A new look at the question of the bilingual advantage

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tanya Dash ◽  
Pierre Berroir ◽  
Ladan Ghazi-Saidi ◽  
Daniel Adrover-Roig ◽  
Ana Inès Ansaldo
Keyword(s):  
Simon Task ◽  
The Other ◽  
Control Mechanisms ◽  
Reactive Control ◽  
Brain Areas ◽  
Bilingual Advantage ◽  
Frequent Use ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Neural Underpinnings ◽  
Reactive Mode

Bilingualism has been associated with age-related cognitive advantage. It is important to study cognitive control mechanisms to better understand this phenomenon. We sought to examine proactive and reactive control, as measured by fast and slow responses, respectively. The neural underpinnings of these modes of control were studied in rigorously matched elderly monolinguals and bilinguals, using fMRI performance on a Simon task. The results indicate that bilinguals performed efficiently in proactive mode, as more activation and connectivity were observed in the monolinguals. On the other hand, the monolinguals functioned more efficiently in reactive mode, recruiting fewer brain areas than the bilinguals. These results suggest that bilinguals’ function effortlessly and economically in proactive mode, which is preserved through lifelong use of languages, whereas monolinguals are efficient in reactive mode, which they use more often as a consequence of aging. Thus, frequent use in daily life contributes to efficient functioning in the respective mode of control.

scholarly journals Language dominance and inhibition abilities in bilingual older adults

2013 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-89 ◽  
Author(s):  
MIRA GORAL ◽  
LUCA CAMPANELLI ◽  
AVRON SPIRO
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Working Memory ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Simon Task ◽  
Trail Making Test ◽  
Single Test ◽  
Cognitive Domains ◽  
Bilingual Advantage ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Trail Making

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.

scholarly journals Can a Theater Acting Intervention Enhance Inhibitory Control in Older Adults? A Brain-Behavior Investigation

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aishwarya Rajesh ◽  
Tony Noice ◽  
Helga Noice ◽  
Andrew Jahn ◽  
Ana M. Daugherty ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Active Control ◽  
Inhibitory Control ◽  
Intervention Group ◽  
Community Dwelling ◽  
Control Mechanisms ◽  
Proactive Control ◽  
Reactive Control ◽  
Age Related

Purpose: Studies of reactive and proactive modes of inhibitory control tend to show age-related declines and are accompanied by abnormalities in the prefrontal cortex. We explored which mode of inhibitory control would be more amenable to change and accrue greater benefits following engagement in a 4-week theater acting intervention in older adults. These gains were evaluated by performance on the AX-CPT task. We hypothesized that an increase in proactive control would relate to an increase in AY errors and a decrease in BX errors. In contrast, an increase in reactive control would be associated with a decrease in AY errors, no change in AY reaction time, and an increase in BX response time. Further, we posited that an increase in behavioral proactive control would accompany greater cue versus probe activity for previously identified regions in the prefrontal cortex. In contrast, an increase in behavioral reactive control would be accompanied by greater probe activation in these identified brain areas.Materials and Methods: The participants were 179 community-dwelling adults aged 60–89 years who were on average, college-educated. Participants were pseudo-randomly assigned to either an active-experiencing acting intervention condition (n = 93) or the active control condition (n = 86); participant assignment was subject to time of enrollment. Participants in both groups were trained by theater-actor researchers with expertise in acting interventions. In contrast to the active control participants who attended a course on theater acting, the acting-intervention group was required to consistently deploy proactive and reactive control mechanisms. Both groups met two times/week for 75-min for 4 weeks. Participant brain-behavioral performance on the AX-CPT task was evaluated prior to and after this four-week period.Results: No intervention effects were found in favor of proactive control. Behavioral evidence in favor of reactive control was weak. Brain-related benefits to reactive control was illustrated by greater probe-activation in Brodmann areas 6 and 8, relative to controls and pre-intervention.Conclusion: We found some evidence for improvements in reactive control via brain measures, attributed to engagement in the acting intervention.

In Touch With the Simon Effect *The first two authors contributed equally.

2014 ◽  
Vol 61 (3) ◽  
pp. 165-179 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yael Salzer ◽  
Daniela Aisenberg ◽  
Tal Oron-Gilad ◽  
Avishai Henik
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Simon Effect ◽  
Simon Task ◽  
Control Mechanisms ◽  
Proactive Control ◽  
Reactive Control ◽  
Stimulus Response ◽  
New Information ◽  
Time Gap ◽  
Test Control

Cognitive control has been extensively studied using the auditory and visual modalities. In the current study, a tactile version of the Simon task was created in order to test control mechanisms in a modality that was less studied, to provide comparative and new information. A significant Simon effect – reaction time gap between congruent (i.e., stimulus and response in the same relative location) and incongruent (i.e., stimulus and response in opposite locations) stimuli – provided grounds to further examine both general and tactile-specific aspects of cognitive control in three experiments. By implementing a neutral condition and conducting sequential and distributional analysis, the present study: (a) supports two different independent mechanisms of cognitive control – reactive control and proactive control; (b) reveals facilitation and interference within the tactile Simon effect; and (c) proposes modality differences in activation and processing of the spatially driven stimulus-response association.

