Auditory processing and high task demands facilitate the bilingual executive control advantage in young adults

2021 ◽  
Vol 57 ◽  
pp. 100954
Author(s):  
Jan R. Kuipers ◽  
Karla H. Westphal
Keyword(s):  
Young Adults ◽  
Executive Control ◽  
Auditory Processing ◽  
Task Demands

scholarly journals Executive control mechanisms in bilingualism: Beyond speed of processing

2016 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 613-631 ◽  
Author(s):  
KLARA MARTON ◽  
MIRA GORAL ◽  
LUCA CAMPANELLI ◽  
JUNGMEE YOON ◽  
LORAINE K. OBLER
Keyword(s):  
Young Adults ◽  
Implicit Learning ◽  
Executive Control ◽  
Processing Speed ◽  
Task Complexity ◽  
Task Demands ◽  
Control Mechanisms ◽  
Experimental Conditions ◽  
Bilingual Advantage ◽  
Baseline Response

The question of interest in this study was whether bilingual individuals show superior executive control compared to monolingual participants. Findings are mixed, with studies showing advantage, disadvantage, or no difference between bilingual and monolingual speakers. In this study, we used different experimental conditions to examine implicit learning, resistance to interference, monitoring, and switching, independently. In addition, we matched our monolingual and bilingual participants on baseline response time. Bilingual participants demonstrated faster implicit learning, greater resistance to interference, more efficient switching compared to monolingual participants. The groups did not differ in monitoring. In conclusion, depending on task complexity and on the target executive control component, there are different patterns of bilingual advantage, beyond the global faster processing speed documented in previous studies. Bilingual young adults showed more efficient adjustments of the cognitive system in response to changes in task demands.

scholarly journals Brain Structure, Cardiorespiratory Fitness, and Executive Control Changes after a 9-Week Exercise Intervention in Young Adults: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Life ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 292
Author(s):  
Lina Zhu ◽  
Qian Yu ◽  
Fabian Herold ◽  
Boris Cheval ◽  
Xiaoxiao Dong ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Young Adults ◽  
Aerobic Exercise ◽  
Cardiorespiratory Fitness ◽  
Executive Control ◽  
Brain Structure ◽  
Grey Matter ◽  
Exercise Intervention ◽  
Exercise Group ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Younger Adults

Cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) is assumed to exert beneficial effects on brain structure and executive control (EC) performance. However, empirical evidence of exercise-induced cognitive enhancement is not conclusive, and the role of CRF in younger adults is not fully understood. Here, we conducted a study in which healthy young adults took part in a moderate aerobic exercise intervention program for 9 weeks (exercise group; n = 48), or control condition of non-aerobic exercise intervention (waitlist control group; n = 72). Before and after the intervention period maximal oxygen uptake (VO2max) as an indicator of CRF, the Flanker task as a measure of EC performance and grey matter volume (GMV), as well as cortical thickness via structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), were assessed. Compared to the control group, the CRF (heart rate, p < 0.001; VO2max, p < 0.001) and EC performance (congruent and incongruent reaction time, p = 0.011, p < 0.001) of the exercise group were significantly improved after the 9-week aerobic exercise intervention. Furthermore, GMV changes in the left medial frontal gyrus increased in the exercise group, whereas they were significantly reduced in the control group. Likewise, analysis of cortical morphology revealed that the left lateral occipital cortex (LOC.L) and the left precuneus (PCUN.L) thickness were considerably increased in the exercise group, which was not observed in the control group. The exploration analysis confirmed that CRF improvements are linked to EC improvement and frontal grey matter changes. In summary, our results support the idea that regular endurance exercises are an important determinant for brain health and cognitive performance even in a cohort of younger adults.

Bilingual advantage in executive control when task demands are considered

2015 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 277-293 ◽  
Author(s):  
LI QU ◽  
JOEL JIA WEI LOW ◽  
TING ZHANG ◽  
HONG LI ◽  
PHILIP DAVID ZELAZO
Keyword(s):  
Executive Control ◽  
Switching Costs ◽  
Task Demands ◽  
Bilingual Advantage ◽  
Mixing Costs ◽  
Switching Task

