How much bilingual experience is needed to affect executive control?

2014 ◽  
Vol 35 (5) ◽  
pp. 925-928 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janet G. van Hell ◽  
Gregory J. Poarch
Keyword(s):  
Executive Control ◽  
Musical Training ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Individual Variability ◽  
Control Functions ◽  
Age Related ◽  
General Recommendation ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
Multiple Languages

A wealth of research on experience-related plasticity has shown that specific experiences, such as musical training (Herholz & Zatorre, 2012) or juggling (Draganski et al., 2004), can modify brain function and structure and induce long-term changes in cognitive behavior throughout the life span. In their comprehensive Keynote Article, Baum and Titone focus on the neural and cognitive implications of lifelong experience with multiple languages. They discuss empirical studies on bilingualism, executive control, and aging to enhance our understanding of the frequently observed executive control advantages in bilinguals and how lifelong bilingualism may contribute to the development of cognitive reserve and buffer age-related declines in executive control functions. In reframing these issues in terms of neuroplasticity, Baum and Titone propose to “embrace the inherent individual variability among bilinguals in all its glory” and identify key issues related to individual variability to pave the way to new avenues of research. We fully concur with Baum and Titone's general recommendation to embrace variability among bilinguals to advance our understanding of bilingualism, aging, and neuroplasticity, but we would like to particularly highlight the importance of the earlier stages of second language (L2) learning and the emergence of executive control advantages, a topic we believe has been understudied in this domain. How much bilingual experience is needed to affect executive control?

scholarly journals Moving toward a neuroplasticity view of bilingualism, executive control, and aging

2014 ◽  
Vol 35 (5) ◽  
pp. 857-894 ◽  
Author(s):  
SHARI BAUM ◽  
DEBRA TITONE
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Executive Control ◽  
Cognitive Aging ◽  
Successful Aging ◽  
Empirical Support ◽  
Individual Variability ◽  
Cognitive Capacity ◽  
Neurocognitive Functions ◽  
Age Related

ABSTRACTNormal aging is an inevitable race between increasing knowledge and decreasing cognitive capacity. Crucial to understanding and promoting successful aging is determining which of these factors dominates for particular neurocognitive functions. Here, we focus on the human capacity for language, for which healthy older adults are simultaneously advantaged and disadvantaged. In recent years, a more hopeful view of cognitive aging has emerged from work suggesting that age-related declines in executive control functions are buffered by life-long bilingualism. In this paper, we selectively review what is currently known and unknown about bilingualism, executive control, and aging. Our ultimate goal is to advance the views that these issues should be reframed as a specific instance of neuroplasticity more generally and, in particular, that researchers should embrace the individual variability among bilinguals by adopting experimental and statistical approaches that respect the complexity of the questions addressed. In what follows, we set out the theoretical assumptions and empirical support of the bilingual advantages perspective, review what we know about language, cognitive control, and aging generally, and then highlight several of the relatively few studies that have investigated bilingual language processing in older adults, either on their own or in comparison with monolingual older adults. We conclude with several recommendations for how the field ought to proceed to achieve a more multifactorial view of bilingualism that emphasizes the notion of neuroplasticity over that of simple bilingual versus monolingual group comparisons.

Investigating the presumed cognitive advantage of aspiring interpreters

Interpreting ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 115-134 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandra Rosiers ◽  
Evy Woumans ◽  
Wouter Duyck ◽  
June Eyckmans
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Executive Control ◽  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Digit Span ◽  
Working Memory Capacity ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Memory Capacity ◽  
Training Data ◽  
Control Functions ◽  
Study Results

Abstract In complex tasks such as interpreting, the importance of a well-functioning working memory can hardly be overestimated. However, empirical studies have failed to produce consistent results with regard to an interpreter advantage in working memory. Recent studies tend to focus on the executive component of working memory. To our knowledge, no such study has compared the possible cognitive advantage of aspiring interpreters relative to other multilinguals before training takes place, in spite of the fact that excellent cognitive abilities are considered important in many interpreter selection procedures. In this study, we compared the working memory capacity and executive functions of a group of 20 student interpreters with two other groups of advanced language users who were all at the start of their Master’s training. Data were collected on three executive control functions: inhibition, shifting and updating. A forward and a backward digit span task for measuring the participants’ working memory capacity was also included in this study. Results revealed only negligible differences between the three groups at onset of training. The presumed cognitive advantage of aspiring interpreters with regard to executive control was not found.

