PSYCHOLOGY DEPARTMENT

College of Human & Health Sciences

FINAL YEAR PROJECT

Student No: 688529

Bilingualism across the lifespan: control of attention and inhibition

Attentional and cognitive control of bilingualism in young adulthood

Project Supervisor: Dr. Hana Burianova

Word Count:_______

APRIL 2017

DEGREE SCHEME: B.Sc. Psychology (Single Honours)

 Participant Information Sheet
Bilingual Study

Thank you for your interest in our research. Please read the following information carefully.

We are looking for volunteers aged 18 - 30 with no current diagnosis of a neurological disorder to
take part in our study of how brain functions may be able to defend themselves from the symptoms
of Alzheimer’s, namely our attention and language processes. The means by which our brain is
protected is referred to as the level of cognitive reserve. Cognitive reserve theoretically describes the
number of connections within the brain. These additional connection gives our cognition the ability
to compensate for any damage. The more cognitive reserve a person has, the greater the delay in the
onset and the progression of age-related decline, including the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease. The
ability to speak more than one language has consistently been shown to increase cognitive reserve,
at least in certain areas, we wish to investigate if this bilingual advantage exists, and if so which
mental processes does it impact. We are therefore seeking volunteers who are Welsh-English
bilinguals, and those who speak English only.

During the study you will be presented with a few questionnaires to determine general wellbeing,
following which you will take part in 7 varied and interesting language and attention tasks. The study
takes around 1.5 to 2hours. Your participation is entirely voluntary and you are free to withdraw from
the study at any time. All tasks are paper- and-pen and computer based, but no computer knowledge
is needed. The data we collect is for the purposes of this research only, and cannot be used as a test
of general intelligence or a diagnostic tool for dementia. Therefore, we can’t provide any feedback
on, or make any interpretation of, your performance on the tasks.

The research is being conducted by Letty Liu undergraduate student at the Department of
Psychology, under the supervision of Dr Hana Burianova. All data you provide will be completely
anonymous and confidential, as we do not store data using names or any other identifiable marker.
You will be given a participant number for the study, and your data will be associated with this
anonymous number. An analysis of the data will form a part of a report of our findings. This report
may be shown to interested third parties and published in scientific articles, but all data will remain
anonymous. If at any point you wish for your data to be removed from the study, please contact the
researcher using the details below. This study has been approved by the Department of Psychology’s
Research Ethics Committee.

If you have further questions, would like to enquire about taking part, or would
like to ask questions about the study before deciding, please contact Letty:

Letty Liu
Department of Psychology
Swansea University, SA2 8PP
07549916204
688529@swansea.ac.uk

It suggests that bilingualism may act as delay onset of Alzheimer’s disease symptoms which
this kind of ‘cognitive reserve’ is thought to be better in older than younger adults.
Within cognitive control, we present research suggesting that bilinguals demonstrate
benefits compared to monolinguals and discuss the potential sources of these benefits,
including parallel language activation and language switching. We also explore the potential
links between linguistic and non-linguistic cognitive processes

Introduction

Bilingualism may be one factor contributing to ‘cognitive reserve’ and therefore to a delay
onset of Dementia.

effect of cognitive functions on bilingualism

A total of bilingual speakers and monolingual speakers completed verbal and nonverbal
tasks designed to assess aspects of executive attention inhibitory control, monitoring and
switching of attention (working memory capacity).

Bilingual speakers have been found to have somewhat disadvantaged when it comes to
performance of language- dependent tasks including word retrieval.

Bialystock and colleagues have reported that bilingualism in adults enhances specific skills
associated with cognitive and attentional control (Bialystok et al., 2004). The constant use of
switching between languages demands more effortful attention than does monolingual
speech production and this greater cognitive demand fosters the development of a higher
level of attentional control (B, 2009).

Although there are many advantages, some of the disadvantaged include…...

Aging sometimes may influence the chances to

Increasing ability of cognitive control

Researchers have been using many different experimental paradigms to draw on the ability
of the bilinguals to understand what aspects of cognitive control are associated to the ability
of handling language.

Method

Questionnaires

Test od Everyday Attention (TEA)

including:
Elevator tasks (4)
Map search
Telephone search (2)

Simon task
Lexical task

Abstract

Research suggests that being bilingual results in advantage on enhanced executive function
and disadvantage on language- related task as compared to monolingual speakers. It may be
due to unconscious control of cross- language excitation leads to bilingual competition,
resulting in the enhanced suppression of non- target language cognitive control. The effect
of structural and functional changes continue to have advantage of cognitive retention
throughout the lifespan.

