Continuous effects of bilingualism and attention on Flanker task performance

Abstract

Both bilingualism and attention contribute to the development of executive functioning (EF), with higher levels of both leading to better outcomes. The present study treats bilingualism and attention as continuous variables to investigate their impact on EF. Eighty-two 9-year-olds who were attending a French school in an anglophone community completed a flanker task. Children's progress in French represented their level of bilingualism, and attention was assessed through a standard standardized instrument. Degree of bilingualism and degree of attention were both positively related to performance, but exposure to a third language in the home did not further affect outcomes.

Does language context impact the neural correlates of executive control in monolingual and multilingual young adults?

“…Preliminary analyses showed no significant difference in task performance between bilinguals and trilinguals (cf. Chung-Fat-Yim et al, 2020;Poarch & Van Hell, 2012b;Poarch & Bialystok, 2015), so the groups were collapsed in further analyses. Participants were recruited through the Undergraduate Research Participant Pool (URPP) and posters at York University in Toronto, Canada.…”

Multilingualism and verbal short-term/working memory: Evidence from academics

“…Participants are given a score (1 or 0) for each correct answer, and the maximum number of correct answers is 60. Raven raw scores usually are converted into standardized scores based an age-based norming tables (e.g., Bialystok, Craik, Klein & Viswanathan, 2004;Chung-Fat-Yim et al, 2020; but see Mishra, Padmanabhuni, Bhandari, Viswambharan & Prasad, 2019). However, raw values were used in the present study, as normative data and conversion tables for RSPM do not exist in Norwegian (Helland-Riise & Martinussen, 2017).…”

“…An equally serious methodological limitation to the studies on the impact of bilingualism/multilingualism on cognitive abilities is that, although bilingualism/multilingualism should be treated as a continuous variable (e.g., Luk & Bialystok, 2013), the vast majority of studies have treated bilingualism as a categorical variable. (Some of the few studies treating bilingualism/multilingualism as a continuous variable include Bialystok & Barac, 2012;Boumeester, Michel & Fyndanis, 2019;Chung-Fat-Yim, Sorge & Bialystok, 2020;and Sorge, Toplak & Bialystok, 2017).…”

The effects of bilingualism on cognition and behaviour in individuals with attention deficits: A scoping review

“…The included studies can be divided into two groups based on their outcome variables. Six studies measured cognitive abilities related to executive function (Mor et al, 2015;Sorge et al, 2017;Sharma, 2019;Chung-Fat-Yim et al, 2020;Hardy et al, 2021), while four studies looked at levels of attention problems (Toppelberg et al, 2002), ADHD-related behavioural symptoms (Sharma, 2019;Sharma et al, 2022) or the odds of receiving an ADHD diagnosis (Goh et al, 2020). The findings for these two groups of studies will be presented separately below.…”