A substantial body of research highlights differences in cognitive performance between bilinguals and monolinguals across various cognitive domains. Within the realm of executive function, some studies have shown a bilingual advantage, whereby bilinguals outperform monolinguals in both speed and accuracy, although other studies have shown no such group differences. In language tasks, by contrast, monolinguals typically exhibit superior performance compared to bilinguals. These effects of bilingualism appear to be more pronounced in older compared to younger adults, possibly because the former are at the height of their cognitive abilities, and the effects of bilingualism are thus more difficult to detect. Here I will present findings from behavioural and event-related potential studies of bilingual older adults, as well as findings from the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA), that shed light on potential differences in cognitive and neural processing associated with bilingualism. These findings offer valuable clues for refining our understanding of the “bilingualism effect”, emphasizing individual-level factors such as language background and usage patterns. The findings also hold clinical relevance, and I will discuss our preliminary work in developing tools for assessment of language function in bilingual older adults.
Vanessa Taler's research interests focus on semantic and cognitive processing in cognitively healthy older adults, as well as people with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer's disease (AD). She also studies language and cognitive processing in bilinguals and uses ERP and behavioral techniques to study these questions. Dr. Taler is also the Ottawa site principal investigator for the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA), a large, national, long-term study of 50,000 people aged 45-85, and the head of the CLSA Psychological Health Working Group.
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