Background

Whether bilingualism can improve aspects of cognitive function in late adulthood is hotly debated. A few limited studies have reported that bilingualism may provide a limited buffer against age-related cognitive decline; however, others have not. The present study furthered this inquiry by analyzing the combined effects of age and language experience upon executive function in a geographically diverse online sample.

Methods

Amazon Mechanical Turk was used to recruit a sample of younger (YA) and older adults (OA) from 24 countries. A total of 81 monolingual participants (YA = 37; OA = 44) and 82 bilingual/multilingual participants (YA = 43; OA = 39) completed task-pure executive function assessments of inhibition, memory updating, and attention switching.

Results

YAs performed better than OAs on both the inhibition and updating tasks. On the attention switching task, a greater switch cost occurred when participants had less time to process a stimulus cue. Notably, no effects of language (i.e., bilingualism) were significant: no main effects or interactions with aging were found for executive function performance.

Conclusion

The results of the present study challenge the claim that extensive experience with multiple languages can be a reliably protective factor against some normative age-related declines in executive function.

中文翻译：

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多种语言的丰富经验可能无法缓解与年龄相关的执行功能下降。

背景

双语是否可以改善成年后期的认知功能方面引起了激烈的争论。少数有限的研究报告说双语可能为抵抗与年龄有关的认知能力下降提供了缓冲。但是，其他人则没有。本研究通过分析年龄和语言经验对执行功能的综合影响，进一步促进了这一探究。

方法

Amazon Mechanical Turk被用来从24个国家/地区招募年轻人（YA）和老年人（OA）的样本。总共81位单语参与者（YA = 37; OA = 44）和82位双语/多语参与者（YA = 43; OA = 39）完成了任务纯净的执行力评估，包括抑制，记忆更新和注意力转移。

结果

在抑制和更新任务上，YA的表现均优于OA。在注意力转换任务上，当参与者有较少的时间来处理刺激提示时，转换成本就会增加。值得注意的是，没有语言（即双语）的影响是显着的：没有发现执行功能绩效的主要影响或与衰老的相互作用。

结论

本研究的结果对以下主张提出了挑战，即拥有多种语言的丰富经验可以成为抵御某些与年龄相关的规范性执行功能下降的可靠保护因素。