Content uploaded by F. M. Branzi
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by F. M. Branzi on Mar 04, 2014
Content may be subject to copyright.
A preview of the PDF is not available
Age-related effects over bilingual language control and executive control
Abstract and Figures
The aim of the present study is two-fold. First, we investigate age-related changes to bilingual language control (bLC) mechanisms across lifespan. Second, we explore the relation between bLC mechanisms and those of the domain-general executive (EC) system by looking at age effects on these two systems. To do so, we compare the performances of the three age groups of bilinguals (young, middle-aged and elderly) in a language switching task to those of non-linguistic switching task. We found an age-related change in the non-linguistic switch cost but not in the language switch cost. Moreover, we did not find any correlation between the magnitudes of the switch costs. Taken together these results indicate that bLC is not affected by age as the EC system is, and interestingly, we add new evidence that the bLC mechanisms are not fully subsidiary to those of the domain-general EC system.
Figures - uploaded by F. M. Branzi
Author content
All figure content in this area was uploaded by F. M. Branzi
Content may be subject to copyright.
... Additionally, longitudinal studies have found that attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is related to long-term impairment in EF, from childhood into adulthood [5][6][7]. Since some evidence suggests that bilingual individuals outperform monolingual individuals in response time (RT) (reflecting attention control) [8] and bilingualism is generally associated with a cognitive advantage, it seems relevant to investigate the cultural spaces that might provide the best learning experiences for children to inform the development of cognitive enhancement programs. ...
For decades, researchers have suggested the existence of a bilingual cognitive advantage, especially in tasks involving executive functions such as inhibition, shifting, and updating. Recently, an increasing number of studies have questioned whether bilingualism results in a change in executive functions, highlighting conflicting data published in the literature. The present study compared the performance of third-, fourth-, and fifth-grade bilingual and monolingual children on attentional and cognitive tasks. The participants were 61 monolingual and 74 bilingual children (M = 114.6 months; SD = 8.48 months) who were tested on two versions of the attention network task (ANT), with and without social stimuli, as well as tests investigating working memory, short-term memory, narrative memory, and receptive vocabulary. Data on families’ socioeconomic status and children’s reasoning abilities were also collected. The results showed that bilingualism and socioeconomic status affected attentional networks in tasks involving social stimuli. In tasks involving non-social stimuli, socioeconomic status only affected the alerting and executive conflict networks. Consistent with the literature, a positive relationship emerged between socioeconomic status and executive control in the context of social stimuli, and a negative relationship emerged between socioeconomic status and the alerting network in the context of non-social stimuli. Interestingly, neither socioeconomic status nor social attentional networks correlated with working memory. Therefore, although more investigations are required, the results suggest that differences in social contexts mainly affect attentional functions.
... Additionally, longitudinal studies have found that attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is related to long-term impairment in EF, from childhood into adulthood [5][6][7]. Since some evidence suggests that bilingual individuals outperform monolingual individuals in response time (RT) (reflecting attention control) [8], and bilingualism is generally associated with a cognitive advantage, it seems relevant to investigate the cultural spaces that might provide the best learning experiences for children, to inform the development of cognitive enhancement programs. ly, performance differences may arise from differences in ethnicity and socioeconomic status (SES). ...
For decades, researchers have suggested the existence of a bilingual cognitive advantage, especially in tasks involving executive functions such as inhibition, shifting, and updating. Recently, an increasing number of studies have questioned whether bilingualism results in change in executive functions, highlighting conflicting data published in the literature. The present study compared the performance of third-, fourth-, and fifth-grade bilingual and monolingual children on attentional and cognitive tasks. Participants were 61 monolingual and 74 bilingual children (M = 114.6 months; SD = 8.48 months) who were tested on two versions of the Attention Network Task (ANT), with and without social stimuli, as well as tests investigating working memory, short-term memory, narrative memory, and receptive vocabulary. Data on families’ socioeconomic status and children’s reasoning abilities were also collected. The results showed that bilingualism and socioeconomic status affected attentional networks in tasks involving social stimuli. In tasks involving non-social stimuli, socioeconomic status only affected the alerting and executive conflict networks. Consistent with the literature, a positive relationship emerged between socioeconomic status and executive control in the context of social stimuli, and a negative relationship emerged between socioeconomic status and the alerting network in the context of non-social stimuli. Interestingly, neither socioeconomic status nor social attentional networks correlated with working memory. Therefore, although more investigations are required, the results suggest that differences in social contexts mainly affect attentional functions.
