Bilingualism
Does being bilingual sharpen thinking, or is it really about SES?
Open access · cc by · source: Europe PMC
Socioeconomic status predicted executive-task performance far more strongly than bilingualism, and bilinguals were actually worse at a planning task.
Study at a glance
- Design
- Cross-sectional — Quasi-experimental 2 (language group) x 2 (SES) between-subjects comparison; Simon task congruency manipulated within subjects.
- N
- N=90 · 90 young adults: 45 monolingual and 45 bilingual, each split into 20 low-SES and 25 high-SES participants.
- Population
- Adults aged 18-30 in London; low-SES participants from a vocational college (low-SES bilinguals were first-generation immigrants), high-SES from university and professional settings.
- Outcome
- Simon task response time and accuracy; Tower of London accuracy, first-move (planning) time and total trial time.
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Key findings
SES had a large effect: high-SES participants responded faster on the Simon task and solved more Tower of London problems. Bilinguals showed only a marginal overall speed advantage on the Simon task, and it did not depend on whether the trial involved conflict, so it does not look like better inhibition; the speed benefit appeared mainly in the low-SES group. On the Tower of London, monolinguals were more accurate and faster to plan than bilinguals, and low-SES bilinguals did especially poorly.
Methodology
The researchers tested 90 young adults in four groups: monolinguals and bilinguals, each drawn from low and high socioeconomic backgrounds, with groups matched on age, non-verbal reasoning and digit span. Everyone did a Simon task, where you respond to a star's colour while ignoring which side it appears on, and a computerised Tower of London planning puzzle. The Simon task had 36 trials and the Tower of London had twelve problems of rising difficulty.
Limitations
Groups were not randomly assigned, and low-SES bilinguals were immigrants (half with refugee or asylum status), so language status is tangled up with migration, trauma and schooling history. Cell sizes were small (20-25 per group) and the Simon task had few trials with no practice, which limits reliability; the authors call for larger studies with more trials. The findings cover two tasks in young adults in one city and do not show what causes the SES or language effects.
How this study connects
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