Does bilingualism help memory? Competing effects of verbal ability and executive control

Abstract

Two studies are reported that explore the effect of bilingualism on memory performance. Following previous reports of a bilingual advantage in executive control that sometimes shows a greater advantage in older adults, we compared younger and older monolinguals and bilinguals on a memory paradigm that yielded separate measures of familiarity and recollection. As expected, there were no consistent effects in familiarity, but there were age and language differences in recollection, a measure reflecting executive control. Younger adults were superior to older adults on this measure, but there was minimal support for a bilingual advantage in the younger group. Older bilingual adults did show such an advantage, especially on non-verbal tasks. The results provide some initial evidence for the interrelations among processing abilities, types of material, bilingualism, and aging in assessments of memory performance.

Keywords:

• bilingualism
• memory
• executive control
• aging

Acknowledgements

The research reported in this paper was funded by Grant MOP57842 from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) to EB and FIMC. We thank Eric de Sa, Johanna Lake, Sandra Oziel, and Kingston Chui for their help with data collection, Julia Spaniol, Xiaojia Feng, and Gigi Luk in materials preparation, and all the individuals who participated in the study.