To examine how task demands influence bilingual advantage in executive control over monolinguals, we tested 32 Chinese monolinguals and 32 Chinese–English bilinguals with four versions of a color-shape switching task. During switching trials, the task required participants to suppress one set of conflicting (or non-conflicting) responses and simultaneously to activate another set of conflicting (or non-conflicting) responses. The results showed that compared to monolinguals, (i) when suppressing conflicting responses or (ii) activating non-conflicting responses, bilinguals had significantly smaller switching costs though similar mixing costs; (iii) when suppressing one set of conflicting responses and simultaneously activating another set of conflicting responses, bilinguals had significantly smaller switching costs though larger mixing costs; and (iv) when suppressing one set of non-conflicting responses and simultaneously activating another set of non-conflicting responses, bilinguals had similar switching costs and mixing costs. These findings indicate that task demands affect bilingual advantage in executive control.

scholarly journals Differences Between Young and Older Adults in Working Memory and Performance on the Test of Basic Auditory Capabilities†

2022 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Larry E. Humes ◽  
Gary R. Kidd ◽  
Jennifer J. Lentz
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Working Memory ◽  
Young Adults ◽  
Hearing Loss ◽  
Auditory Processing ◽  
Local Community ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Age Group ◽  
Regression Analyses ◽  
Age Related

The Test of Basic Auditory Capabilities (TBAC) is a battery of auditory-discrimination tasks and speech-identification tasks that has been normed on several hundred young normal-hearing adults. Previous research with the TBAC suggested that cognitive function may impact the performance of older adults. Here, we examined differences in performance on several TBAC tasks between a group of 34 young adults with a mean age of 22.5 years (SD = 3.1 years) and a group of 115 older adults with a mean age of 69.2 years (SD = 6.2 years) recruited from the local community. Performance of the young adults was consistent with prior norms for this age group. Not surprisingly, the two groups differed significantly in hearing loss and working memory with the older adults having more hearing loss and poorer working memory than the young adults. The two age groups also differed significantly in performance on six of the nine measures extracted from the TBAC (eight test scores and one average test score) with the older adults consistently performing worse than the young adults. However, when these age-group comparisons were repeated with working memory and hearing loss as covariates, the groups differed in performance on only one of the nine auditory measures from the TBAC. For eight of the nine TBAC measures, working memory was a significant covariate and hearing loss never emerged as a significant factor. Thus, the age-group deficits observed initially on the TBAC most often appeared to be mediated by age-related differences in working memory rather than deficits in auditory processing. The results of these analyses of age-group differences were supported further by linear-regression analyses with each of the 9 TBAC scores serving as the dependent measure and age, hearing loss, and working memory as the predictors. Regression analyses were conducted for the full set of 149 adults and for just the 115 older adults. Working memory again emerged as the predominant factor impacting TBAC performance. It is concluded that working memory should be considered when comparing the performance of young and older adults on auditory tasks, including the TBAC.

scholarly journals Modulation of Repeated Anodal HD-tDCS on Attention in Healthy Young Adults

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hongliang Lu ◽  
Quanhui Liu ◽  
Zhihua Guo ◽  
Guangxin Zhou ◽  
Yajuan Zhang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Young Adults ◽  
Cognitive Function ◽  
Direct Current ◽  
Executive Control ◽  
Sham Group ◽  
Initial Level ◽  
Anodal Tdcs ◽  
High Definition ◽  
Psychomotor Efficiency ◽  
Attention Function

High-definition transcranial direct current stimulation (HD-tDCS) is a valid brain stimulation technology to optimize cognitive function. Recent evidence indicates that single anodal tDCS session enhances attention; however, the variation in attention produced by repeated anodal HD-tDCS over a longer period of time has not been explored. We examined the modulation of attention function in healthy young participants (39 young adults) who received repeated HD-tDCS sustained for 4 weeks. The results showed a robust benefit of anodal HD-tDCS on executive control and psychomotor efficiency, but not on orienting, alerting, or selective attention (inhibition); the benefit increased successively over 4 weeks; and the enhancement on executive control of each week was significant compared to baseline in the anodal group. In addition, the subjects’ performances on the test of executive control and psychomotor efficiency gradually restored to the initial level in the sham group, which appeared obviously from week 3 (after 9 interventions), but the improvement of attention in the anodal group was persistent. We conclude that repeated anodal HD-tDCS provides a positive benefit on executive control and psychomotor efficiency and has obvious accumulative effect after 9 or more times intervention compared to sham HD-tDCS. Additionally, our findings might provide pivotal guidance for the formulation of a strategy for the use of repeated anodal HD-tDCS to modulate on attention function.

