School of Psychology, University of Ottawa, Canada, & Bruyère Research Institute, Ottawa, Canada.
School of Psychology, University of Ottawa, Canada, & Bruyère Research Institute, Ottawa, Canada.
Neuropsychologia. 2020 Jun;143:107468. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2020.107468. Epub 2020 Apr 17.
Previous research has suggested that bilinguals may exhibit cognitive advantages over those who are monolingual, although conflicting results have been reported. This advantage may be heightened in older adults, because of age-related cognitive decline. However, the effects of bilingualism on working memory performance in older adults remain unknown. The current study uses electroencephalography to measure brain activity (event-related potential; ERP) differences between young and older monolinguals and bilinguals during a delayed matching-to-sample task. Although there were no effects of bilingualism in behavioral measures, differences were observed in electrophysiological measures. While no Age by Language interaction was observed, several main effects were identified. Compared to young adults, older adults exhibited smaller N2 amplitudes and larger P2 and P3b amplitudes in the medium and high load conditions. Older adults also displayed an increased slow wave amplitude that occurred in conjunction with increased reaction time. ERP differences during difficult tasks in older adults suggest the use of compensatory mechanisms to maintain similar performance to the young adults. Bilinguals exhibited smaller N2 and larger P2 and P3b amplitudes than monolinguals. ERP differences observed in bilinguals may reflect differences in cognitive processing. However, in the absence of performance differences between monolinguals and bilinguals, interpreting a bilingual advantage in working memory processing is difficult.
先前的研究表明，双语者可能比单语者表现出认知优势，尽管也有相互矛盾的结果。这种优势在老年人中可能更为明显，因为老年人认知能力会随着年龄的增长而下降。然而，双语对老年人工作记忆表现的影响尚不清楚。本研究使用脑电图来测量在延迟匹配样本任务中，年轻和年长的单语者和双语者的大脑活动（事件相关电位；ERP）差异。尽管双语对行为测量没有影响，但在电生理测量中观察到了差异。虽然没有观察到年龄与语言的交互作用，但确定了几个主要作用。与年轻人相比，中高负荷条件下，老年人的 N2 波幅较小，P2 和 P3b 波幅较大。老年人还表现出与反应时增加相关的慢波振幅增加。在老年人困难任务期间的 ERP 差异表明，使用了补偿机制来保持与年轻人相似的表现。与单语者相比，双语者的 N2 波幅较小，P2 和 P3b 波幅较大。在双语者中观察到的 ERP 差异可能反映了认知加工的差异。然而，在单语者和双语者之间没有表现出性能差异的情况下，很难解释双语在工作记忆处理中的优势。
