The Relationship between Bilingualism and Selective Attention in Young Adults: Evidence from an Ambiguous Figures Task

Abstract

Previous research has shown that bilinguals outperform monolinguals on a variety of tasks that have been described as involving executive functioning, but the precise mechanism for those effects or a clear definition for "executive function" is unknown. This uncertainty has led to a number of studies for which no performance difference between monolingual and bilingual adults has been detected. One approach to clarifying these issues comes from research with children showing that bilinguals were more able than their monolingual peers to perceive both interpretations of an ambiguous figure, an ability that is more tied to a conception of selective attention than to specific components of executive function. The present study extends this notion to adults by assessing their ability to see the alternative image in an ambiguous figure. Bilinguals performed this task more efficiently than monolinguals by requiring fewer cues to identify the second image. This finding has implications for the role of selective attention in performance differences between monolinguals and bilinguals.

The Minimal and Short-Lived Effects of Minority Language Exposure on the Executive Functions of Frisian-Dutch Bilingual Children

“…The absence of an effect on verbal working memory in the current study suggests that the effect of bilingualism on verbal working memory is less robust than the effect of bilingualism on selective attention. The finding that degree of bilingualism only had an effect on selective attention strengthens the view that selective attention, rather than interference suppression, is the core of the bilingual EF advantage ( Chung-Fat-Yim et al, 2016 ). Chung-Fat-Yim et al (2016) argue that the ability to selectively attend to visual stimuli and to disengage from the focus of attention when criteria are not met is similar to the kind of challenge that bilinguals face every day, namely to selectively attend to the linguistic structures of the target language and to disengage attention from structures that do not belong to the target language.…”

“…The mechanism that is argued to lead to enhancement of EF in bilinguals is the monitoring of two co-activated languages in the brain. According to some researchers, the central process of this mechanism is inhibition of interference from the non-target language ( Green, 1998 ), whereas others suggest that it is attention to the target language ( Costa et al, 2006 ; Chung-Fat-Yim et al, 2016 ). In any case, it is argued that this linguistic practice of inhibition/attention generalizes to other, non-linguistic, domains, resulting in the bilingual EF advantage ( Green, 1998 ; Bialystok et al, 2004 ; Costa et al, 2009 ; Chung-Fat-Yim et al, 2016 ).…”

“…According to some researchers, the central process of this mechanism is inhibition of interference from the non-target language ( Green, 1998 ), whereas others suggest that it is attention to the target language ( Costa et al, 2006 ; Chung-Fat-Yim et al, 2016 ). In any case, it is argued that this linguistic practice of inhibition/attention generalizes to other, non-linguistic, domains, resulting in the bilingual EF advantage ( Green, 1998 ; Bialystok et al, 2004 ; Costa et al, 2009 ; Chung-Fat-Yim et al, 2016 ). Previous studies have also found cognitive effects of bilingualism in majority-minority language settings with closely related languages, such as Italian and Sardinian ( Lauchlan et al, 2013 ; Garraffa et al, 2015 ) and Cypriot Greek and Standard Modern Greek ( Antoniou et al, 2016 ).…”

The bilingual adaptation: How minds accommodate experience.

“…However, in a larger study of 108 participants that included younger and older monolinguals and bilinguals, bilinguals outperformed monolinguals on a Simon task in both age groups; subdividing the bilinguals into balanced and unbalanced did not change this outcome (Salvatierra & Rosselli, 2010). Finally, as in the study with children described earlier (Greenberg et al, 2013), bilingual young adults required fewer cues than monolinguals to find the alternative image in an ambiguous figure (Chung-Fat-Yim, Sorge, & Bialystok, in press). …”

Benefits of foreign language learning and bilingualism: An analysis of published empirical research 2012–2019

“…According to earlier research by Rueda, Posner, Rothbart, and Davis‐Stober (), this area of human development deals with the ability to allocate attention to relevant objects or locations (orienting), maintaining a state of readiness (alertness), and selecting the most goal‐relevant response (executive control). Studies in this theme explored the relationship between bilingualism and selective attention (Blom, Boerma, Bosma, Cornips, & Everaert, ; Chung‐Fat‐Yim, Sorge, & Bialystok, ), attentional processes in low SES bilingual children (Ladas, Carrol, & Vivas, ; Yang & Yang, ), and the role of attentional control in senior adults (Ong, Sewell, Weekes, McKague, & Abutalebi, ). Collectively, the findings supported the bilingual advantage in attentional control tasks and particularly stressed the positive impact of early childhood and adult bilingualism on the attentional system.…”