Investigating the Effects of Language-Switching Frequency on Attentional and Executive Functioning in Proficient Bilinguals

Barbu, Cristina-Anca; Gillet, Sophie; Poncelet, Martin

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01078

Cited by 13 publications

(15 citation statements)

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“…Thus, children learning English as L2 could more quickly show a higher rate of switching behaviors between L1 and L2, as a certain level of L2 and a number of exposition opportunities are required to lead to switching behaviors. This switching behavior has been related to better cognitive flexibility abilities in bilingual adult studies (e.g., Barbu et al, 2018;Barbu et al, 2020). These authors compared two groups of highly proficient bilinguals and found an advantage in the cognitive flexibility task in favor of the group that presented a high (vs. low) rate of switching behaviors in daily life.…”

Section: The Linguistic Characteristics Of the Languages At Stakementioning

confidence: 96%

Exploration of Attentional and Executive Abilities in French-Speaking Children Immersed in Dutch Since 1, 2, 3, and 6 Years

2020

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Advantages in diverse aspects of cognitive functioning have been reported in early bilinguals (Bialystok, 2011) as well as in children frequenting an early bilingual immersion school program (Nicolay and Poncelet, 2015). However, during the last decade, some studies failed to replicate these advantages. Currently, the presence of cognitive benefits in children frequenting an immersion program remains debated. The lack of consistency between the studies could come from the fact that time spent by children within the immersion program is variable from one study to the other and that studies used different tasks to assess the same cognitive function. The main aim of the present study was to determine how time spent in immersion affects the emergence of cognitive advantages along the primary schooling. We compared 196 immersed Dutch-speaking children since they were 5 years old and 195 non-immersed French-speaking children, from different grades of the primary schooling (i.e., at 6, 7, 8, and 12 years old) by using the same attentional and executive tasks as those used in previous studies having shown a bilingual advantage. Furthermore, these groups were matched on a set of variables known to influence cognitive functioning. After 1, 2, and 3 years of enrolment in this program, performances of immersed compared to non-immersed children did not differ for any task. However, after 6 years, immersed children outperformed non-immersed children on the cognitive flexibility and the working memory tasks. These results show that, in French-speaking children immersed in Dutch, cognitive advantages could depend on the length of time spent in immersion since they are not present at the beginning (after 1, 2, and 3 years) but seem to emerge at the end of it (after 6 years). In contrast, in previous studies conducted in English immersion, advantages appear at the beginning of the primary schooling but are absent at the end of it. Furthermore, these results suggest that the emergence of cognitive advantages may vary depending on the second language learned. The results are discussed in terms of linguistic characteristics and status of the languages at stake.

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Section: The Linguistic Characteristics Of the Languages At Stakementioning

confidence: 96%

Exploration of Attentional and Executive Abilities in French-Speaking Children Immersed in Dutch Since 1, 2, 3, and 6 Years

2020

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“…The balance in language use has been widely discussed as a core factor to explain the bilingual advantage (Verreyt et al, 2016;Yang et al, 2016;Hartanto and Yang, 2020). Even in balanced bilinguals, only high-frequency language switchers showed an advantage over monolinguals in tasks that measure cognitive flexibility (Barbu et al, 2020).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Effect of Bilingualism on Cue-Based vs. Memory-Based Task Switching in Older Adults

Rieker

Avilés

Ballesteros

2020

Front. Hum. Neurosci.

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Findings suggest a positive impact of bilingualism on cognition, including the later onset of dementia. However, it is not clear to what extent these effects are influenced by variations in attentional control demands in response to specific task requirements. In this study, 20 bilingual and 20 monolingual older adults performed a task-switching task under explicit task-cuing vs. memory-based switching conditions. In the cued condition, task switches occurred in random order and a visual cue signaled the next task to be performed. In the memory-based condition, the task alternated after every second trial in a predictable sequence without presenting a cue. The performance of bilinguals did not vary across experimental conditions, whereas monolinguals experienced a pronounced increase in response latencies and error rates in the cued condition. Both groups produced similar switch costs (difference in performance on switch trials as opposed to repeating trials within the mixed-task block) and mixing costs (difference in performance on repeat trials of a mixed-task block as opposed to trials of a single-task block), but bilinguals produced them with lower response latencies. The cognitive benefits of bilingualism seem not to apply to executive functions per se but to affect specific cognitive processes that involve task-relevant context processing. The present results suggest that lifelong bilingualism could promote in older adults a flexible adjustment to environmental cues, but only with increased task demands. However, due to the small sample size, the results should be interpreted with caution.

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“…This could also increase the switching opportunities of the child between his two languages. Moreover, this switching behaviour has been linked with the advantage found in cognitive flexibility tasks [ 15 , 16 ]. The children learning English as L2 could thus present the bilingual cognitive advantages earlier in their schooling.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Whereas Barbu, Gonzalez, Gillet, & Poncelet [ 29 ] showed that French-speaking children immersed in English since two years did not present an advantage on executive functions nor on addition calculations, they showed, surprisingly, a disadvantage for immersed children in subtraction calculations. According to these authors, as the immersed children do not master their L2 sufficiently, they use important attentional resources when processing L2 information given by teachers.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…According to these authors, as the immersed children do not master their L2 sufficiently, they use important attentional resources when processing L2 information given by teachers. As a consequence, the constant L2 processing might have generated an extra-cognitive load during the task that might have a negative impact on the completion of arithmetic operations [ 29 ]. Further investigations should permit better understanding of arithmetic’s evolution in immersed children.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Early bilingual immersion school program and cognitive development in French-speaking children: Effect of the second language learned (English vs. Dutch) and exposition duration (2 vs. 5 years)

2021

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The results of studies targeting cognitive and academic advantages in children frequenting early bilingual immersion school programs (CLIL) have been contradictory. While the impact of the amount of CLIL experience has already been studied, the role of the second language learned has been little studied to account for differences among study findings. The link between executive skills (EF) and scholar abilities (e.g., mathematics) in the CLIL context has also been little investigated. The purpose of the present study was to determine if the impact of CLIL on EF and academic performances varies depending on the immersion language and the duration of CLIL experience. The sample included a total of 230 French-speaking children attending second (141) and fifth (89) grade classes. Within each grade, there were three matched language groups composed of children respectively immersed in English, immersed in Dutch, and non-immersed controls. The children were administered tasks assessing executive functions [alerting, cognitive flexibility, and working memory], as well as arithmetic abilities. In second grade, we detected no difference in EF between the language groups. On the other hand, in fifth grade, the two immersed groups outperformed the non-immersed group on the cognitive flexibility task but did not differ between them. Moreover, only the Dutch immersed group outperformed the control group on the working memory task. Arithmetic performances also differed depending on the language learned; in second grade, Dutch learners performed better than the monolingual group. In fifth grade, Dutch learners outperformed the two other groups. These results suggest that the impact of CLIL on executive skills and arithmetic performances might be modulated by the amount of CLIL experience and the second language learned in immersion.

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Investigating the Effects of Language-Switching Frequency on Attentional and Executive Functioning in Proficient Bilinguals

Cited by 13 publications

References 45 publications

Exploration of Attentional and Executive Abilities in French-Speaking Children Immersed in Dutch Since 1, 2, 3, and 6 Years

Exploration of Attentional and Executive Abilities in French-Speaking Children Immersed in Dutch Since 1, 2, 3, and 6 Years

The Effect of Bilingualism on Cue-Based vs. Memory-Based Task Switching in Older Adults

Early bilingual immersion school program and cognitive development in French-speaking children: Effect of the second language learned (English vs. Dutch) and exposition duration (2 vs. 5 years)

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