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Executive control in fluent and lapsed bilinguals*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 December 2014

CARI ANNE BOGULSKI ,
MICHAEL RAKOCZY ,
MICHELLE GOODMAN  and
ELLEN BIALYSTOK
CARI ANNE BOGULSKI
Affiliation:
University of Arkansas, Fayetteville
MICHAEL RAKOCZY
Affiliation:
York University
MICHELLE GOODMAN
Affiliation:
York University
ELLEN BIALYSTOK*
Affiliation:
York University
*
Address for correspondence: Ellen Bialystok Department of PsychologyYork University4700 Keele Street Toronto, Ontario M3J 1P3Canada[email protected]
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Abstract

Previous research showing a bilingual advantage on a variety of executive control tasks has typically compared monolinguals and fluent bilinguals. No study to date, however, has examined whether these effects endure for bilingual individuals who revert to monolingualism (‘lapsed bilinguals’). We investigated this question by testing monolinguals, full bilinguals, and lapsed bilinguals on a flanker task and a working memory task. Fully fluent bilinguals exhibited significantly more accurate performance than monolinguals on the working memory task, with lapsed bilinguals performing between the other two groups. Thus, continued bilingual experience appears necessary to maintain these cognitive advantages at a high level.

Type
Research Notes
Information
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition , Volume 18 , Issue 3 , July 2015 , pp. 561 - 567
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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Footnotes

*

This research was funded by grant A2559 from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) to EB. We thank Kornelia Hawrylewicz and Deanna Friesen for their assistance in this study.

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