Bilingual Advantage in Executive Functioning - Coursework Example

Bilingual Advantage in Executive Functioning Studies show that bilingual individuals hold an advantage over their monolingual counterparts in executive function. The competing of two languages on the basis of which is to be applied in a given situation results in a conflict, and the executive function process has to inhibit one language at the expense of the other. What is presented is a typical conflict situation that requires suppression of one language and switching to the other, while monitoring activities that are interconnected. The ability to choose gives bilinguals an advantage when it comes to conflict resolution because they are always faced with that situation. Different task are employed to determine the bilingual advantage in individuals. Such tasks include the Flanker test, attention network task and Boston naming task. Bilingualism puts individuals in a better position to make fast decisions when faced with conflicts, as their daily lives deal with that selection dilemma. Keywords: bilingual, monolingual, processing, language, executive function, Attention Network Task (ANT), Flanker test, Boston naming task Bilingual Advantage in Executive Functioning Introduction Bilingualism is growing day by day in the world today, with individuals who are bilingual having unique advantages that play a crucial role in cognitive development. Past studies have revealed differences that emerge mainly in children, if they are brought up learning at least two languages. Bilingualism is intensive, and it is sustained over an extended period of learning so as to adapt, hence individuals develop into being bilingual through life experiences. The effect of bilingualism on behavior becomes pronounced in the form of enhanced executive functioning in individuals. The effects are experienced in the entire life of an individual from childhood through adulthood. Studies show that bilinguals will always outperform monolingual counterparts on executive functioning undertakings. Fluent bilinguals are said to have far-reaching understanding in language switching involving situation monitoring, to select an appropriate language and activate it while inhibiting others. The profound experiences may increase enhanced ability in general cognitive control, rather than being specific to language. Researchers have identified that bilingualism has an advantage in individual executive functioning like the monitoring goal setting cues, attention switching to goal-relevant information sources, while selecting against those that are less significant. However, there are situations when the bilingual advantage fails to express itself, and it cannot be observed. Behavioural studies indicate that the bilingual experience affects cognitive performance. Observations show that bilinguals who use both languages regularly are likely to be affected whenever one of their languages is active even in mostly monolingual situations. The situation is likely to cause problems of attention control hence the need for correct selection of a type where the linguistics standard is met. The urge to restrict attention to the system’s goal in the framework of an active competing system is what differentiates bilingual speech production. Similarly, it is important for both linguistic effects and cognitive behavior in bilinguals. In addition to selection constraints that involve fast linguistic processing, bilingual speakers face the challenge of having to select the correct language from two competing options. Bilingualism is thought to play a significant role in executive functioning of an individual. An understanding of what executive function entails will help establish the relationship between bilingualism and these functions. Executive functions comprise of the general purpose control mechanisms that are considered to be central to self-regulation of thought and behavior that contribute to accomplishment of given goals. The functions have been identified to include organizing, planning, problem-solving, switching between tasks, monitoring for conflict, goal selection, switching between tasks updating working memory and monitoring performance levels among others. Bilingual Advantage in Executive Functioning Bilingualism is beneficial to executive functioning in that the power competes in varying degrees. Executive functioning is characterised by three components, namely updating, inhibition and switching. Studies indicate that bilinguals in inhibitory control will select relevant information and suppress any competing and distracting information, and in the process, they will exercise control at two levels (Bialystok, 2009). The first is the higher grade of target setting where a language is selected at the expense of the other. The second inhibition level is when the appropriate language lexical forms become active, inhibiting the rival translation equivalents. Once the practice perfects a general ability rather than a particular language, then bilinguals are said to be in positions that are less compromising when they are dealing with nonlinguistic tasks. Inhibitory control can be marked by the mean difference between tasks that are in conflict and require resolution to those that do not. For instance, in flanker tasks, the conflict appears on part of the task because of a compelling stimulus that although irrelevant to the task, is connected in a inconsistent way with reference to the relevant task. In this case, performance enhancement is through improving the effect of the appropriate information