We examined whether these advantages and disadvantages are generalised in young adults
with multiple measures of executive function and attention.

Introduction

The relationship between bilingualism and cognitive development has been observed in
different ways with a variety of outcomes. Early research emphasised the negative
consequences that speaking two languages created including deceleration of cognitive
development in the domain of linguistic competence. Nevertheless, recent research has
been more positive and indicated that a bilingual background may be beneficial in the ability
to reflect upon and manipulate the forms of language for children (Bialystok, 1988; Peal and
Lambert, 1962). As opposed to language- specific mechanism, evidence suggests that
general cognitive processing

Although there may be delays in linguistic domain, various bilingual advantages have been
observed in diverse aspects of general cognitive processing.

Substantial research has suggested that constant use of two languages creates an advantage
in three core competencies, which are assigned to specific task to facilitate its completion,
including: 1) inhibitory control, which involves the ability to resist habitual reaction and
irrelevant stimulation; 2) working memory, which is the ability to recall and update
information in the mind; and 3) cognitive flexibility, which is the ability to adapt to changes
in demand or prioritisation and to switch between tasks. As human beings grow, the
prefrontal cortex of the brain gradually matures. The development of cognitive control is
also affected by the degree of brain tissue maturity and becomes stable over time (
Diamond, 2006; Hilchey & Klein, 2011; Miyake et al., 2000). According to Kroll and Bialystok
(2013), since bilinguals are required to constantly ignore non- target messages, perform task
switching and resolve conflict in the context of language proficiency and output operations,
their performance on cognitive monitoring has shown to be better when compared to
monolinguals. Hence, bilinguals are considered to outperform in cognitive executive control
such as attention control, inhibition and shifting. In addition, these advantages play an
important role on delaying the aging of cognitive decline, which is contribute to cognitive
reserve (Bialystok et al., 2009; Bialystok & Poarch, 2014). Thus, the operation of executive
functions tend to be more efficient and effective in bilinguals and monolinguals.
Evidence has been obtained in studies with children (Bialystok & Martin, 2004), young
adults (Costa, Hernandez, & Sebastian- Galles, 2008), and older adults (Gold, Kim,
Johnson, Kryscio, & Smith, 2013), using tasks showing less interference effects in bilinguals
than in monolinguals, including Simon (Bialystok, Craik, Klein & Viswanathan, 2004),
flanker (Costa, Hernandez, Costa- Faidella, & Sebastian- Galles, 2009), and task- switching
(Prior & MacWhinney, 2010) paradigm.

The argument of bilingualism enhancing cognitive control is also extensively discussed in

journals (eg e.g., Bobb, Wodniecka, & Kroll, 2013; Kroll, Christoffels, & Bajo, 2013).

Language processing in Bilinguals / cross- language interference

Interference between languages has shown to account for bilingual disadvantages in task
that focus on lexical processing. Researchers agree that when performing lexical tasks,
bilinguals show to have activation in both languages simultaneously only when using one
of them (Goldfarb & Tzegelov, 2008). However, the question is, if both lexicons are active,
how does bilingual overcome interference from the non- target language?

If competition for lexical selection can occur between languages, bilinguals would be faced
with a more different task and could respond only if they resolved the competition within
and between languages. For example, when Welsh- English bilinguals attempt to name a
picture of _____, as in monolinguals, they have to select the desired target from both
with- language competitor (eg. ____) and translation equivalent competitors (eg. ___) As
a result, they were slower in time in naming a picture if they forget the name in their
dominant language because they would need to translate it back to English. translatability
facilitation effect

Relative to monolinguals, bilinguals have shown to name fewer pictures accurately on

standardised tests of confrontation naming such as Boston Naming Test (Kaplan,
Goodglass, & Weintrab, 1983).

Various paradigms have been used to show that both languages of bilingual are active
when using one.

