Bilingualism and Inhibitory Control: The Advantage of Speaking a Second Language
Abstract
Researchers speculate that speaking a second language has benefits that go beyond communicative abilities. Bilingualism has been linked to enhanced performance on executive function (EF) tasks, particularly, those that require inhibitory control. Inhibition is the ability to ignore salient, but distracting, information which may occupy and divert attention from the task at hand. To date, however, the findings have been inconsistent, and one major limitation in the literature is that most studies do not objectively quantify second language proficiency. This study, therefore, used an objective measure of language proficiency and compared bilinguals and monolinguals on tasks that require different levels of inhibitory control. Language groups were matched on socioeconomic status, parental education, nonverbal intellectual abilities, age, and sex. Our findings reveal that bilinguals outperform monolinguals on tasks that require inhibition but not on other tasks of EF that rely less on inhibitory control. In fact, inhibitory control was positively correlated with second language proficiency scores. These findings are consistent with previous work from our laboratory (Fernandez et al., 2013, 2014) that reveals neural inhibitory control advantages in bilinguals and suggests that the same mechanism that controls prepotent responses also controls language output.
Faculty Sponsors
Dr. Mercedes Fernandez
Project Type
Event
Location
Alvin Shermany Library
Start Date
4-5-2019 1:00 PM
End Date
4-5-2019 5:00 PM
Bilingualism and Inhibitory Control: The Advantage of Speaking a Second Language
Alvin Shermany Library
Researchers speculate that speaking a second language has benefits that go beyond communicative abilities. Bilingualism has been linked to enhanced performance on executive function (EF) tasks, particularly, those that require inhibitory control. Inhibition is the ability to ignore salient, but distracting, information which may occupy and divert attention from the task at hand. To date, however, the findings have been inconsistent, and one major limitation in the literature is that most studies do not objectively quantify second language proficiency. This study, therefore, used an objective measure of language proficiency and compared bilinguals and monolinguals on tasks that require different levels of inhibitory control. Language groups were matched on socioeconomic status, parental education, nonverbal intellectual abilities, age, and sex. Our findings reveal that bilinguals outperform monolinguals on tasks that require inhibition but not on other tasks of EF that rely less on inhibitory control. In fact, inhibitory control was positively correlated with second language proficiency scores. These findings are consistent with previous work from our laboratory (Fernandez et al., 2013, 2014) that reveals neural inhibitory control advantages in bilinguals and suggests that the same mechanism that controls prepotent responses also controls language output.
