The Effect of Bilingualism and Aging on Inhibitory Control

Recent studies have suggested that bilingualism may provide an advantage to
older adults on inhibitory control and have a positive effect on some cognitive
declines seen in normal aging. This study examined the effects of bilingualism on
inhibitory control using a Simon task and a Stroop task on a heterogeneous sample of
bilinguals whose level of proficiency on each of their two languages varied widely.
Comparison of performances between younger and older monolingual and bilingual
participants revealed a bilingual advantage on the Simon task. Results support the
view that bilingualism increases skills that are associated with selective attention.
Additionally, older bilingual adults performed as well as younger bilingual adults
suggesting they are not experiencing the age-related declines in the efficiency of
inhibitory processes observed in the older monolingual adults. However, a bilingual
advantage was not observed on the Stroop task indicating that the advantage may
depend on the nature of the distracting stimulus. Bilinguals may be better equipped
than monolinguals at inhibiting misleading spatial information but not at inhibiting misleading linguistic information. The performance of balanced and non-balanced
bilinguals was similar under both Simon and Stroop tasks suggesting that language
level proficiency does not play a role in providing an advantage.