Abstract
To examine the effects of bilingualism on cognitive control, we
studied monolingual and bilingual young adults performing a
flanker task with functional MRI. The trial types of primary
interest for this report were incongruent and no-go trials,
representing interference suppression and response inhibition,
respectively. Response times were similar between groups. Brain
data were analyzed using partial least squares (PLS) to identify
brain regions where activity covaried across conditions.
Monolinguals and bilinguals activated different sets of brain
regions for congruent and incongruent trials, but showed
activation in the same regions for no-go trials. During the
incongruent trials, monolinguals activated the left temporal
pole and left superior parietal regions. In contrast, an
extensive network including bilateral frontal, temporal and
subcortical regions was active in bilinguals during the
incongruent trials and in both groups for the no-go trials.
Correlations between brain activity and reaction time difference
relative to neutral trials revealed that monolinguals and
bilinguals showed increased activation in different brain
regions to achieve less interference from incongruent flankers.
Results indicate that bilingualism selectively affects neural
correlates for suppressing interference, but not response
inhibition. Moreover, the neural correlates associated with more
efficient suppression of interference were different in
bilinguals than in monolinguals, suggesting a bilingual-specific
network for cognitive control.
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