Local Control Mechanisms of Implicit and Explicit Conflicts

2015 ◽  
Vol 62 (3) ◽  
pp. 153-160 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liang Zhao ◽  
Yang Bai ◽  
Jie Ma ◽  
Yonghui Wang
Keyword(s):  
Local Control ◽  
Simon Effect ◽  
Incongruent Trial ◽  
Simon Task ◽  
The Other ◽  
Snarc Effect ◽  
Control Mechanisms ◽  
Single Task ◽  
Sequence Effects ◽  
Implicit And Explicit

Congruency sequence effects are observed when the congruency effects following incongruent trials are smaller than those following congruent trials. It is typically assumed that such flexible adjustments are evidence of cognitively controlled dynamic modulations. The present study investigated whether cognitive control acts locally or globally when implicit and explicit conflicts exist simultaneously within a system. The implicit SNARC task and explicit Simon task were combined in a single task. The results showed that congruency effects of one type (e.g., SNARC effect) were only smaller following an incongruent trial of the same type (e.g., SNARC effect), but not when following an incongruent trial of the other type (e.g., Simon effect). These results indicate the operation of local control mechanisms triggered by implicit and explicit conflicts.

Glottalization and linking in the L2 speech of Czech learners of Spanish, Italian and Portuguese

2021 ◽  
pp. 026765832110158
Author(s):  
Radek Skarnitzl ◽  
Petr Čermák ◽  
Pavel Šturm ◽  
Zora Obstová ◽  
Jan Hricsina
Keyword(s):  
Logistic Regression Model ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Mixed Effects ◽  
Lexical Stress ◽  
The Other ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Romance Languages ◽  
Short Text ◽  
Sound Pattern ◽  
Frequent Use

The use of linking or glottalization contributes to the characteristic sound pattern of a language, and the use of one in place of the other may affect a speaker’s comprehensibility and fluency in certain contexts. In this study, native speakers of Czech, a language that is associated with a frequent use of glottalization in vowel-initial word onsets, are examined in the second language (L2) context of three Romance languages that predominantly employ linking between words (Spanish, Italian and Portuguese). In total, 29 native speakers and 51 non-native learners were asked to read a short text in the respective language. The learners were divided into two groups based on their experience with the target language. A number of other factors were examined in a mixed-effects logistic regression model (segmental context, lexical stress, prosodic breaks, and the semantic status of the words). The main results show that, regardless of the target language, the more experienced (ME) learners displayed significantly lower rates of glottalization than the less experienced (LE) learners, but significantly higher rates than native speakers. The pedagogical implications of the results are discussed.

scholarly journals Age-Related Frailty: A Clinical Model for Geroscience?

2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (10) ◽  
pp. 1140-1143 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine Takeda ◽  
D. Angioni ◽  
E. Setphan ◽  
T. Macaron ◽  
P. De Souto Barreto ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Heart Failure ◽  
Congestive Heart Failure ◽  
Medical History ◽  
Older Age ◽  
The Other ◽  
Everyday Practice ◽  
Clinical Model ◽  
Main Contributor ◽  
Age Related ◽  
History Of

AbstractIn their everyday practice, geriatricians are confronted with the fact that older age and multimorbidity are associated to frailty. Indeed, if we take the example of a very old person with no diseases that progressively becomes frail with no other explanation, there is a natural temptation to link frailty to aging. On the other hand, when an old person with a medical history of diabetes, arthritis and congestive heart failure becomes frail there appears an obvious relationship between frailty and comorbidity. The unsolved question is: Considering that frailty is multifactorial and in the majority of cases comorbidity and aging are acting synergistically, can we disentangle the main contributor to the origin of frailty: disease or aging? We believe that it is important to be able to differentiate age-related frailty from frailty related to comorbidity. In fact, with the emergence of geroscience, the physiopathology, diagnosis, prognosis and treatment will probably have to be different in the future.

scholarly journals Handedness results from complementary hemispheric dominance, not global hemispheric dominance: evidence from mechanically coupled bilateral movements

2018 ◽  
Vol 120 (2) ◽  
pp. 729-740 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth J. Woytowicz ◽  
Kelly P. Westlake ◽  
Jill Whitall ◽  
Robert L. Sainburg
Keyword(s):  
Motor Control ◽  
Dynamic Control ◽  
The Other ◽  
Hemispheric Dominance ◽  
Control Mechanisms ◽  
Left Hand ◽  
Right Hand ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Task Component ◽  
The Right

