Buiza, C. , Diaz, U. , Facal, D. , Kljajevic, V. & Yanguas, J.
Fundación Instituto Gerontológico Matia - Ingema
Numerous studies have shown that bilinguals at all ages outperform monolinguals in several cognitive tasks and abilities. Within the Cognimek project, 99 older adults (78 female/21 male), mean age 71.7 (SD=6.77), mean years of education 8.10 (SD=2.33) underwent a cognitive assessment protocol composed of Digit-Span forward/backwards (Attention/Memory Span), FAS-Animals (Phonological/Semantic Verbal Fluency), RAVLT (Verbal Memory), Positions-Test (Visual Memory), TMT-A (Attention), Digit-Symbol Substitution Test (Processing Speed and Incidental Memory), Stroop-Test (Inhibitory Control) and Vocabulary-Test from WAIS-III (Crystalized Intelligence). Bilingualism assessment included: number of languages used, languages acquired during childhood, both in the family and at school, and languages acquired during adulthood.
Comparison of number of languages used with age or educational level, and current cognitive performance with number of languages acquired during childhood, showed no differences. Nevertheless, a clear relationship (p< .05) appeared between number of languages acquired during adulthood and several cognitive measures: Digit-Span forward and backwards (Z=-2.38 and Z=-1.97, respectively); Verbal Fluency Phonological (Z=-2.25), Semantic (Z=-3.25); RAVLT Verbal Memory (span (Z=-2.24), recent (Z=-2.66), learning-curve (Z=-2.01)), Digit-Symbol (Z=-2.07), Stroop word-colour (Z=-1.97); Incidental memory (Z=-2.60); and Vocabulary (Z=-2.94). It was also found a positive correlation (p<.05) between number of spoken languages and: Phonological Fluency (r=0.22) and Recent Memory (r=0.20).
Our results are in line with the hypothesis that the constant use of 2 languages during many years is associated with an enhancement in attention and cognitive control in older adults. It has been suggested that the use of 2 languages requires a mechanism to control attention to the relevant language and ignore or inhibit interference from the competing language, and that constant exercise of this inhibitory control provides bilinguals with enhanced abilities in language tasks and also in general cognitive processing.