Cargando…
Meta-Analysis Reveals a Bilingual Advantage That Is Dependent on Task and Age
Debate continues on whether a bilingual advantage exists with respect to executive functioning. This report synthesized the results of 170 studies to test whether the bilingual advantage is dependent on the task used to assess executive functioning and the age of the participants. The results of the...
Autores principales: | , , |
---|---|
Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Frontiers Media S.A.
2020
|
Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7394008/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32793026 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01458 |
_version_ | 1783565149253140480 |
---|---|
author | Ware, Anna T. Kirkovski, Melissa Lum, Jarrad A. G. |
author_facet | Ware, Anna T. Kirkovski, Melissa Lum, Jarrad A. G. |
author_sort | Ware, Anna T. |
collection | PubMed |
description | Debate continues on whether a bilingual advantage exists with respect to executive functioning. This report synthesized the results of 170 studies to test whether the bilingual advantage is dependent on the task used to assess executive functioning and the age of the participants. The results of the meta-analyses indicated that the bilingual advantage was both task- and age-specific. Bilinguals were significantly faster than monolinguals (Hedges' g values ranged from 0.23 to 0.34), and significantly more accurate than monolinguals (Hedges' g values ranged between 0.18 and 0.49) on four out of seven tasks. Also, an effect of age was found whereby the bilingual advantage was larger for studies comprising samples aged 50-years and over (Hedges' g = 0.49), compared to those undertaken with participants aged between 18 and 29 years (Hedges' g = 0.12). The extent to which the bilingual advantage might be due to publication bias was assessed using multiple methods. These were Egger's Test of Asymmetry, Duval and Tweedie's Trim and Fill, Classic Fail-Safe N, and PET-PEESE. Publication bias was only found when using Egger's Test of Asymmetry and PET-PEESE method, but not when using the other methods. This review indicates that if bilingualism does enhance executive functioning, the effects are modulated by task and age. This may arise because using multiple languages has a highly specific effect on executive functioning which is only observable in older, relative to younger, adults. The finding that publication bias was not uniformly detected across the different methods raises questions about the impact that unpublished (or undetected) studies have on meta-analyses of this literature. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7394008 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2020 |
publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-73940082020-08-12 Meta-Analysis Reveals a Bilingual Advantage That Is Dependent on Task and Age Ware, Anna T. Kirkovski, Melissa Lum, Jarrad A. G. Front Psychol Psychology Debate continues on whether a bilingual advantage exists with respect to executive functioning. This report synthesized the results of 170 studies to test whether the bilingual advantage is dependent on the task used to assess executive functioning and the age of the participants. The results of the meta-analyses indicated that the bilingual advantage was both task- and age-specific. Bilinguals were significantly faster than monolinguals (Hedges' g values ranged from 0.23 to 0.34), and significantly more accurate than monolinguals (Hedges' g values ranged between 0.18 and 0.49) on four out of seven tasks. Also, an effect of age was found whereby the bilingual advantage was larger for studies comprising samples aged 50-years and over (Hedges' g = 0.49), compared to those undertaken with participants aged between 18 and 29 years (Hedges' g = 0.12). The extent to which the bilingual advantage might be due to publication bias was assessed using multiple methods. These were Egger's Test of Asymmetry, Duval and Tweedie's Trim and Fill, Classic Fail-Safe N, and PET-PEESE. Publication bias was only found when using Egger's Test of Asymmetry and PET-PEESE method, but not when using the other methods. This review indicates that if bilingualism does enhance executive functioning, the effects are modulated by task and age. This may arise because using multiple languages has a highly specific effect on executive functioning which is only observable in older, relative to younger, adults. The finding that publication bias was not uniformly detected across the different methods raises questions about the impact that unpublished (or undetected) studies have on meta-analyses of this literature. Frontiers Media S.A. 2020-07-24 /pmc/articles/PMC7394008/ /pubmed/32793026 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01458 Text en Copyright © 2020 Ware, Kirkovski and Lum. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. |
spellingShingle | Psychology Ware, Anna T. Kirkovski, Melissa Lum, Jarrad A. G. Meta-Analysis Reveals a Bilingual Advantage That Is Dependent on Task and Age |
title | Meta-Analysis Reveals a Bilingual Advantage That Is Dependent on Task and Age |
title_full | Meta-Analysis Reveals a Bilingual Advantage That Is Dependent on Task and Age |
title_fullStr | Meta-Analysis Reveals a Bilingual Advantage That Is Dependent on Task and Age |
title_full_unstemmed | Meta-Analysis Reveals a Bilingual Advantage That Is Dependent on Task and Age |
title_short | Meta-Analysis Reveals a Bilingual Advantage That Is Dependent on Task and Age |
title_sort | meta-analysis reveals a bilingual advantage that is dependent on task and age |
topic | Psychology |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7394008/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32793026 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01458 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT wareannat metaanalysisrevealsabilingualadvantagethatisdependentontaskandage AT kirkovskimelissa metaanalysisrevealsabilingualadvantagethatisdependentontaskandage AT lumjarradag metaanalysisrevealsabilingualadvantagethatisdependentontaskandage |