Neuroanatomical Evidence in Support of the Bilingual Advantage Theory

The "bilingual advantage" theory stipulates that constant selection and suppression between 2 languages results in enhanced executive control (EC). Behavioral studies of EC in bilinguals have employed wide-ranging tasks and report some conflicting results. To avoid concerns about tasks, we...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. 1991) Vol. 26; no. 7; pp. 3196 - 3204
Main Authors: Olulade, O A, Jamal, N I, Koo, D S, Perfetti, C A, LaSasso, C, Eden, G F
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: United States 01.07.2016
Subjects:
Adolescent
Adult
Executive Function
Female
Frontal Lobe - diagnostic imaging
Gray Matter - diagnostic imaging
Humans
Language Tests
Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Male
Models, Psychological
Multilingualism
Organ Size
Sign Language
Young Adult
bimodal bilingual
executive control
voxel-based morphometry
unimodal bilingual
bilingual advantage
ISSN:1460-2199
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Summary:The "bilingual advantage" theory stipulates that constant selection and suppression between 2 languages results in enhanced executive control (EC). Behavioral studies of EC in bilinguals have employed wide-ranging tasks and report some conflicting results. To avoid concerns about tasks, we employed a different approach, measuring gray matter volume (GMV) in adult bilinguals, reasoning that any EC-associated benefits should manifest as relatively greater frontal GMV. Indeed, Spanish-English-speaking bilinguals exhibited greater bilateral frontal GMV compared with English-speaking monolinguals. Was this observation attributable to the constant selection and inhibition of 2 spoken languages? To answer this question, we drew on bimodal bilinguals of American Sign Language (ASL) and English who, unlike unimodal bilinguals, can simultaneously use both languages and have been shown not to possess the EC advantage. In this group, there was no greater GMV when compared with monolinguals. Together these results provide neuroanatomical evidence in support of the bilingual advantage theory.
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ISSN:1460-2199
DOI:10.1093/cercor/bhv152