Rapid Mental Fatigue Amplifies Age-Related Attentional Deficits

2014 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 215-224 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edmund Wascher ◽  
Stephan Getzmann
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Executive Control ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Mental Fatigue ◽  
Time On Task ◽  
Attentional Deficits ◽  
Performance Loss ◽  
Control Functions ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Related Potentials

Deficient information processing with increasing age has been assigned to reduced efficiency in frontal executive control functions. Dopamine has been assumed to play a central role for this decline. Dopamine, however, is also essential for the maintenance of motivation for a longer period of time and is therefore a core factor for mental fatigue. Combining these two findings, we tested to what degree older adults are more prone to performance loss due to increasing time on task than younger adults. Twelve younger and twelve older participants performed an inhibition of return task for 80 min. Performance declined in the older participants but not in the young. Event-related potentials (ERPs) of the EEG, however, showed distinct changes with time on task primarily for young participants. The dissociation between behavioral and ERP results indicates that changes in ERPs of the young participants could reflect adaptations to the task rather than fatigue. This is evident from very distinct changes of the posterior N1 component in this group. The failing (or rather unspecific) adaptation to the task in older adults might have been a consequence of lacking frontal executive control functions reflected in a massive reduction of the N2 component of the ERP, relative to the young participants.

Disturbance of attention network functions in Chinese healthy older adults: an intra-individual perspective

2015 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 291-301 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hanna Lu ◽  
Ada W. T. Fung ◽  
Sandra S. M. Chan ◽  
Linda C. W. Lam
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Executive Control ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Individual Variability ◽  
Healthy Ageing ◽  
Executive Attention ◽  
Attention Network ◽  
Chinese Older Adults ◽  
Healthy Older Adults ◽  
Age Related

ABSTRACTBackground:Intra-individual variability (IIV) and the change of attentional functions have been reported to be susceptible to both healthy ageing and pathological ageing. The current study aimed to evaluate the IIV of attention and the age-related effect on alerting, orienting, and executive control in cognitively healthy older adults.Method:We evaluated 145 Chinese older adults (age range of 65–80 years, mean age of 72.41 years) with a comprehensive neuropsychological battery and the Attention network test (ANT). A two-step strategy of analytical methods was used: Firstly, the IIV of older adults was evaluated by the intraindividual coefficient of variation of reaction time (ICV-RT). The correlation between ICV-RT and age was used to evaluate the necessity of subgrouping. Further, the comparisons of ANT performance among three age groups were performed with processing speed adjusted.Results:Person's correlation revealed significant positive correlations between age and IIV (r = 0.185, p = 0.032), age and executive control (r = 0.253, p = 0.003). Furthermore, one-way ANOVA comparisons among three age groups revealed a significant age-related disturbance on executive control (F = 4.55, p = 0.01), in which oldest group (group with age >75 years) showed less efficient executive control than young-old (group with age 65–70 years) (Conventional score, p = 0.012; Ratio score, p = 0.020).Conclusion:Advancing age has an effect on both IIV and executive attention in cognitively healthy older adults, suggesting that the disturbance of executive attention is a sensitive indicator to reflect healthy ageing. Its significance to predict further deterioration should be carefully evaluated with prospective studies.

Is inflation targeting useful for economic growth?

2017 ◽  
pp. 62-74 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Kartaev
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Monetary Policy ◽  
Test Performance ◽  
Inflation Targeting ◽  
Developing Economies ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Growth Regime ◽  
Potential Channels

The paper presents an overview of studies of the effects of inflation targeting on long-term economic growth. We analyze the potential channels of influence, as well as modern empirical studies that test performance of these channels. We compare the effects of different variants of inflation targeting (strict and mixed). Based on the analysis recommendations on the choice of optimal (in terms of stimulating long-term growth) regime of monetary policy in developed and developing economies are formulated.

