COGNITIVE ADVANTAGE

FOR BILINGUAL
INDIVIDUALS ?
PRESENTED BY KETIFA SHAIKH
 MARINE AND SHOOK INVESTIGATION

• Research of Victoria marine and Anthony shook, with use of

technological advances have showed us how bilingualism interacts
with and changes the cognitive and neurological systems.
• To brush up, monolingual are individuals who are proficient in
one language and bilingual are individuals who know two
languages fluently.
• Also, to broadly mention, bilingual people often have language
co-activation where the first language active but with that the
other language is also active. It is majorly driven by study of
cognate words- type of word which share phonological–
orthographic representations across languages (e.g., piano in both
English and Spanish)
COGNITIVE BENEFITS OF BILINGUALISM

Inhibitory control

Mental shifting

Changes in neurological processes and structures

Protection against age-related decline

COGNITIVE BENEFITS
INHIBITORY CONTROL
• Inhibitory control describes the suppression
of goal-irrelevant stimuli and behavioral
responses
• This is used better by bilinguals in conflict
management as they are better in ignoring
irrelevant information than monolinguals.
• Ex: the color experiment
MENTAL SET SHIFTING
• Set-shifting refers to the ability to move
back and forward between different tasks
and is often used as a measure of
cognitive flexibility. It is an executive
function.
• Bilingual individuals are better in
switching tasks than monolinguals.
 CHANGES IN NEUROLOGICAL PROCESSES AND
STRUCTURE
NEUROLOGICAL PROCESSES
• Bilingual people show increased activation in the
brain region associated with cognitive skills like
attention and inhibition. Bilinguals are proven to be
better than monolinguals in encoding the
fundamental frequency of sounds in the presence
of background noise.
• For example: in a noisy restaurant, it will be easier
for a bilingual person than for a monolingual
person to encode what the other person is saying.
NEUROLOGICAL STRUCTURES
• Higher proficiency in a second language
as well as earlier acquisition of that
language, correlates with higher gray
matter volume in the left inferior parietal
cortex.
• This is the part of the brain where
language switching is managed.
PROTECTION AGAINST AGE RELATED DECLINE
The cognitive and neurological benefits
of bilingualism also extend into older
adulthood. Bilingualism is means of
fending off a natural decline of cognitive
function and maintaining cognitive
reserve. Older bilingual people enjoy
improved memory and executive control
relative to older monolingual people.

Note: cognitive reserve - the efficient

utilization of brain networks to enhance
brain function during ageing.
CONCLUSION
To summarize, the cognitive and
neurological benefits of bilingualism
extend from early childhood to old age as
the brain more efficiently processes
information and staves off cognitive
decline.

The other advantages bilingual people

enjoy are:

• Enriched cognitive control

• Less egocentric bias

• Better visual & spatial skills

<Insert pictures or drawings of your invention design/building process>
*you can insert a new slide for these pictures/drawings if you need to!