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Bilingual advantage in attentional control: Evidence from the forced-attention dichotic listening paradigm*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 July 2010

ANNA SOVERI ,
MATTI LAINE ,
HEIKKI HÄMÄLÄINEN  and
KENNETH HUGDAHL
ANNA SOVERI*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology and Logopedics, Åbo Akademi University, Finland
MATTI LAINE
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology and Logopedics, Åbo Akademi University, Finland
HEIKKI HÄMÄLÄINEN
Affiliation:
Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience, Department of Psychology, University of Turku, Finland
KENNETH HUGDAHL
Affiliation:
Department of Biological and Medical Psychology, University of Bergen & Division of Psychiatry, Haukeland University Hospital, Bergen, Norway
*
Address for correspondence: Anna Soveri, Department of Psychology and Logopedics, Åbo Akademi University, FIN-20500 Turku, Finlandanna.soveri@abo.fi
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Abstract

It has been claimed that due to their experience in controlling two languages, bilinguals exceed monolinguals in certain executive functions, especially inhibition of task-irrelevant stimuli. Here we investigated the effects of bilingualism on an executive phonological task, namely the forced-attention dichotic listening task with syllabic stimuli. In the standard non-forced (NF) condition, the participants reported all syllables they heard, be it from the right or the left ear. In the forced-right (FR) and forced-left (FL) attention conditions, they had to direct their attention to either the right- or the left-ear stimulus and inhibit information coming to the other ear. We tested Finnish monolinguals and early simultaneous Finnish–Swedish bilinguals from two age groups: (30–50-year-olds and 60–74-year-olds). The results showed that the bilinguals performed better than the monolinguals in the FR and FL conditions. This supports the idea of a bilingual advantage in directing attention and inhibiting task-irrelevant stimuli.

Keywords

bilingualismexecutive functionsdichotic listeningattentional controlinhibition
Type
Research Article
Information
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition , Volume 14 , Issue 3 , July 2011 , pp. 371 - 378
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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Footnotes

*

This study was funded by a grant from the Joint Committee for Nordic Research Councils in the Humanities and the Social Sciences for a Nordic Center of Excellence (NCoE) in Cognitive Control (Coordinator Prof. Lars Nyberg, Umeå University, Sweden). Anna Soveri was also supported by a grant from Kommerserådet Otto A. Malms Donationsfond. We wish to thank Maria Pörnull for helping us with the data collection. We would also like to thank Dr. Daniel Androver-Roig for comments on an earlier version of the manuscript.

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