Paradoxes of reservation wage setting in the Russian labor market. Part I

2016 ◽  
pp. 5-27
Author(s):  
R. Kapeliushnikov ◽  
A. Lukyanova
Keyword(s):  
Labor Market ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Reservation Wage ◽  
Wage Setting ◽  
Reservation Wages ◽  
Monitoring Survey ◽  
Main Determinants ◽  
Subjective Estimates ◽  
Objective Indicators

Using panel data from the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey for 2006-2014, the paper investigates reservation wages setting in the Russian labor market. The sample includes non-employed individuals wishing to get a job (both searchers and non-searchers). The first part of the paper provides a survey of previous empirical studies, describes data and analyzes subjective estimates of reservation wages in comparison with various objective indicators of actual wages. The analysis shows that wage aspirations of the majority of Russian non-employed individuals are overstated. However their wage expectations are rather flexible and decrease rapidly as the search continues that prevents high long-term unemployment. The second part of the paper provides an econometric analysis of main determinants of reservation wage and its impact on probability of re-employment and wages on searchers’ new jobs.

Sources of cognitive conflict and their relevance to Theory of Mind proficiency in healthy ageing. A preregistered study.

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Foyzul Rahman ◽  
Sabrina Javed ◽  
Ian Apperly ◽  
Peter Hansen ◽  
Carol Holland ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Executive Control ◽  
Spatial Working Memory ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Response Speed ◽  
Cognitive Conflict ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Outcome Knowledge

Age-related decline in Theory of Mind (ToM) may be due to waning executive control, which is necessary for resolving conflict when reasoning about others’ mental states. We assessed how older (OA; n=50) versus younger adults (YA; n=50) were affected by three theoretically relevant sources of conflict within ToM: competing Self-Other perspectives; competing cued locations and outcome knowledge. We examined which best accounted for age-related difficulty with ToM. Our data show unexpected similarity between age groups when representing a belief incongruent with one’s own. Individual differences in attention and motor response speed best explained the degree of conflict experienced through conflicting Self-Other perspectives. However, OAs were disproportionately affected by managing conflict between cued locations. Age and spatial working memory were most relevant for predicting the magnitude of conflict elicited by conflicting cued locations. We suggest that previous studies may have underestimated OA’s ToM proficiency by including unnecessary conflict in ToM tasks.

Populism and Liberal Democracy

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Takis S. Pappas
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Comprehensive Theory ◽  
The People ◽  
Original Definition ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
Great Relevance ◽  
Definition Of

Based on an original definition of modern populism as “democratic illiberalism” and many years of meticulous research, Takis Pappas marshals extraordinary empirical evidence from Argentina, Greece, Peru, Italy, Venezuela, Ecuador, Hungary, the United States, Spain, and Brazil to develop a comprehensive theory about populism. He addresses all key issues in the debate about populism and answers significant questions of great relevance for today’s liberal democracy, including: • What is modern populism and how can it be differentiated from comparable phenomena like nativism and autocracy? • Where in Latin America has populism become most successful? Where in Europe did it emerge first? Why did its rise to power in the United States come so late? • Is Trump a populist and, if so, could he be compared best with Venezuela’s Chávez, France’s Le Pens, or Turkey’s Erdoğan? • Why has populism thrived in post-authoritarian Greece but not in Spain? And why in Argentina and not in Brazil? • Can populism ever succeed without a charismatic leader? If not, what does leadership tell us about how to challenge populism? • Who are “the people” who vote for populist parties, how are these “made” into a group, and what is in their minds? • Is there a “populist blueprint” that all populists use when in power? And what are the long-term consequences of populist rule? • What does the expansion, and possibly solidification, of populism mean for the very nature and future of contemporary democracy? Populism and Liberal Democracy will change the ways the reader understands populism and imagines the prospects of liberal democracy.

Other Biological Approaches to OCD

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicole C. R. McLaughlin ◽  
Benjamin D. Greenberg
Keyword(s):  
Deep Brain Stimulation ◽  
Brain Stimulation ◽  
Response To Treatment ◽  
History Of ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
Term Management ◽  
Deep Brain

Interest in psychiatric neurosurgery has waxed and waned since the 1930s. This chapter reviews the history of these methods, with a focus on OCD. This review of lesion procedures and deep brain stimulation includes neuropsychological and neuroimaging research in the context of putative neurocircuitry underlying symptoms and response to treatment. The chapter highlights how an abundance of caution is needed, as well as key issues in long-term management of patients so treated.

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