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Does the bilingual advantage extend to trilingualism?
Guðmundsdóttir, Margaret D. Lesk, Valerie E.
Guðmundsdóttir, Margaret D.
Lesk, Valerie E.
Publication Date
2019
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© 2019 Taylor & Francis. The Version of Record of this manuscript has been published and is available in International Journal of Multilingualism from 23 May 2019 at https://doi.org/10.1080/14790718.2019.1617717.
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2019-05-07
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Abstract
This study examined whether the proposed bilingual advantage in inhibitory control and working memory can be extended to a trilingual advantage, and assessed any age-related effects on a continuum in young adults to older adults. Trilinguals, bilinguals and monolinguals’ performance on the Simon task and a numerical version of the N-back task was compared. On the Simon task, there was no language group difference observed, although the data show an age-related decline in inhibitory control only in trilinguals, but not in bilinguals or monolinguals. No clear language group differences were observed between trilinguals and bilinguals on the N-back task, however an overall trilingual and bilingual disadvantage, compared to monolinguals, was observed. Together the results suggest that managing two or three languages, compared to just one, may have a negative impact on inhibitory control and working memory performance. Importantly, they highlight the need to control for a possible confounding effect of including trilinguals/multilinguals in bilingual cohorts and to ensure that participants in monolingual cohorts speak only one language.
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Accepted manuscript
Citation
Guðmundsdóttir MD and Lesk VE (2019) Does the bilingual advantage extend to trilingualism?. International Journal of Multilingualism. 16(4): 549-562.
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Article