A bilingual advantage in task switching? Age-related differences between German monolinguals and Dutch-Frisian bilinguals

This study investigated whether lifelong bilingualism can be associated with enhanced executive control, particularly mental flexibility, and with a modulation of an age-related decline in these functions. We compared performance of middle-aged and elderly speakers of German and bilingual speakers of Dutch and Frisian in a cued task-switching paradigm. All bilinguals were fluent in the same, closely-related language pairs. Bilinguals incurred significantly lower switching costs than monolinguals, and elderly bilinguals were less affected by an age-related increase in switching costs than monol... Mehr ...