(66) The Impact of Bilingualism on Cognitive Control

     Bilingualism is defined as fluency in two or more languages. Some of the advantages of bilingualism include: advanced vocabulary skills, less severe cognitive aging and earlier competence in executive control... [ view full abstract ]

     Bilingualism is defined as fluency in two or more languages. Some of the advantages of bilingualism include: advanced vocabulary skills, less severe cognitive aging and earlier competence in executive control (Bialystok, 2008). Previous studies examining cognitive control and bilingualism have found that use of two languages can enhance executive functioning and performance on tasks measuring conflict resolution, inhibition, and task switching; however, the neural correlates of these phenomenon are poorly understood. The proposed study will examine neural activity associated with bilingualism on tasks that measure proactive and reactive cognitive control, in addition to tasks that measure working memory span and cognitive flexibility/set shifting. We expect to find enhanced performance for bilingual individuals on all tasks and we will examine physiological data to better support past and recent findings. We also plan to consider when the second language was acquired. We expect to find differences between those who started speaking a second language early (e.g., age 5-10) versus later in life (e.g., age 17-25). Better understanding the mechanisms underlying bilingualism will not only complement the existing literature, but also enable us to provide possible recommendations to include language-learning techniques such as memorization of vocabulary, immersion, object recognition or perhaps even song.