Selective directed forgetting: Eliminating output order and demand characteristics explanations

2020 ◽  
Vol 73 (9) ◽  
pp. 1514-1522 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carmen Aguirre ◽  
Carlos J Gómez-Ariza ◽  
María Teresa Bajo
Keyword(s):  
Young Adults ◽  
Executive Control ◽  
Directed Forgetting ◽  
Monetary Reward ◽  
Adolescents And Young Adults ◽  
Output Interference ◽  
Output Order ◽  
Demand Characteristics

Previous research has shown that giving an instruction to forget part of a studied list of items impairs the subsequent retrieval of these items compared with those not cued to be forgotten. This selective directed forgetting (SDF) effect has been found with slightly different procedures and in adolescents and young adults. While recent research has suggested that executive control might underlie SDF, alternative explanations that rely on procedural issues still have not been investigated. Specifically, SDF might essentially reflect output interference from the items cued to be remembered, so that the earlier recalled items interfere with the later recalled items. The effect could also result from demand characteristics: Participants might withhold the to-be-forgotten items to comply with the experimenter’s implicit goals or might not be willing to engage in the effort of retrieving all studied information. The results from two experiments showed that (1) the to-be-forgotten items were less accessible and were not influenced by output interference from to-be-remembered items (Experiment 1), and (2) SDF was still present when participants were offered monetary reward for retrieving as many items as possible (Experiment 2). Hence, the findings do not provide support to explanations of SDF based on output interference and demand characteristics.

When Audition Dominates Vision

2013 ◽  
Vol 60 (2) ◽  
pp. 113-121 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher W. Robinson ◽  
Vladimir M. Sloutsky
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Statistical Learning ◽  
Auditory Processing ◽  
Dominance Effect ◽  
Learning Task ◽  
Task Demands ◽  
Visual Input ◽  
Sensory Modalities ◽  
Information Research ◽  
Auditory Dominance

Presenting information to multiple sensory modalities sometimes facilitates and sometimes interferes with processing of this information. Research examining interference effects shows that auditory input often interferes with processing of visual input in young children (i.e., auditory dominance effect), whereas visual input often interferes with auditory processing in adults (i.e., visual dominance effect). The current study used a cross-modal statistical learning task to examine modality dominance in adults. Participants ably learned auditory and visual statistics when auditory and visual sequences were presented unimodally and when auditory and visual sequences were correlated during training. However, increasing task demands resulted in an important asymmetry: Increased task demands attenuated visual statistical learning, while having no effect on auditory statistical learning. These findings are consistent with auditory dominance effects reported in young children and have important implications for our understanding of how sensory modalities interact while learning the structure of cross-modal information.

scholarly journals Individual Differences in Rhythm Skills: Links with Neural Consistency and Linguistic Ability

2017 ◽  
Vol 29 (5) ◽  
pp. 855-868 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam Tierney ◽  
Travis White-Schwoch ◽  
Jessica MacLean ◽  
Nina Kraus
Keyword(s):  
Young Adults ◽  
Individual Differences ◽  
Verbal Memory ◽  
Auditory Processing ◽  
Language Skills ◽  
Low Frequency ◽  
Language Abilities ◽  
Auditory Temporal Processing ◽  
Temporal Precision ◽  
Frequency Following Response

Durational patterns provide cues to linguistic structure, thus so variations in rhythm skills may have consequences for language development. Understanding individual differences in rhythm skills, therefore, could help explain variability in language abilities across the population. We investigated the neural foundations of rhythmic proficiency and its relation to language skills in young adults. We hypothesized that rhythmic abilities can be characterized by at least two constructs, which are tied to independent language abilities and neural profiles. Specifically, we hypothesized that rhythm skills that require integration of information across time rely upon the consistency of slow, low-frequency auditory processing, which we measured using the evoked cortical response. On the other hand, we hypothesized that rhythm skills that require fine temporal precision rely upon the consistency of fast, higher-frequency auditory processing, which we measured using the frequency-following response. Performance on rhythm tests aligned with two constructs: rhythm sequencing and synchronization. Rhythm sequencing and synchronization were linked to the consistency of slow cortical and fast frequency-following responses, respectively. Furthermore, whereas rhythm sequencing ability was linked to verbal memory and reading, synchronization ability was linked only to nonverbal auditory temporal processing. Thus, rhythm perception at different time scales reflects distinct abilities, which rely on distinct auditory neural resources. In young adults, slow rhythmic processing makes the more extensive contribution to language skills.

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