... Ez dira gutxi ildo hau jorratzen duten lanak. Adibidez, hizkuntza-inhibizioa eta inhibizio orokorra neurtzen duten ariketetan pertsona berberek lortutako emaitzek ez dute elkarren arteko erlaziorik (Calabria, Hernández, Branzi eta Costa, 2012;Prior eta Gollan, 2013;Calabria, Branzi, Marne, Hernández eta Costa, 2015;Branzi, Calabria, Boscarino eta Costa, 2016). Gure partaideak inhibizio orokorreko zenbait ariketatan aritu zirenean (adibidez, Stroop, Simon eta Flanker), ariketen emaitzen arteko erlaziorik ere ez genuen aurkitu. ...
Elebidun izateak baditu ondorioak, hizkuntza baten baino gehiagotan komunikatzeko gaitasuna izateaz gain. Hori horrela, elebidunen eta elebakarren arteko alderaketek zientzialari askoren interesa piztu dute aspalditik. Artikulu honetan, ondorio linguistikoei eta kognitiboei erreparatuko diegu, ondorio positiboei zein negatiboei, eta horretarako hainbat ikerketaren emaitzetan oinarrituko gara. Halaber, “abantaila elebidunaren” hipotesia aurkeztuko dugu.
... Our results are also in line with Ramos et al. (2017) who found no improvement in the switch costs (in a colour-shape switching task) amongst older adults who undertook a language learning course for a year. However, our results are inconsistent with Calabria et al. (2015) who found an age-related difference in switch costs in a shape-colour task across bilingual speakers, with the switch cost being more pronounced in the elderly compared to young adults. Further, our results are also inconsistent with the inhibitory control advantages related to lifelong bilingualism. ...
Both ageing and bilingualism can have positive as well as adverse cognitive effects. We investigated their combined impact on attention and executive functions. We used the Attention Network Task to examine alerting, orienting, executive inhibitory control and task-related switch costs. Group comparisons revealed age-related declines for alerting alongside benefits for executive control, for mono- and bilinguals alike. Task-switching was unaffected by age or language group. For orienting, age-related decline was more pronounced for bilinguals than monolinguals. Within bilinguals, we found limited impact of individual differences in L2 proficiency, language switching or mixing: proficiency improves orienting and decreases switch costs, for young and older bilinguals alike; but no other individual differences effects were found. Thus, attention and executive functions are multi-faceted networks, with clear adverse (alerting) and protective (executive control) ageing effects. We found these to be largely similar for mono- and bilinguals, with variability within bilinguals having only limited impact.
... To test this assumption, the researchers divided their participants into two groups according to their L2 proficiency levels; one group showed more L1 dominance while the other was relatively balanced bilinguals. It was found that the unbalanced participants continued to show the asymmetrical switch costs, while the balanced group did not, which suggests that the language proficiency could modulate the asymmetry in switching costs and further confirms the assumption that inhibition applied to an unintended language is proportional to its relative strength (Costa and Santesteban, 2004;Gollan and Ferreira, 2009;Calabria et al., 2012). ...
Introduction:
In the present study, I investigated the influence of stimulus types on bilingual control in the language switching process. The commonly employed stimuli in language switching studies - Arabic digits and objects - were compared to further investigate the way in which inhibitory control could be modulated by semantic and repetition priming effects. The digit stimuli have two unique characteristics in the language switching paradigm, for example, they are present repeatedly and are semantically related to each other, compared with pictural stimuli. Thus, these unique characteristics might influence the operation of inhibitory control in bilingual language production, modulating the size and asymmetry of switching costs.
Methods:
Two picture control sets were set up to match those characteristics: (1) a semantic control set, in which picture stimuli belong to the same category group, such as, animals, occupations or transportation and specific semantic categories were presented in a blocked condition; and (2) a repeated control set, in which nine different picture stimuli were repeatedly presented like the Arabic digits from 1 to 9.
Results:
When comparing the digit condition and the standard picture condition, analyses of naming latencies and accuracy rates revealed that switching costs were reliably smaller for digit naming than for picture naming and the L1 elicited more switching costs for picture naming than for digit naming. On the other hand, when comparing the digit condition and the two picture control sets, it was found that the magnitude of switching costs became identical and the asymmetry in switching costs became much smaller between the two languages.
Professor Albert Costa (1972-2018) was one of the most influential scholars in the fields of psycholinguistics and bilingualism. This book provides a faithful look at the most relevant lines of research in which he worked during his academic career. Written by some of his close collaborators and friends, the book presents a coherent summary of the most relevant psycholinguistic theories on language processing and bilingualism, including critical reviews to current models of lexical access, the representation of cognate words, neurolinguistic models of bilingualism, cross-linguistic effects in bimodal bilinguals (sign language), prediction processes and linguistic alignment in bilinguals, the influence of foreign-language effects in social cognition and the effects of bilingualism in emotion and decision making processing. This volume is a tribute to Prof. Costa and his work, and is born from a deep love and respect for his way of approaching the science of multilingualism from a psycholinguistic perspective.
