Alerting, Orienting, and Executive Control: The Effect of Bilingualism and Age on the Subcomponents of Attention
Life-long experience of using two or more languages has been shown to enhance cognitive control abilities in young and elderly bilinguals in comparison to their monolingual peers. This advantage has been found to be larger in older adults in comparison to younger adults, suggesting that bilingualism...
Main Authors: | , , , |
---|---|
Format: | Article |
Language: | English |
Published: |
Frontiers Media S.A.
2019-10-01
|
Series: | Frontiers in Neurology |
Subjects: | |
Online Access: | https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fneur.2019.01122/full |
id |
doaj-9606164ebcf149348dee69ee40bfa5c1 |
---|---|
record_format |
Article |
spelling |
doaj-9606164ebcf149348dee69ee40bfa5c12020-11-25T02:09:20ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Neurology1664-22952019-10-011010.3389/fneur.2019.01122483266Alerting, Orienting, and Executive Control: The Effect of Bilingualism and Age on the Subcomponents of AttentionTanya Dash0Tanya Dash1Pierre Berroir2Pierre Berroir3Yves Joanette4Yves Joanette5Ana Inés Ansaldo6Ana Inés Ansaldo7Centre de recherche de l'Institut Universitaire de Gériatrie de Montréal, Montreal, QC, CanadaÉcole d'orthophonie et d'audiologie, Faculté de médecine, Université de Montréal, Montreal, QC, CanadaCentre de recherche de l'Institut Universitaire de Gériatrie de Montréal, Montreal, QC, CanadaInstitute of Biomedical Engineering, Department of Pharmacology and Physiology, Faculty of Medicine, Université de Montréal, Montreal, QC, CanadaCentre de recherche de l'Institut Universitaire de Gériatrie de Montréal, Montreal, QC, CanadaÉcole d'orthophonie et d'audiologie, Faculté de médecine, Université de Montréal, Montreal, QC, CanadaCentre de recherche de l'Institut Universitaire de Gériatrie de Montréal, Montreal, QC, CanadaÉcole d'orthophonie et d'audiologie, Faculté de médecine, Université de Montréal, Montreal, QC, CanadaLife-long experience of using two or more languages has been shown to enhance cognitive control abilities in young and elderly bilinguals in comparison to their monolingual peers. This advantage has been found to be larger in older adults in comparison to younger adults, suggesting that bilingualism provides advantages in cognitive control abilities. However, studies showing this effect have used a variety of tasks (Simon Task, Stroop task, Flanker Task), each measuring different subcomponents of attention and raising mixed results. At the same time, attention is not a unitary function but comprises of subcomponents which can be distinctively addressed within the Attention Network Test (ANT) (1, 2). The purpose of this work was to examine the neurofunctional correlates of the subcomponents of attention in healthy young and elderly bilinguals taking into account the L2 age of acquisition, language usage, and proficiency. Participants performed an fMRI version of the ANT task, and speed, accuracy, and BOLD data were collected. As expected, results show slower overall response times with increasing age. The ability to take advantage of the warning cues also decreased with age, resulting in reduced alerting and orienting abilities in older adults. fMRI results showed an increase in neurofunctional activity in the frontal and parietal areas in elderly bilinguals when compared to young bilinguals. Furthermore, higher L2 proficiency correlated negatively with activation in frontal area, and that faster RTs correlated negatively with activation in frontal and parietal areas. Such a correlation, especially with L2 proficiency was not present in young bilinguals and provides evidence for a bilingual advantage in the alerting subcomponent of attention that characterizes elderly bilinguals' performance. This study thus provides extra details about the bilingual advantage in the subcomponent of attention, in older bilinguals. Consequently, speaking more than one language impacts cognition and the brain later in life.https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fneur.2019.01122/fullbilingualismsubcomponents of attentionneuroimagingattention network taskaging |
collection |
DOAJ |
language |
English |
format |
Article |
sources |
DOAJ |
author |
Tanya Dash Tanya Dash Pierre Berroir Pierre Berroir Yves Joanette Yves Joanette Ana Inés Ansaldo Ana Inés Ansaldo |
spellingShingle |