in regard to the countering information (Bialystok, 2011). Evidence indicates that the bilingual benefit of inhibitory control demonstrates a great advantage in tasks that require inhibitory control. Cognitive behaviour transforms with transformation of goals hence monitoring of performance, environment and internal states that are all significant. Bilinguals have an advantage in executive functioning in that they have the ability to manage attention to rapidly changing demands. The bilingual advantage puts bilingual individuals in a position to handle involving tasks of mixed trials of different categories. Bilinguals are said to be efficient in implementing tasks requiring conflict resolution in comparison to those with no conflicts (Costa, Hernandez & Sebastian-Galles, 2008). Monitoring of executive functioning arises from the fact that bilinguals need to monitor the languages for their interactions regularly. Switching forms a significant experience for bilinguals similar to the way they change from a particular language to the other. Switching of language is convoluted to the presumption that there is interlinking of lexicons to the same system; this causes the demand to suppress conversion equivalents of the rival language. The ability to switch between tasks requires a regulatory process that is instrumentally different from monitoring and inhibitory control. Bilingual benefit in switching geared tests involve pure blocks, where same tasks on different trials are performed by participants or assorted block trials that involve switching between tasks, and thirdly those that repeat the same decision. In children, studies show that those who are bilingual develop the ability efficiently to solve problems that are challenging at a tender age compared to monolinguals. The differences are highlighted by various performances on the dimensional change card task, where kids sort set bivalent stimuli by a given feature either color or size, then instantaneously resort them using different characteristics like shape (Brito, Grenell & Barr, 2014). For 5-year-old children, a typical error is notable as they continue with sorting regardless of the ability to articulate the additional rule in the second round. The next round presents a challenge in that they not only have to remember the rule, but they also have to pay attention to the additional feature while ignoring the element before that is still present. Since the first feature is the center of achievement in the earliest round, it is therefore very significant, and likely employed in interpreting the effect. The capacity to change for the sorting decision and attend to the additional feature, while the initial feature remains equally important, is an element of executive functioning. Most investigations indicate that bilinguals understand the problem early compared to monolinguals. Attention processes can be divided into various distinct elements that are defined by different networks of the brain. Their components include signaling, orientation and executive functioning, and they are independent of each other. Executive function is the principal component that is mostly affected by bilingualism since it involves determining the right move in a goal-directed way and at times, it may incorporate inhibitory control. To assess the component, it usually requires tasks that employ conflict processing through monitoring and resolution. Monitoring will entail detecting of conflict, considering its extent and signaling the required response. Therefore, monitoring gives a provision for not only detecting the conflict, but also adjusting to a situation that may require conflict resolution and vice versa. The Attention Network Task (ANT) is a blend of the flanker task together with the cue reaction time task, and it is extensively employed in assessing various issues that range from genetic studies of attention to developmental issues. In the task, participants are required to show whether a central arrow looks to the left or right, and the objective effect is displayed either below or above the point of fixation. The arrow has two flanker arrows where current congruent trials are pointing in the same direction, or incongruent trials face in different directions from the target arrow. Responses for incongruent trials are said to be slower compared to agreeable trials disclosing the period required to solve the discord between the objective stimuli and the flanker facts that ought to be ignored (Anton, Dunabeitia, Estevez, Hernandez,Castilo,Fuentes, & Carreiras, 2014). The effect is employed in exploring how the executive functioning network operates. The task is particularly suitable for assessing the possible distinctions between bilinguals and monolinguals because it depends on linguistics and functions of memory that collaborate with bilingualism. The way the Attention Network Task (ANT) does the assessment of the executive functioning network differs from the rest of the tasks that have previously been employed. The multidimensionality of the task enhances making of predictions of possible circumstances that may be influenced by bilingualism. Bilinguals continued use of control mechanisms affects the development of executive functioning positively, especially the element of inhibitory control, hence leading to clear forecast. Monolinguals show much difference between agreeable and disagreeable trials compared to bilinguals. Therefore, bilingualism helps in aiding conflict resolution, and the significant difference in the conflict effect is attenuated with task