We investigated age-related decline of bilingual language control. Thirteen older and 13 younger bilinguals performed a verbal fluency task (completing the same letter and semantic categories in each language and switching languages after every category), and a non-linguistic flanker task. In letter fluency, bilinguals produced fewer correct responses after switching languages, suggesting inhibition of the previously-used language. However, this testing-order effect did not differ between groups and older bilinguals produced few wrong-language intrusions, implying intact ability to apply inhibition in older age. In contrast, age-related deficits in the flanker task were robust, implying dissociations between language control and domain-general executive control. In semantic fluency, there were no testing-order effects but older bilinguals produced more intrusions than younger bilinguals, and more intrusions than in letter fluency. Thus, bilinguals may flexibly modulate the degree of inhibition when they can benefit from semantic priming between languages, but less efficiently so in older age.

中文翻译：

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双语控制会否在老年人中下降？

我们调查了与年龄有关的双语语言控制下降。13位年龄较大的双语者和13位较年轻的双语者执行了口头流利的任务（在每种语言中完成相同的字母和语义类别，并在每种类别之后切换语言），以及一项非语言侧翼任务。在字母流利度方面，双语者在切换语言后产生的正确回答较少，这表明对先前使用的语言的抑制。但是，这种测试顺序的效果在各组之间没有区别，并且年龄较大的双语人员几乎不会产生错误的语言入侵，这暗示了在老年人中施加抑制的完整能力。相比之下，侧翼任务中与年龄相关的缺陷则很明显，这暗示着语言控制与领域一般执行者控制之间的分离。在语义流利度上，没有测试顺序的影响，但是年龄较大的双语者比年龄较小的双语者产生的入侵更多，并且干扰程度超过字母流利程度。因此，当双语者可以从语言之间的语义启动中受益时，他们可以灵活地调节抑制程度，但是在老年人中效率较低。