The influence of bilingualism on Inhibitory control in young adulthood

The Simon task (Simon, 1969) has been studied as a means of examining executive function
differences between monolingual and bilingual adults. It involves a computer simulation
whereby a stimulus appears either on the right or left side of the screen and in reaction an
individual has to press the corresponding key to respond. Stimuli are presented in either
congruent trials; consisting of the target (red circle) appearing at the same location (right) as
the corresponding key (“L”), or incongruent trials; which consist of the stimuli appearing on
the opposite location (left) of the corresponding key. The Simon effect is the difference
between the reaction time (RT) for both incongruent and congruent trials, and represents
the cost of resolving conflict between competing stimulus features. In the research using
young adults in their 20s, Bialystok (2006) compared monolingual and bilingual adults in
performance on the task and comparisons showed that bilinguals responded significantly
faster than monolinguals and demonstrated a smaller Simon effect, evidencing enhanced
inhibitory control. Moreover, the difference was equally significant for both congruent and
incongruent trials in all studies in which the bilinguals performed more quickly.
Nevertheless, it only applied to high frequency switching conditions, in which the task
imposed the greatest demands through the need of rapid switching between trials. As with
executive control, the inhibitory control is better in bilinguals.

Yet, reaction time differences are not always evident in comparing performance across two
language groups. A study using magnetoencephalography (MEG) showed that bilinguals
employed different frontal regions of the brain when completing Simon task (Bialystok et al.,
2005), in which only the activation for bilinguals showed regions overlapping with Broca’s
area while those for monolinguals did not.

Another research with adults has revealed parallel results and showed faster bilingual
responding to conflict conditions in the Stroop task (Bialystok, Craik & Luk, 2008a). The
Stroop task (1935) involves two stimulus dimensions which are a colour word and the
physical colour attribute that is printed on the computer screen. As in the Simon task, there
are two conditions. In incongruent trials, the colour word is in different colour to that of
which each word stated (eg., the word BLUE in the colour yellow), whereas for congruent
trials, the colour word matches the physical colour (eg., the word Blue in the colour blue).
Bilinguals were less disrupted than monolinguals in incongruent condition when participants
were required to ignore a competing but irrelevant feature of stimuli.

Is there a bilingual advantage in the control of auditory interference?

The Test of Everyday Attention (TEA) is a well- established clinical instrument known by its
sensitivity to potential cognitive differences between monolinguals and bilinguals.
Particularly, it assesses different components of the attentional system of individuals,
including sustained attention, selective attention, and attentional switching. Apart from the
large set of data being collected from healthy individuals in the Western (Robertson etal.,
1996) and Asian (Chan et al., 2006) populations, it has been successfully applied in a wide
range of neurological disease such as stroke, dementia and other neurodegenerative
conditions (Chan, 2000; Chen et al., 2013). There are two auditory subtests based on the
tone counting that assess selective attention and attentional switching. First, in the Elevator
counting with distraction task, individuals are required to count the normal tones in a set of
mixed high and normal tones ( selective attention). Second, in the Elevator counting with
reversal task, they are asked to listen to three tones (middle- pitched, low and high),counting
upwards when the middle- pitched tone is followed by a high tones, whilst counting
downwards when the middle- pitched tone is followed by a low tones (attentional
switching). Bak, Vega- Mendoza and Sorace (2014) administered the TEA and they found that
performance of early bilinguals outperformed their monolingual peers in attentional,
whereas the late childhood and early adulthood bilinguals displayed better results in
selective attention, overall suggesting a bilingual advantage in auditory attention.

Extending the previous results (Bal, Vega- Mendoza, & Sorace, 2014), four further subtests
have added in this study, including Visual Elevator task, Map Search, Telephone Search and
Telephone Search while counting. These tasks assess visual search, an aspect of attention
that are demanding but they do not require processing of conflicting information such as
switching and inhibition. These subtests are help to determine whether possible
differences between mono- and bilingual groups are due to general, differences in
cognitive performance, to any specific aspects of attention.

Bilingualism as a cognitive reserve

With age, some people develop Alzheimer’s disease (AD)- the most prevalent form of
Dementia (MacGill, 2016). Given that bilinguals have higher executive control in performing
non- verbal tasks, this sustained advantage of bilinguals persists into older age and may have
enhanced effect that contribute to cognitive reserve and serves as a protection in symptoms
associated with neurodegenerative disorders. Cognitive reserve mechanisms are active
processes through which, engagement in stimulating mental, physical and social activities
(Stern, 2002), it is suggested that active bilingualism throughout the lifespan was, on
average, four to five years older at the age of onset of dementia than that found in healthy
older monolinguals (Alladi et al., 2013; Craik, Bialystok, & Freeman, 2010). In addition,
certain neurological tissues are better preserved in the brain when compared to
monolinguals, including white matters; in which responsible for coordinating communication
in brain areas(________) and grey matters; in which involves specific processes such as
executive control and muscle movement (______). Thus, as a result of constant usage of
two languages, lifelong bilinguals generally show enhanced cognitive system, demonstrating
cognitive benefits and decreased neurological decline than monolinguals.

