ArticleBrain sciences2018
Intensity of Multilingual Language Use Predicts Cognitive Performance in Some Multilingual Older Adults.
Article in Brain sciences, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 29 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
29 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Does Second Language Learning Promote Neuroplasticity in Aging? A Systematic Review of Cognitive and Neuroimaging Studies.Frontiers in aging neuroscience · 2021Pooled it
- Modulations of the P3b effect as a function of bilingual language experience.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- The Association Between Multilingual Experience Factors and Cognitive Functioning in Older Adults: A Lifelines Study.The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences · 2025Article
- Bilingualism modifies cognition through adaptation, not transfer.Trends in cognitive sciences · 2024Review
- Language diversity across home and work contexts differentially impacts age- and menopause-related declines in cognitive control in healthy females.Journal of experimental psychology. General · 2024Article
- Multilingualism is associated with small task-specific advantages in cognitive performance of older adults.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Musical and Multilingual Experience Are Related to Healthy Aging: Better Some Than None But Even Better Together.The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences · 2023Article
- Exploring the relationship between mental health and dialect use among Chinese older adults: a moderated mediation estimation.Frontiers in psychology · 2023Article
- Individual and Sociolinguistic Differences in Language Background Predict Stroop Performance.Frontiers in communication · 2022Article
- The effects of bilingualism on cognition and behaviour in individuals with attention deficits: A scoping review.Frontiers in psychology · 2022Article
- What Is a Language? Who Is Bilingual? Perceptions Underlying Self-Assessment in Studies of Bilingualism.Frontiers in psychology · 2022Article
- Phasic pupillary responses reveal differential engagement of attentional control in bilingual spoken language processing.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- The Quest for Signals in Noise: Leveraging Experiential Variation to Identify Bilingual Phenotypes.Languages (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Article
- Language immersion and language training: Two paths to enhanced language regulation and cognitive control.Brain and language · 2021Article
- Does language context impact the neural correlates of executive control in monolingual and multilingual young adults?Brain and language · 2021Article
- Predictions about the Cognitive Consequences of Language Switching on Executive Functioning Inspired by the Adaptive Control Hypothesis Fail More Often than Not.Brain sciences · 2021Article
- Characterizing Bilingual Effects on Cognition: The Search for Meaningful Individual Differences.Brain sciences · 2021Article
- Bilingualism as a Slice of Swiss Cheese.Frontiers in psychology · 2021Article
- Foreign Language Learning as Cognitive Training to Prevent Old Age Disorders? Protocol of a Randomized Controlled Trial of Language Training vs. Musical Training and Social Interaction in Elderly With Subjective Cognitive Decline.Frontiers in aging neuroscience · 2021Article
- Language switching training modulates the neural network of non-linguistic cognitive control.PloS one · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Cognitive advantages for bilinguals have inconsistently been observed in different populations, with different operationalisations of bilingualism, cognitive performance, and the process by which language control transfers to cognitive control. This calls for studies investigating which aspects of multilingualism drive a cognitive advantage, in which populations and under which conditions. This study reports on two cognitive tasks coupled with an extensive background questionnaire on health, wellbeing, personality, language knowledge and language use, administered to 387 older adults in the northern Netherlands, a small but highly multilingual area. Using linear mixed effects regression modeling, we find that when different languages are used frequently in different contexts, enhanced attentional control is observed. Subsequently, a PLS regression model targeting also other influential factors yielded a two-component solution whereby only more sensitive measures of language proficiency and language usage in different social contexts were predictive of cognitive performance above and beyond the contribution of age, gender, income and education. We discuss these findings in light of previous studies that try to uncover more about the nature of bilingualism and the cognitive processes that may drive an advantage. With an unusually large sample size our study advocates for a move away from dichotomous, knowledge-based operationalisations of multilingualism and offers new insights for future studies at the individual level.
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