866 returned for the Wave 2 assessment in 2008-2010, 7 and 853 (410 female, 443 male, age 5 70.91-74.15 years, mean 5 72.49, standard deviation 5 0.71) completed the bilingualism questionnaire. Thirteen subjects, born abroad of British parents, moved to Scotland before the age of 11 years. The analysis conducted with and without these participants showed small differences and similar effect sizes, so we report the results from the full sample. A power analysis (G*Power 3.1.5 11), with a bilingual-ism effect expressed as a partial R 2 of 0.02 in a multiple regression model of 9 predictors, required a sample of 640 for a power of 0.95, deeming our sample sufficient. Assessment of Bilingualism The participants were asked in a questionnaire whether they had learned any languages other than English (L2), how many, at what age, and how often they used them (daily/weekly/ monthly/less than monthly/never) in 3 domains: conversation/ reading/media. We classified as bilingual participants who reported being able to communicate in L2. View this article online at wileyonlinelibrary.com.

ABRALIN, 2020

The use of two or more languages is common in most of the world. Yet, until recently, bilingualism was considered to be a complicating factor for language processing, cognition, and the brain. The past 20 years have witnessed an upsurge of research on bilingualism to examine language acquisition and processing, their cognitive and neural bases, and the consequences that bilingualism holds for cognition and the brain over the life span. Contrary to the view that bilingualism complicates the language system, this new research demonstrates that all of the languages that are known and used become part of the same language system. The interactions that arise when two languages are in play have consequences for the mind and the brain and, indeed, for language processing itself, but those consequences are not additive. Thus, bilingualism helps reveal the fundamental architecture and mechanisms of language processing that are otherwise hidden in monolingual speakers.

Current Directions in Psychological Science, 2010

The article reports research investigating the way bilingualism affects cognitive and linguistic performance across the life span. In general, bilingualism appears to have both benefits and costs. Regarding costs, bilinguals typically have lower formal language proficiency than monolinguals do; for example, they have smaller vocabularies and weaker access to lexical items. The benefits, however, are that bilinguals exhibit enhanced executive control in nonverbal tasks requiring conflict resolution, such as the Stroop and Simon tasks. These patterns and their consequences are illustrated and discussed. We also propose some suggestions regarding underlying mechanisms for these effects.