Does learning a second language late still boost auditory attention?
Bilinguals show better auditory selective attention and mental switching than monolinguals, even if they learned their second language as teenagers.
Source
Never too late? An advantage on tests of auditory attention extends to late bilinguals
What they did
Researchers tested university students' auditory attention using the Test of Everyday Attention. In the first phase, they evaluated 60 participants divided into 19 monolinguals, 23 early childhood bilinguals who acquired their second language before age 4, and 18 late childhood bilinguals who acquired it between ages 4 and 15. In the second phase, they evaluated 38 participants, comparing 19 monolinguals with 19 early adulthood bilinguals who acquired their second language between ages 15 and 19.
What they found
Bilinguals performed better than monolinguals on auditory selective attention and attentional switching. Specifically, late childhood bilinguals excelled at selective attention, showing a moderate effect size of r = −0.40, while early childhood bilinguals excelled at switching, showing an effect size of r = −0.35. Early adulthood bilinguals also performed significantly better than monolinguals on the selective attention task.
The limits
What it doesn't show
The study cannot prove that learning a second language causes improved attention, as it is possible that individuals with naturally stronger cognitive abilities are simply more likely to become bilingual. It also did not measure general intelligence or cognitive skills outside of the specific attention tests. Additionally, because the participants were young university students, the findings cannot automatically be generalized to older adults or clinical populations, and they did not examine adults who acquired a second language after age 19.
Key terms
- Sustained attention
- The ability to maintain focus on a specific, repetitive task over a prolonged period of time.
- Selective attention
- The cognitive process of focusing on a specific stimulus while ignoring irrelevant background distractions.
- Attentional switching
- The capacity to flexibly shift focus and cognitive resources back and forth between different rules or tasks.
- Late bilinguals
- Individuals who acquire another language after early childhood, such as during late childhood or adolescence.
- Reverse causality
- A phenomenon where the hypothesized cause is actually the effect, such as high cognitive ability leading to bilingualism rather than vice versa.
Flashcards
Want these cards to stick?
Save the deck to NoteFren and study it with spaced repetition.
Quiz yourself
What main objective did this study address regarding the cognitive benefits of bilingualism?
Common questions
Did the bilingual advantage apply to visual tasks as well?
No, there were no differences between bilinguals and monolinguals on the visual telephone search tasks, suggesting the cognitive advantage was specific to auditory attention control rather than general visual processing.
Does the age at which someone learns another language change the cognitive benefits?
Yes, the study suggests different profiles: early bilinguals showed a significant advantage in shifting focus, whereas late childhood and early adulthood bilinguals excelled in ignoring distracting sounds.
How were the attention tasks designed?
They used audio-based clinical subtests representing an elevator ride, where participants had to count tones, filter out high/low distractor tones, or change counting direction based on pitch.
Could the bilinguals' advantage just be due to higher general intelligence?
While possible, the lack of differences on the visual search tasks suggests the bilingual advantage is selective to specific attention-control processes rather than a broad, general intelligence difference.
More on Attention