Does Bilingual Language Control Decline in Older Age? - PubMed (original) (raw)

Does Bilingual Language Control Decline in Older Age?

Iva Ivanova et al. Linguist Approaches Biling. 2016.

Abstract

We investigated age-related decline of bilingual language control. Thirteen older and 13 younger bilinguals performed a verbal fluency task (completing the same letter and semantic categories in each language and switching languages after every category), and a non-linguistic flanker task. In letter fluency, bilinguals produced fewer correct responses after switching languages, suggesting inhibition of the previously-used language. However, this testing-order effect did not differ between groups and older bilinguals produced few wrong-language intrusions, implying intact ability to apply inhibition in older age. In contrast, age-related deficits in the flanker task were robust, implying dissociations between language control and domain-general executive control. In semantic fluency, there were no testing-order effects but older bilinguals produced more intrusions than younger bilinguals, and more intrusions than in letter fluency. Thus, bilinguals may flexibly modulate the degree of inhibition when they can benefit from semantic priming between languages, but less efficiently so in older age.

Keywords: age-related decline; bilingualism; domain-general executive control; language control; letter fluency; semantic fluency; verbal fluency task.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1

Figure 1

Older and younger bilinguals’ performance on the letter fluency task, in the dominant and the non-dominant language. Figure 1a: Number of correct responses. Figure 1b: Number of within-language errors. Figure 1c: Number of wrong-language intrusions. Error bars represent standard errors.

Figure 1

Figure 1

Older and younger bilinguals’ performance on the letter fluency task, in the dominant and the non-dominant language. Figure 1a: Number of correct responses. Figure 1b: Number of within-language errors. Figure 1c: Number of wrong-language intrusions. Error bars represent standard errors.

Figure 1

Figure 1

Older and younger bilinguals’ performance on the letter fluency task, in the dominant and the non-dominant language. Figure 1a: Number of correct responses. Figure 1b: Number of within-language errors. Figure 1c: Number of wrong-language intrusions. Error bars represent standard errors.

Figure 2

Figure 2

Older and younger bilinguals’ performance on the semantic fluency task, in the dominant and the non-dominant language. Figure 2a: Number of correct responses. Figure 2b: Number of within-language errors. Figure 2c: Number of wrong-language intrusions. Error bars represent standard errors.

Figure 2

Figure 2

Older and younger bilinguals’ performance on the semantic fluency task, in the dominant and the non-dominant language. Figure 2a: Number of correct responses. Figure 2b: Number of within-language errors. Figure 2c: Number of wrong-language intrusions. Error bars represent standard errors.

Figure 2

Figure 2

Older and younger bilinguals’ performance on the semantic fluency task, in the dominant and the non-dominant language. Figure 2a: Number of correct responses. Figure 2b: Number of within-language errors. Figure 2c: Number of wrong-language intrusions. Error bars represent standard errors.

Figure 3

Figure 3

Older and younger bilinguals’ intrusions on the letter and semantic fluency tasks, divided by number of trials (Letter: 10; Semantic: 8). Error bars represent standard errors.

Figure 4

Figure 4

Older and younger bilinguals’ performance on the flanker task. Figure 3a: Response times. Figure 3b: Percentage errors. Error bars represent standard errors. Figure 1a

Figure 4

Figure 4

Older and younger bilinguals’ performance on the flanker task. Figure 3a: Response times. Figure 3b: Percentage errors. Error bars represent standard errors. Figure 1a

References

    1. Abutalebi J, Annoni JM, Zimine I, Pegna AJ, Seghier ML, Lee-Jahnke H, Lazeyras F, Cappa SF, Khateb A. Language control and lexical competition in bilinguals: An event-related fMRI study. Cerebral Cortex. 2008;18:1496–1505. -PubMed
    1. Axelrod BN, Henry RR. Age-related performance on the Wisconsin card sorting, similarities, and controlled oral word association tests. The Clinical Neuropsychologist. 1992;6:16–26.
    1. Bialystok E, Craik FIM, Luk G. Cognitive control and lexical access in younger and older bilinguals. Journal of Experimental Psychology. 2008;34:859–873. -PubMed
    1. Bialystok E, Craik FIM, Klein R, Viswanathan M. Bilingualism, aging and cognitive control: Evidence from the Simon task. Psychology and Aging. 2004;19:290–303. -PubMed
    1. Bolla KI, Gray S, Resnick SM, Galante R, Kawas C. Category and letter fluency in highly educated older adults. The Clinical Neuropsychologist. 1998;12:330–338.

LinkOut - more resources