How Bilingualism Can Affect Your Brain
Speaking
multiple languages may be an advantage in more ways than one: a new study
suggests that bilinguals are speedier task-switchers than
monolinguals.
Task-switching and its
real-world applications
Task-switching—the
ability to mentally “switch gears” and refocus on new goals—is a valuable skill
that has numerous practical uses. You use it to shift
attention from the wheel to the road while driving, or to switch gears between
offense and defense in a team sport. Bilingualism has already been associated
with a number of cognitive advantages, and now a 2010 study from Language
and Cognition has investigated how bilingualism might enhance
crucial task-switching skills in young adults.
This
Carnegie Mellon University study recruited 88 college students, half of whom
were monolingual and half of whom were bilingual. Both groups had about equal
SAT scores, suggesting no inherent difference in cognitive ability.
Each
participant sat in front of a screen with two different kinds of tasks assigned
to each of their two hands. As cues appeared onscreen, one hand was responsible
for identifying the color of the cue. The other hand
was responsible for identifying the shape of the
cue.
There
were two aspects to this task-switching experiment: single-task trials and
mixed-task trials. In single-task trials,
participants identified either color or shape but never
switched between the two tasks. In mixed-trial tasks,
participants frequently switched between color and shape identification tasks—a
more difficult procedure.
Researchers
compared single-task and mixed-task reaction times to
determine how reaction time and accuracy differed between groups and trial
types.
Bilinguals
were much faster than monolinguals on trials that required
task-switching—their reactions were 6 milliseconds quicker on average.
Both groups, however, were equally quick to respond on single-task trials,
which did not involve switching.
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