practice (Bialystok, 2009). Similarly, a thorough use of the network of executive control given unchanging requirements can aid monolinguals scale down the degree of conflict effect, thus putting them at par with the efficiency level of bilinguals. Bilinguals, according to most studies, have been found to have a tendency of being faster than monolingual individuals in tasks where inhibitory control is a component. The difference is evident when considering congruent trials that require conflict resolution, and it has been understood to reveal a bilingual benefit in the control process employed by the task (Bialystok & Viswanathan, 2009). The continuous monitoring process responsible for detecting possible conflicting information relies on the network of executive control hence bilinguals are better positioned to be faster than monolinguals. From this underlying principle, bilinguals will enjoy the processing advantage leading to faster response times for both incongruent and congruent trials. Response to trials tend to be faster if preceded by those of the same type rather than different ones; that is, a reaction to a congruent trial will be speedy if it is foreshadowed by a congruent trial and vice versa. The effect corresponds to other switching effects, and it reveals the related cost of changing mindsets, and it may require more cognitive responses rather than the simple rule holding tendencies. However, if the shifting process relies on the executive control to some degree, then it is expected that the associated cost of switching is likely to be minimal in bilinguals compared to monolinguals. Comparatively, the differences in switching cost depend on the direction of the shift since some transitions may require more attention efforts than others (Paap & Greenberg, 2013). For instance, a change from a difficult task to an easier one is likely to be costly compared to shifting from easier to difficult. When faced with incongruent trials, participants are required to restrain the response of flankers, and in the case that the trial is still disagreeable, they will still restrain the response evoked by flankers. But in a situation where the following trial turns to be congruent, then participants have to try and defeat the tendency to inhibit the response evoked by flankers, because the reactions of target and flanker are similar. Therefore, the cognitive force employed to overcome the impulse to suppress response evoked by flankers incurs the cost of time, although the switch may be performed when an agreeable trial and disagreeable trial are involved. In this case, if a bilingual individual exercises response in the process of switching then there is a possibility that the difference between both groups will be more identifiable, especially if the tasks turn out to be more complex (Bialystok & Martin, 2004). Under the given conditions and on presumptions that efficiency differences on executive control network will be evident under processing demanding situations, then it is predicted that bilinguals will have an upper edge over monolinguals when it comes to coping with extra cognitive load of changing into an easier load. Therefore, asymmetrical switch costs are expected for monolinguals compared to reduced ones for bilinguals. Although bilinguals are said to hold a significant advantage over their monolingual counterparts, limitations have been documented among them in terms of challenges of lexical access and having lower vocabularies. For instance, in the Boston naming test, which requires participants to name pictures with increasing difficulty as the task continues and working memory for verbal material, bilinguals have demonstrated limitations compared to monolinguals. However, for the Boston naming task, there is evidence that the limitation in bilinguals may be exaggerated in that they have been found to show different results depending on the scoring method. Accepting responses for bilinguals in either language yields higher score relative to a situation where they are needed to respond in one of their languages (Valian, 2015). Various studies that have examined language group difference and verbal fluency have found bilinguals to be better in letter fluency that has an element of executive functioning, but not in category fluency. The category fluency limitation in bilinguals is due to overreliance on linguistic representations. Based on vocabulary size among bilinguals, those with high vocabulary outperformed those with low vocabulary and monolinguals. The reason for lexical deficits among bilinguals has not been well documented, and it is mostly associated with the fact that bilinguals do not employ their languages often compared to monolinguals who do. The effect is the creation of feeble connections among the pertinent connections that are significant for quick and articulate speech production. The assertion follows the connectionist representation in which avenues that trigger the clannish networks of concepts, and words are spread across the languages making association of each language less practiced hence less fluent. Decrease in lexical access is associated with the conflict arising from the competing item in the non-objective language, which requires a mechanism to respond by controlling the attention of the objective language, while restricting the intrusive option (Brito,Grenell & Barr, 2014). Such a conflict is fixed by executive functioning processes for attention and control switching. Alternatively, if the processes are involved in normal production of language for bilinguals, then there