BAbSANT (Bilingual Abstract Semantic Associative Network Training) is a novel, theoretically motivated approach to anomia therapy for bilingual persons with aphasia (BPWA). We report on a Russian-dominant, Russian–English BPWA, who was trained on abstract English and Russian words. We hypothesized both within- and cross-language generalization when the non-dominant language was trained, and only within-language generalization when the dominant language was trained. We also hypothesized that cross-language generalization is modulated by nonverbal cognitive control. Results revealed that when English abstract words were trained, within-language generalization to concrete words and cross-language generalization to Russian abstract words was observed, confirming our first hypothesis. However, our second hypothesis was not confirmed. When Russian was trained, direct effects of treatment and within- or cross-language generalization effects were not observed. Our third hypothesis was confirmed. Results from cognitive control tasks from this individual suggest a role of nonverbal cognitive control on cross-language treatment outcomes.
This study investigated the engagement of domain-general cognitive control during the comprehension of dense code-switching sentences. Stimulus-locked event-related potentials (ERPs) were measured while L1-dominant Chinese–English bilinguals read switch and non-switch sentences. The results of the reading task revealed language dominance effects on the N400, left anterior negativity (LAN) and late positive component (LPC). The language dominance effects at lexical level (i.e., on the N400 and LAN) were modulated by individual differences in monitoring capacity. In contrast, inhibition capacity predicted code-switching costs at the sentence level (i.e., for the LPC component). The results suggest that proactive monitoring and reactive inhibition affect different processing stages during the comprehension of dense code-switching sentences. These findings partially align with processing models of code-switching incorporating a dual control mode perspective and contribute new insight into the dynamic interplay between reactive and proactive control processes.
In our increasingly multilingual modern world, understanding how languages beyond the first are acquired and processed at a brain level is essential to design evidence-based teaching, clinical interventions and language policy. Written by a team of world-leading experts in a wide range of disciplines within cognitive science, this Handbook provides a comprehensive overview of the study of third (and more) language acquisition and processing. It features 30 approachable chapters covering topics such as multilingual language acquisition, education, language maintenance and language loss, multilingual code-switching, ageing in the multilingual brain, and many more. Each chapter provides an accessible overview of the state of the art in its topic, while offering comprehensive access to the specialized literature, through carefully curated citations. It also serves as a methodological resource for researchers in the field, offering chapters on methods such as case studies, corpora, artificial language systems or statistical modelling of multilingual data.
For decades, researchers have suggested the existence of a bilingual cognitive advantage, especially in tasks involving executive functions such as inhibition, shifting, and updating. Recently an increasing number of studies have questioned whether or not bilingualism results in a change in executive functions based on conflicted data reported in the literature. This study compared the performance of third-, fourth-, and fifth-grade bilingual and monolingual children on attentional and cognitive tasks. The participants were 61 monolingual and 74 bilingual children (M:114,6 months; S.D.: 8,48 months). Participants were tested on two versions of the attention task (ANT), with and without social stimuli, and in some tests investigating working memory and receptive vocabulary tests. Additionally, we examined the sociocultural status and the reasoning abilities of the participants' families. The results show how bilingualism and the sociocultural index affect attentional networks when the task uses social stimuli or has no social value. When the task implies non-social stimuli, only the sociocultural index shows a difference between groups in the executive conflict network. Examining the relationships between the different variables that we considered, it is possible to note a positive relationship between the sociocultural index and executive control with social stimuli and a negative relationship between the alert network with non-social stimuli, both already documented in the literature (Schibli et al.., 2017). Interestingly, neither the sociocultural index nor the social attentional networks correlate with working memory functioning. Therefore, even if more investigations are required, the differences in social contexts mainly affect attentional functions.
Bilingual advantages in executive control tasks are well documented, but it is not yet clear what degree or type of bilingualism leads to these advantages. To investigate this issue, we compared the performance of two bilingual groups and monolingual speakers in task-switching and language-switching paradigms. Spanish-English bilinguals, who reported switching between languages frequently in daily life, exhibited smaller task-switching costs than monolinguals after controlling for between-group differences in speed and parent education level. By contrast, Mandarin-English bilinguals, who reported switching languages less frequently than Spanish-English bilinguals, did not exhibit a task-switching advantage relative to monolinguals. Comparing the two bilingual groups in language-switching, Spanish-English bilinguals exhibited smaller costs than Mandarin-English bilinguals, even after matching for fluency in the non-dominant language. These results demonstrate an explicit link between language-switching and bilingual advantages in task-switching, while also illustrating some limitations on bilingual advantages. (JINS, 2011, 17, 682-691).