Rather than bilingualism protects against the development of neurodegenerative disease,

the symptoms may be delayed because of the presence of greater cognitive reserve caused
by handling two languages on a daily basis (Schweizer, Ware, Fischer, Craik, & Bialystok,
2012). However, very few studies have successfully found this protective effect, whereas
what extent bilingualism affects these cognitive processes is far from being comprehended.

During the early 1920s, studies have begun to investigate the relation between bilingualism
and cognitive abilities and consistent findings was that bilinguals were suffered from a so-
called “language handicap” (Carrow, 1957; Saer, 1924). In such language domain, bilinguals
showed to have slower reaction time and accuracy on retrieving and uttering words, also,
they tended to suffer more tip- of the- tongue states than monolinguals.

In sum
Hypotheses

Bilingual young adults will perform the Simon task better than monolinguals as evidenced by
faster reaction times and as demonstrated in previous researches, that this advantage
should be found in both congruent and incongruent trials.

Methods

Participants

___ healthy young adults (age range= 18-30; mean age= __ years; SD= __; __ men)
participated in the study, half of whom were monolinguals. The monolinguals were English-
speaking students recruited from Swansea University (age range= 18-30; mean age= __
years; SD= __) . The bilingual adults were fluent speakers of Welsh and English recruited
within Wales with mostly living in Swansea in particular (age range= 18-30; mean age= __
years; SD= __). All participants had normal or corrected- to- normal vision and had no
history of neurological disorders. All participants provided written informed consent
approved by Department of Psychology’s Research Ethics Committee.

The monolingual participants (N=__) did not speak any language other than English beyond
basic level. The bilingual participants (N= ) were highly proficient speakers of Welsh and
English. Welsh was their first language but all acquired English in early childhood (L2).

Apparatus
E- prime experiment generation programmes were used to carry out Picture naming task,
Simon task and Stroop task procedures, and ultimately record our results. The
questionnaires were to determine general wellbeing.

Materials

Picture naming task included ____ coloured everyday objects.

The Simon task was used to gather data regarding inhibitory control. The stimuli were
presented on computers administered with Windows operating system. A keyboard was
connected and uses as the input device to respond to stimuli. Participants responded with
fingers of their left and right hands with either of two selected keys (A, E), respectively. The
stimuli for the Simon task were red and blue circle presented in either left or right side of
the screen preceded by a fixation point, presented in the centre of the screen.

The Stroop task- naming the colour of words as they appear on a computer screen. While
the colour of the words shown are differ from

Experimental Design
The study consisted of

Procedure

Participants were seated in front of a computer monitor, keyboard, a microphone and a

digital recorder. They were given the picture naming task followed by Stroop task

Picture naming task

Participants were presented with a picture at a time, and they were asked to name the
picture in either Welsh or English as quickly and accurately as possible. Pictures were
presented continuously each time when the individual responded.

Simon task

Participants were test individually and placed in front of a monitor with the Simon task
ready. A verbal instruction was given before the task begun, making participants aware that
they would expect to see a fixation point followed by stimuli, which their task was to
respond to the stimuli as rapidly as possible, by pressing “L” if they saw a red circle, or a “A”
key if they saw a blue circle. There were __ trials in total that ran in timed schedule
configured by the computer to ensure all participants had the same gap between each trial
and test phrase. They were told to ignore the location of the stimulus and focus on colour
only. There will be congruent trials; consisting of the target (red circle) appearing at the
same location (right) as the corresponding key (“L”). And incongruent trials; which consist of
the stimuli appearing on the opposite location (left) of the corresponding key. The same is
seen for blue stimuli.

Simon effect is that the longer time needed to respond in the incongruent presentation
compared to the congruent one; which larger Simon effects imply greater difficulty in
suppressing the irrelevant spatial information.

