Bilingualism and Enhanced Attention in Early Adulthood

Autor/in	Stafford, Catherine A.
Titel	Bilingualism and Enhanced Attention in Early Adulthood
Quelle	In: International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 14 (2011) 1, S.1-22 (22 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	1367-0050
Schlagwörter	Short Term Memory; Monolingualism; Bilingualism; Cognitive Processes; Nonverbal Communication; Language Processing; Attention Control; Spanish; English (Second Language); Second Language Learning; Task Analysis; Correlation; Inhibition; Statistical Analysis + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Kurzzeitgedächtnis; Bilingualismus; Cognitive process; Kognitiver Prozess; Non-verbal communication; Nonverbale Kommunikation; Sprachverarbeitung; Aufmerksamkeitstest; Spanisch; English as second language; English; Second Language; Englisch als Zweitsprache; Zweitsprachenerwerb; Aufgabenanalyse; Korrelation; Hemmung; Statistische Analyse
Abstract	This exploratory study investigated executive attention during nonverbal and verbal processing among adults with a range of bilingual experience. Previous research has found that bilingual children control their attention better than their monolingual peers and that superior attentional control in some processing contexts persists into adulthood among lifelong bilinguals. An open question is whether late-acquired experience learning and using two languages can lead to enhanced executive attention or whether these cognitive advantages are available only to individuals whose bilingualism develops in early childhood. A total of 48 Spanish-English bilinguals completed verbal and nonverbal tasks designed to assess aspects of executive attention including inhibitory control and monitoring and switching of attention (i.e. working memory capacity). Preliminary results suggest an association between bilingual experience and enhanced efficiency of these components of executive attention in the nonverbal domain. Furthermore, a significant relationship between the efficiency of inhibitory control in verbal and nonverbal domains hints at a connection between specific control over language and enhanced domain-general executive control that may be more or less evident depending on task demands. These encouraging pilot results warrant larger-scale replication that brings together data from both linguistic and nonlinguistic processing as bilingualism research seeks to extend its understanding of bilingual cognition. (Contains 9 tables and 12 notes.) (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2017/4/10