Language switching was studied with a group of bilingual older adults (65 and older) and college-age bilinguals using a cued picture naming paradigm in a blocked (English or Spanish), unpredictable mixed (Spanish and English cues change randomly from trial to trial), and a predictable mixed condition (cues alternate between English and Spanish from trial to trial). Results revealed equivalent error rates and small differences in reaction time (RT) between older adults and college-age participants in the blocked condi-tion. However, older adults showed much slower RTs and made significantly more errors in the mixed conditions. The results are consistent with models that predict deficiencies in task set shifting across the life span.
The current study tested the hypothesis that bilinguals rely on domain-general mechanisms of executive control to achieve language control by asking if linguistic and nonlinguistic switching tasks exhibit similar patterns of aging-related decline. Thirty young and 30 aging bilinguals completed a cued language-switching task and a cued color-shape switching task. Both tasks demonstrated significant aging effects, but aging-related slowing and the aging-related increase in errors were significantly larger on the color-shape than on the language task. In the language task, aging increased language-switching costs in both response times and errors, and language-mixing costs only in response times. In contrast, the color-shape task exhibited an aging-related increase in costs only in mixing errors. Additionally, a subset of the older bilinguals could not do the color-shape task, but were able to do the language task, and exhibited significantly larger language-switching costs than matched controls. These differences, and some subtle similarities, in aging effects observed across tasks imply that mechanisms of nonlinguistic task and language control are only partly shared and demonstrate relatively preserved language control in aging. More broadly, these data suggest that age deficits in switching and mixing costs may depend on task expertise, with mixing deficits emerging for less-practiced tasks and switching deficits for highly practiced, possibly "expert" tasks (i.e., language). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).
A neglected question regarding cognitive control is how control processes might detect situations calling for their involvement. The authors propose here that the demand for control may be evaluated in part by monitoring for conflicts in information processing. This hypothesis is supported by data concerning the anterior cingulate cortex, a brain area involved in cognitive control, which also appears to respond to the occurrence of conflict. The present article reports two computational modeling studies, serving to articulate the conflict monitoring hypothesis and examine its implications. The first study tests the sufficiency of the hypothesis to account for brain activation data, applying a measure of conflict to existing models of tasks shown to engage the anterior cingulate. The second study implements a feedback loop connecting conflict monitoring to cognitive control, using this to simulate a number of important behavioral phenomena.
Presents a standardized set of 260 pictures for use in experiments investigating differences and similarities in the processing of pictures and words. The pictures are black-and-white line drawings executed according to a set of rules that provide consistency of pictorial representation. They have been standardized on 4 variables of central relevance to memory and cognitive processing: name agreement, image agreement, familiarity, and visual complexity. The intercorrelations among the 4 measures were low, suggesting that they are indices of different attributes of the pictures. The concepts were selected to provide exemplars from several widely studied semantic categories. Sources of naming variance, and mean familiarity and complexity of the exemplars, differed significantly across the set of categories investigated. The potential significance of each of the normative variables to a number of semantic and episodic memory tasks is discussed. (34 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved).
The present study explored when and how the top-down intention to speak influences the language production process. We did so by comparing the brain's electrical response for a variable known to affect lexical access, namely word frequency, during overt object naming and non-verbal object categorization. We found that during naming, the event-related brain potentials elicited for objects with low frequency names started to diverge from those with high frequency names as early as 152 ms after stimulus onset, while during non-verbal categorization the same frequency comparison appeared 200 ms later eliciting a qualitatively different brain response. Thus, only when participants had the conscious intention to name an object the brain rapidly engaged in lexical access. The data offer evidence that top-down intention to speak proactively facilitates the activation of words related to perceived objects.
In an experimental study of language switching and selection, bilinguals named numerals in either their first or second language unpredictably. Response latencies (RTs) on switch trials (where the response language changed from the previous trial) were slower than on nonswitch trials. As predicted, the language-switching cost was consistently larger when switching to the dominant L₁ from the weaker L₂ than vice versa such that, on switch trials, L₁ responses were slower than in L₂. This "paradoxical" asymmetry in the cost of switching languages is explained in terms of differences in relative strength of the bilingual's two languages and the involuntary persistence of the previous language set across an intended switch of language. Naming in the weaker language, L₂, requires active inhibition or suppression of the stronger competitor language, L₁; the inhibition persists into the following (switch) trial in the form of "negative priming" of the L₁ lexicon as a whole. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
This paper aims to foster discussion of the means by which bilinguals control their two language systems. It proposes an inhibitory control (IC) model that embodies the principle that there are multiple levels of control. In the model a language task schema (modulated by a higher level of control) “reactively” inhibits potential competitors for production at the lemma level by virtue of their language tags. The IC model is used to expand the explanation of the effect of category blocking in translation proposed by Kroll and Stewart (1994), and predictions of the model are tested against other data. Its relationship to other proposals and models is considered and future directions proposed.