Tanya Dash Tanya Dash Pierre Berroir Pierre Berroir Yves Joanette Yves Joanette Ana Inés Ansaldo Ana Inés Ansaldo Alerting, Orienting, and Executive Control: The Effect of Bilingualism and Age on the Subcomponents of Attention Frontiers in Neurology bilingualism subcomponents of attention neuroimaging attention network task aging |
author_facet |
Tanya Dash Tanya Dash Pierre Berroir Pierre Berroir Yves Joanette Yves Joanette Ana Inés Ansaldo Ana Inés Ansaldo |
author_sort |
Tanya Dash |
title |
Alerting, Orienting, and Executive Control: The Effect of Bilingualism and Age on the Subcomponents of Attention |
title_short |
Alerting, Orienting, and Executive Control: The Effect of Bilingualism and Age on the Subcomponents of Attention |
title_full |
Alerting, Orienting, and Executive Control: The Effect of Bilingualism and Age on the Subcomponents of Attention |
title_fullStr |
Alerting, Orienting, and Executive Control: The Effect of Bilingualism and Age on the Subcomponents of Attention |
title_full_unstemmed |
Alerting, Orienting, and Executive Control: The Effect of Bilingualism and Age on the Subcomponents of Attention |
title_sort |
alerting, orienting, and executive control: the effect of bilingualism and age on the subcomponents of attention |
publisher |
Frontiers Media S.A. |
series |
Frontiers in Neurology |
issn |
1664-2295 |
publishDate |
2019-10-01 |
description |
Life-long experience of using two or more languages has been shown to enhance cognitive control abilities in young and elderly bilinguals in comparison to their monolingual peers. This advantage has been found to be larger in older adults in comparison to younger adults, suggesting that bilingualism provides advantages in cognitive control abilities. However, studies showing this effect have used a variety of tasks (Simon Task, Stroop task, Flanker Task), each measuring different subcomponents of attention and raising mixed results. At the same time, attention is not a unitary function but comprises of subcomponents which can be distinctively addressed within the Attention Network Test (ANT) (1, 2). The purpose of this work was to examine the neurofunctional correlates of the subcomponents of attention in healthy young and elderly bilinguals taking into account the L2 age of acquisition, language usage, and proficiency. Participants performed an fMRI version of the ANT task, and speed, accuracy, and BOLD data were collected. As expected, results show slower overall response times with increasing age. The ability to take advantage of the warning cues also decreased with age, resulting in reduced alerting and orienting abilities in older adults. fMRI results showed an increase in neurofunctional activity in the frontal and parietal areas in elderly bilinguals when compared to young bilinguals. Furthermore, higher L2 proficiency correlated negatively with activation in frontal area, and that faster RTs correlated negatively with activation in frontal and parietal areas. Such a correlation, especially with L2 proficiency was not present in young bilinguals and provides evidence for a bilingual advantage in the alerting subcomponent of attention that characterizes elderly bilinguals' performance. This study thus provides extra details about the bilingual advantage in the subcomponent of attention, in older bilinguals. Consequently, speaking more than one language impacts cognition and the brain later in life. |
topic |
bilingualism subcomponents of attention neuroimaging attention network task aging |
url |
https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fneur.2019.01122/full |
work_keys_str_mv |
AT tanyadash alertingorientingandexecutivecontroltheeffectofbilingualismandageonthesubcomponentsofattention AT tanyadash alertingorientingandexecutivecontroltheeffectofbilingualismandageonthesubcomponentsofattention AT pierreberroir alertingorientingandexecutivecontroltheeffectofbilingualismandageonthesubcomponentsofattention AT pierreberroir alertingorientingandexecutivecontroltheeffectofbilingualismandageonthesubcomponentsofattention AT yvesjoanette alertingorientingandexecutivecontroltheeffectofbilingualismandageonthesubcomponentsofattention AT yvesjoanette alertingorientingandexecutivecontroltheeffectofbilingualismandageonthesubcomponentsofattention AT anainesansaldo alertingorientingandexecutivecontroltheeffectofbilingualismandageonthesubcomponentsofattention AT anainesansaldo alertingorientingandexecutivecontroltheeffectofbilingualismandageonthesubcomponentsofattention |
_version_ |
1724924412454502400 |