Language Dominance and Inhibition Abilities in Bilingual Older Adults

Overview

Journal Biling (Camb Engl)

Publisher Cambridge University Press

Date 2016 Aug 18

PMID 27531968

Citations 14

Authors

Mira Goral

Luca Campanelli

Avron Spiro 3rd

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

This study aimed to examine the so-called bilingual advantage in older adults' performance in three cognitive domains and to identify whether language use and bilingual type (dominant vs. balanced) predicted performance. The participants were 106 Spanish-English bilinguals ranging in age from 50 years to 84 years. Three cognitive domains were examined (each by a single test): inhibition (the Simon task), alternating attention (the Trail Making test), and working memory (Month Ordering). The data revealed that age was negatively correlated to performance in each domain. Bilingual type - balanced vs. dominant - predicted performance and interacted with age only on the inhibition measure (the Simon task). Balanced bilinguals showed age-related inhibition decline (i.e., greater Simon effect with increasing age); in contrast, dominant bilinguals showed little or no age-related change. The findings suggest that bilingualism may offer cognitive advantage in older age only for a subset of bilinguals.

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