NSF Award
2416246
Humans have an extraordinary ability to speak multiple languages and to switch between languages seemingly effortlessly. With similar ease, humans shift their attention back and forth routinely. The ability to switch between languages and between other behaviors is believed to be carried out by the same frontal-lobe processes and, more generally, is associated with executive function. Hypothetically, because bilinguals engage frontal-lobe processes more often than monolinguals (i.e., for language control), it may be that frontal-lobe processes are stronger in bilinguals, thus potentially conferring what is termed a “bilingual advantage” on executive function. This project aims to reveal the executive function abilities shaped by bilingualism and the frontal-lobe processes involved in both language control and executive function. This project has the potential to reveal how frontal-lobe processes may be strengthened which will provide insight into the mechanism through which brain processes become deficient. Results from this project may ultimately guide research and interventions for disorders such as depression, anxiety, and obsessive-compulsive associated with deficient frontal-lobe processes. This project will build research capacity by providing state-of-the-art equipment to train underrepresented future science leaders.<br/><br/>This project will examine frontal-lobe processes by directly measuring the brain’s electrical activity while English speaking monolinguals and Spanish/English bilinguals perform executive function tasks. The measurement of the brain’s electrical activity adds a new dimension to the existing behavior literature and will potentially resolve inconsistent findings on the existence of a bilingual executive function advantage that currently pose critical barriers to progress. Unique to this project is that proficiency in both languages will be objectively quantified through a linguistic proficiency assessment and used as a predictor of neural activity and executive abilities. Language groups will be compared at a latent level of analysis, which is more likely to capture executive abilities than more traditional statistical approaches that compare groups on observed task-specific effects, e.g., motor speed. Noteworthy, the study team has access to a unique population of bilingual students who will serve as study participants and are like English speaking monolingual students on demographic characteristics. This is not typical of Spanish speaking bilinguals in other areas of the United States. Group equivalence on these measures is essential because demographic variables have been shown to account for group differences in executive function.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
