Language dominance and inhibition abilities in bilingual older adults

• Autores: Mira Goral, Avron Spiro
• Localización: Bilingualism: Language and cognition, ISSN 1366-7289, Vol. 18, Nº 1, 2015, págs. 79-89
• Idioma: inglés
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• Dialnet Métricas: 5 Citas
• Resumen

  • 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.