title: Bilingualism trains specific brain circuits involved in flexible rule selection and application.
abstract: Bilingual individuals have been shown to outperform monolinguals on a variety of tasks that measure non-linguistic executive functioning, suggesting that some facets of the bilingual experience give rise to generalized improvements in cognitive performance. The current study investigated the hypothesis that such advantage in executive functioning arises from the need to flexibly select and apply rules when speaking multiple languages. Such flexible behavior may strengthen the functioning of the fronto-striatal loops that direct signals to the prefrontal cortex. To test this hypothesis, we compared behavioral and brain data from proficient bilinguals and monolinguals who performed a Rapid Instructed Task Learning paradigm, which requires behaving according to ever-changing rules. Consistent with our hypothesis, bilinguals were faster than monolinguals when executing novel rules, and this improvement was associated with greater modulation of activity in the basal ganglia. The implications of these findings for language and executive function research are discussed herein.
authors.affiliation: Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences, University of Washington, United States; Department of Psychology, University of Washington, United States. Electronic address: stocco@uw.edu.
authors.forename: Andrea
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Stocco
authors.affiliation: Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences, University of Washington, United States; Department of Psychology, University of Washington, United States.
authors.forename: Chantel S
authors.initials: CS
authors.lastname: Prat
mesh_terms: D000222:Adaptation, Physiological; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001479:Basal Ganglia / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D002421:Caudate Nucleus / Q000502:physiology; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D056344:Executive Function / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D005917:Globus Pallidus / Q000502:physiology; D066128:Gray Matter / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D016014:Linear Models; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D008570:Memory, Short-Term / Q000502:physiology; D019303:Multilingualism; D017397:Prefrontal Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D011699:Putamen / Q000502:physiology; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D013788:Thalamus / Q000502:physiology; D014825:Vocabulary; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Basal ganglia; Bilingualism; Cognitive control; Cognitive flexibility; Executive function; Rapid Instructed Task Learning; Rule-based behaviors; fMRI