Test of Everyday attention (TEA)

The TEA is a well- established clinical instrument tool that is sensitive to potential cognitive
differences between monolinguals and bilinguals (Robertson, Ward, Ridgeway, & Nimmo-
Smith, 1994). It is widely used to apply in a wide range of neurological diseases such as
Dementia and other neurodegenerative conditions. It consists of __ different subtests which
examine different aspects of attention: sustained attention, selective attention and
attentional switching (Robertson et al., 1996).

Map Search (MS), Elevator Task with Distraction (ETD), Visual Elevator Task (VET), Auditory
Elevator with Reversal (AER), Telephone Search (TS), Telephone Search Dual Task (TSDT),

MS measures selective attention and loads on the same factor as the Stroop test,
participants are requested to search for symbols (patron station) on a coloured map in 2
minutes.

ETD measures selective attention asking participants to count low tones while ignoring the
high pitch tones for 10 trials.

VET is a measure of attentional switching and cognitive flexibility. Participants have to count
up and down as they follow a series of visually presented ‘doors’ in the elevator.

AER measure the same thing as VET except that it is presented in a fixed speed auditory
tape.

TS requires individuals to look for key symbols in one minute

TSDT- subjects have to search in the directory while counting strings of tones
presented by an audio tape.

Picture Naming Task (PNT)

The PNT measures reaction time and accuracy of __ responses. The stimuli were pictures
depicting everyday objects such as clothing and furniture with corresponding names in
English and Welsh respectively.

References

Alladi, S., Bak, T. H., Duggirala, V., Surampudi, B., Shailaja, M., Shukla, A. K., & Kaul, S. (2013).
Bilingualism delays age at onset of dementia, independent of education and immigration
status. Neurology, 81(22), 1938-1944. doi:10.1212/01.wnl.0000436620.33155.a4

Bialystok, E. (1988). Levels of bilingualism and levels of linguistic awareness. Developmental

Psychology, 24, 560-567.

Bialystok, E. (2001). Effect of bilingualism and computer video game experience on the
Simon task. Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology, 60, 68-79.

Bialystok, E., Craik, F.I.M., & Luk, G. (2008a). Cognitive control and lexical access
in younger and older bilinguals. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and
Cognition, 34, 859-873.

Craik, F. I. M., Bialystok, E., & Freeman, M. (2010). Delaying the onset of Alzheimer disease:
Bilingualism as a form of cognitive reserve. Neurology, 75(19), 1726-1729.
doi:10.1212/WNL.0b013e3181fc2a1c
Kaplan, E., Goodglass, H., & Weintrab, D. (1983). The Boston Naming Test. Philadelphia: Lea
& Febiger.

MacGill, M. (2016). Alzheimer’s Disease: Causes, Symptoms and Treatments. Retrieved 3

March, 2017, from http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/159442.php

Peal, E., & Lambert, M. (1962). The relation of bilingualism to intelligence. Psychological
Monographs, 76(546), 1-23.

Robertson, I. H., Ward, T., Ridgeway, V., and Nimmo- Smith, I. (1996). The structure of normal
human attention: the Test of Everyday Attention. J. Int. Neuropsychol. Soc. 2, 525-534.
Doi:10.1017/S1355617700001697

Simon, J. R. (1969). Reactions towards the source of stimulation. Journal of Experimental

Psychology, 81, 174- 176.

Stern, Y. (2002). What is cognitive reserve? Theory and research application of the
reserve concept. Journal of the
International Neuropsychological Society, 8, 448-460.

Discussion

When selecting measuring a sample of bilingual, it is important to control factors of

bilingualism, such as sex, age, socioeconomic status. In the study by Peal and Lambert, they
carefully matched bilingual participants to their monolingual participants. They found that
bilinguals showed a level of advantages over monolinguals in both verbal and non- verbal
tasks, while bilinguals’ non- verbal tasks results were significantly higher while these tasks
required more mental flexibility.

The age of acquisition and second language proficiency modulates bilinguals’ ability to
control interference. Overall, bilingual speakers are less resistant than monolinguals to the
degradation of such listening conditions.

In picture naming task: In bilingual condition, as participants were told to name the picture
in either Welsh or English, in which the naming procedure overtly activates both languages.
However, it might due to the fact that they named those pictures mainly in their dominant
language (Welsh) and such procedure could introduce task- dependent differences between
bilinguals and monolinguals.