is a possibility that regular usage in typical situations will transform them into being more efficient and available for a range of applications. Bilingualism is an experience that is identified to have a significant effect on cognitive behavior, even though the nature of the effect is not well pronounced. Research on lexical retrieval and language proficiency indicates shortfalls for bilinguals in regard to representation base and effectiveness with which lexical items can be retrieved. Throughout the lifespan of an individual, bilingual advantage expresses itself in different forms, with the processes developing early in children and then becoming more efficient in adults and as old age reckons, it severely declines (Kousaie, Sheppard, Lemieux, Monetta & Taler, 2014). Verbal recall tasks tend to disadvantage bilinguals, but if they get involved in non-verbal material, their performance equalizes and it gives them an advantage over monolinguals. Neuroimaging proof supports the assertion that the front regions in bilinguals are activated when they are selecting and changing language. The conflict of choosing compromises lexical retrieval since selection requires effort and promotes executive functioning through its extended involvement in production of language (Bialystok, 2011). Effect on memory is minimal, but the degree of performance depends on linguistic processing, that is, limiting or administrative processing that works in favor hence the difference in the performance of both monolinguals and bilinguals. Considering that bilingualism contributes to cognitive reserve development due to extended experience with stimulating activities, it therefore contributes to safety against the beginning of dementia. According to studies, bilinguals are thought to exhibit signs of dementia four years after their monolingual counterparts. The difference provides a basis to support how bilingualism sustains executive functioning, yet confrontations of an impending disease could be present. Conclusion The bilingualism effect on executive functioning is part of an advancing field of research that demonstrates its significance in organization and cognitive function. The well-integrated design of the cognitive network means activities arising from one aspect, such as language, will have effects in the entire network. These collaborations across representations of knowledge and the control processes define the area of expertise, and they rely on multiple sources to show the interplay between experience and ability. Therefore, the effect of bilingualism on executive functioning of individuals is positive. The benefits of bilingualism are not only present through development, but they rather seem to influence the achievement of high-level effectiveness when someone is at the height of his capabilities. Therefore, the assertion is that bilingualism applies a positive effect in executive functioning during the entire life of an individual, by influencing the monitoring and the conflict resolution processes. From various studies, it can be inferred that bilingualism is part of the experiences that can affect executive functioning and hence the cognitive structure. These bilingual effects are not simple though; the interaction of control advantage and the language deficit creates an intricate cognition picture that is distinct from monolinguals. However, the difference cannot be defined as better or worse or exclusively different. It is yet to be understood whether the effects of bilingualism are pronounced in late bilinguals and whether it can develop in individuals who are not in sociolinguistic situations, but the languages form part of their daily lives. These among other issues need to be addressed so as to develop an inner insight of the scale at which bilingualism affects individuals executive functioning. References Antón, E., Duñabeitia, J. A., Estévez, A., Hernández, J. A., Castillo, A., Fuentes, L. J. & Carreiras, M. (2014). Is there a bilingual advantage in the ANT task? Evidence from children. Frontiers in Psychology, 5. Bialystok, E., & Martin, M. M. (2004). Attention and inhibition in bilingual children: Evidence from the dimensional change card sort task. Developmental Science, 7(3), 325-339. Bialystok, E., & Viswanathan, M. (2009). Components of executive control with advantages for bilingual children in two cultures. Cognition, 112(3), 494-500. Bialystok, E. (2009). Bilingualism: The good, the bad, and the indifferent. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 12(01), 3-11. Bialystok, E. (2011). Reshaping the mind: The benefits of bilingualism. Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology/Revue canadienne de psychologie expérimentale, 65(4), 229. Brito, N. H., Grenell, A., & Barr, R. (2014). Specificity of the bilingual advantage for memory: Examining cued recall, generalization, and working memory in monolingual, bilingual, and trilingual toddlers. Frontiers in Psychology, 5. Costa, A., Hernández, M., & Sebastián-Gallés, N. (2008). Bilingualism aids conflict resolution: Evidence from the ANT task. Cognition, 106(1), 59-86. Kousaie, S., Sheppard, C., Lemieux, M., Monetta, L., & Taler, V. (2014). Executive function and bilingualism in young and older adults. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, 8. Paap, K. R. & Greenberg, Z. I. (2013). There is no coherent evidence for a bilingual advantage in executive processing. Cognitive Psychology, 66(2), 232-258. Valian, V. (2015). Bilingualism and cognition. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 18(1), 3-24. Read More