Two contrasting views of handedness can be described as 1) complementary dominance, in which each hemisphere is specialized for different aspects of motor control, and 2) global dominance, in which the hemisphere contralateral to the dominant arm is specialized for all aspects of motor control. The present study sought to determine which motor lateralization hypothesis best predicts motor performance during common bilateral task of stabilizing an object (e.g., bread) with one hand while applying forces to the object (e.g., slicing) using the other hand. We designed an experimental equivalent of this task, performed in a virtual environment with the unseen arms supported by frictionless air-sleds. The hands were connected by a spring, and the task was to maintain the position of one hand while moving the other hand to a target. Thus the reaching hand was required to take account of the spring load to make smooth and accurate trajectories, while the stabilizer hand was required to impede the spring load to keep a constant position. Right-handed subjects performed two task sessions (right-hand reach and left-hand stabilize; left-hand reach and right-hand stabilize) with the order of the sessions counterbalanced between groups. Our results indicate a hand by task-component interaction such that the right hand showed straighter reaching performance whereas the left hand showed more stable holding performance. These findings provide support for the complementary dominance hypothesis and suggest that the specializations of each cerebral hemisphere for impedance and dynamic control mechanisms are expressed during bilateral interactive tasks. NEW & NOTEWORTHY We provide evidence for interlimb differences in bilateral coordination of reaching and stabilizing functions, demonstrating an advantage for the dominant and nondominant arms for distinct features of control. These results provide the first evidence for complementary specializations of each limb-hemisphere system for different aspects of control within the context of a complementary bilateral task.

scholarly journals A cross-sectional study on interference control: age affects reactive control but not proactive control

PeerJ ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. e8365 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yanfang Peng ◽  
Qin Zhu ◽  
Biye Wang ◽  
Jie Ren
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Middle Age ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
Efficiency Score ◽  
Interference Control ◽  
Reactive Control ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Age Related ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Impact

Background Working memory updating (WMU), a controlled process to continuously adapt to the changing task demand and environment, is crucial for cognitive executive function. Although previous studies have shown that the elderly were more susceptible to cognitive interference than the youngsters, the picture of age-related deterioration of WMU is incomplete due to lack of study on people at their middle ages. Thus, the present study investigated the impact of age on the WMU among adults by a cross-sectional design to verify whether inefficiency interference control accounts for the aging of WMU. Methods In total, 112 healthy adults were recruited for this study; 28 old adults (21 female) ranging from 60 to 78 years of age; 28 middle-age adults (25 female) ranging from 45 to 59 years of age; 28 adults (11 female) ranging from 26 to 44 years of age; and 28 young adults (26 female) ranging from 18 to 25 years of age. Each participant completed a 1-back task. The inverse efficiency score was calculated in various sequences of three trials in a row to quantify the performance of WMU for adults of various ages. Results Inverse efficiency score of both young groups (young adult and adult) were significantly shorter than the old group in both Repeat-Alternate (RA, including □□○ and ○○□) and Alternate-Alternate (AA, including ○□○ and □○□) sequential patterns and they were additionally better than the middle-age group in AA sequential pattern. Conclusion With the increase of difficulty in the task, the difference in reactive interference control between young and middle age was gradually revealed, while the difference between young and old remained to apparent. The degradation of WMU aging may begin from middle-age and presents selective impairment in that only reactive interference control, but not proactive interference control, shows pronounced age-related decline. The preliminary results can inform future studies to further explore the whole lifespan trajectories of cognitive functions.

scholarly journals Do Overweight People Have Worse Cognitive Flexibility? Cues-Triggered Food Craving May Have a Greater Impact

Nutrients ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 240
Author(s):  
Shiqing Song ◽  
Qingqing Li ◽  
Yan Jiang ◽  
Yong Liu ◽  
Aidi Xu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Flexibility ◽  
Performance Test ◽  
Continuous Performance Test ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Normal Weight ◽  
Food Craving ◽  
Control Mechanisms ◽  
Reactive Control ◽  
Food Cravings ◽  
Overweight People

Background: Overweight people have been revealed to have poor cognitive flexibility. Cognitive flexibility reflects proactive and reactive control abilities. However, the impairment had not been explicitly positioned at the cognitive stage. Therefore, this study provides increased support for impairment of cognitive flexibility due to overweight. Method: The study included 34 overweight and 35 normal-weight participants. They were required to complete the food and flower target AX-continuous performance test (AX–CPT), including the resting-state fMRI and cue-triggered food craving subscales. We compared the performance difference between the two tasks. Furthermore, we investigated whether the cue-triggered food cravings and the corresponding brain regions mediated the effect of overweight on the two control mechanisms. Result: Significant differences were found only in the food target AX-CPT task, where overweight participants performed worse. Cue-triggered food cravings mediated this relationship. Additionally, we found that the brain regions associated with cue-triggered food cravings (bilateral SFG) can completely mediate the relationship between BMI and the z-value of the fat mass index and sensitivity to proactive control. Conclusion: In the food target task, overweight participants performed worse in both control mechanisms. Moreover, we also revealed the potential mechanism by which being overweight might affect the two control mechanisms through cue-triggered food cravings.

scholarly journals Right anterior cerebellum BOLD responses reflect age related changes in Simon task sequential effects

2018 ◽  
Vol 109 ◽  
pp. 155-164 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Aisenberg ◽  
A. Sapir ◽  
A. Close ◽  
A. Henik ◽  
G. d’Avossa
Keyword(s):  
Simon Task ◽  
Sequential Effects ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Bold Responses ◽  
Age Related Changes
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