Older bilinguals reverse language dominance less than younger bilinguals: Evidence for the inhibitory deficit hypothesis.

ABSTRACT: Inhibitory control is thought to play a key role in how bilinguals switch languages and may decline in aging. We tested these hypotheses by examining age group differences in the reversed language dominance effect-a signature of inhibition of the dominant language that leads bilinguals to name pictures more slowly in the dominant than the nondominant language in mixed-language testing blocks. Twenty-five older and 48 younger Spanish-English bilinguals completed a cued language-switching task. To test if inhibition is applied at the whole-language or lexical level, we first presented one set of pictures repeatedly, then introduced a second list halfway through the experiment. Younger bilinguals exhibited significantly greater reversed language dominance effects than older bilinguals (who ex

SUBMITTER: Stasenko A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8595503 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature