Working Memory Capacity, Inhibitory Control and the Role of L2 Proficiency in Aging L1 Dutch Speakers of Near-Native L2 English
Abstract
:1. Introduction
2. Working Memory Capacity and Inhibitory Control across the Lifespan
2.1. Working Memory Capacity
2.2. Inhibitory Control
2.3. The Interaction between Working Memory Capacity and Inhibitory Control
2.4. Research Questions and Predictions
2.4.1. Working Memory Capacity
- 1
- Does L2 proficiency relate to L2 Reading Span Task scores? Does this relationship fluctuate as a function of age? Predictions: previous work has found that, with increased L2 proficiency, L1 and L2 Reading Span Scores more closely approximate each other. Given the high-proficient L2 speakers under investigation, who are in fact more accurately termed bilinguals, the majority of subjects will likely show a link between L1 and L2 WM scores. The effect is furthermore expected to remain the same across all age groups, including older adults, but their score on the Reading Span Test in both languages is expected to be lower due to age-related lexical access difficulties (see [15]).
- 2
- Can L2 WM scores (as measured by a Reading Span Task) be predicted on the basis of L1 WM scores? Does this depend on L2 proficiency and/or age of the test taker? Predictions: similar to the previous prediction, L2 WM scores can be better predicted on the basis of L1 WM scores in high-proficient L2 speakers, encompassing the vast majority of participants in this study. As both L1 and L2 WM scores are likely to decline as a function of advanced age rather than merely one language, this effect should remain intact, also in the older adults.
2.4.2. Inhibitory Control
- 3
- Can language proficiency be related to inhibiting interfering linguistic information (as measured by a Stroop task)? Can differential effects be found for the L1 and L2? And is this effect the same for younger and older adults? Predictions: because of the bilingual participants under investigation, no large discrepancies are expected between L1 Dutch and L2 English Stroop test performance; the language knowledge in both languages will be sufficient for interference to play a role. Having said that, it is likely that more interference occurs in the Dutch version, given that Dutch likely remains the dominant language of the participants. However, the largest Stroop effects are expected for older adults, as these people tend to have more difficulty inhibiting irrelevant information. In other words, the response latencies are expected to be longest in the oldest participants, due to reduced inhibitory control (see Section 2.2) This is likely to be felt for both congruent and incongruent trials as well as the discrepancy between both. The accuracy scores are expected to follow the trends of the RTs: older people will likely obtain lower accuracy scores, and lower accuracy scores may be predicted for the most dominant language, i.e., Dutch.
2.4.3. Interaction Working Memory Capacity and Inhibitory Control
- 4
- Does WM capacity relate to inhibitory control of linguistic information? Furthermore, can a relationship be established between L1 WM capacity and the ability to inhibit linguistic information in the L2? Does this relationship depend on age? Predictions: those individuals with higher WM capacity (better scores on the RST) will perform better on the Stroop test. In line with previous work, an inverse relationship is expected between L1 WM scores and L1 Stoop scores (a better performance is signaled by a smaller Stroop effect). Furthermore, L2 WM scores and L2 Stroop task scores are also likely linked in a similar way, as are L1 WM scores and L2 Stroop test scores, because the L2 and L1 processing is not expected to be substantially different in the bilingual group in this study. No differential effect is expected for the older adults, as the scores on both the Stroop and Reading Span Tasks are likely to decrease exponentially.
3. The Study
3.1. Participants
Group | Mean age | Female/Male ratio | Years of
formal education | Length of residence (in years) | Age of L2 acquisition * |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
40–50 (n = 17) | 43.12 ± 2.395 | 11 female
6 male | 19 ± 1.936
Range: 15–24 | 9.12 ± 8.753
Range: 1–30 | 34.06 ± 8.67 |
60–70
(n = 17) | 64.00 ± 3.873 | 12 female
5 male | 16.29 ± 3.443
Range: 9–20 | 36.94 ± 8.555
Range: 25–50 | 27.12 ± 7.63 |
71+
(n = 29) | 77.93 ± 4.734 | 13 female
16 male | 12.89 ± 3.304
Range: 7–20 | 54.81 ± 7.321
Range: 25–61 | 22.85 ± 9.30 |
3.2. Materials and Procedure
3.2.1. C-Test of Proficiency
3.2.2. Reading Span Task
3.2.3. Stroop Task
4. Results
40–50 (n = 16) | 60–70 (n = 17) | 71+ (n = 29) | |
---|---|---|---|
L2 English C-test (max = 100) | 75.81 ± 13.05 Range: 45–92 | 78.88 ± 10.98 Range: 57–93 | 68.76 ± 17.46 Range: −15-95 |
L1 Dutch C-test (max = 100) | 92.25 ± 5.41 Range: 79–100 | 86.94 ± 9.67 Range: 69–98 | 73.04 ± 23.91 Range: −21-97 |
40–50 (n = 17) | 60–70 (n = 17) | 71+ (n = 29) | |
---|---|---|---|
L2 English WM scores (max = 60) | 40.53 ± 5.363 Range: 28–50 | 36.41 ± 5.269 Range: 28–46 | 30.03 ± 6.378 Range: 18–46 |
L1 Dutch WM scores (max = 60) | 41.88 ± 3.855 Range: 34–48 | 37.35 ± 4.499 Range: 30–46 | 30.79 ± 7.360 Range: 14–51 |
40–50 (n = 17) | 60–70 (n = 16) | 71+ (n = 27) | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
Accuracy score (max = 50) | Dutch | 47.50 ± 6.41 | 47.47 ± 3.09 | 41.17 ± 13.50 |
English | 49.65 ± 0.79 | 49.19 ± 1.22 | 46.56 ± 5.69 | |
RTs congruent trials | Dutch | 800.63 ± 84.07 | 966.47 ± 218.59 | 1147. 97 ± 555.55 |
English | 662.59 ± 140.63 | 752.89 ± 150.77 | 958.12 ± 324.74 | |
RTs incongruent trials | Dutch | 851.23 ± 187.45 | 1125.53 ± 239.20 | 1305.17 ± 546.22 |
English | 707.55 ± 150.40 | 837.59 ± 159.05 | 1139.32 ± 402.51 | |
RTs neutral trials | Dutch | 783.42 ± 173.69 | 1011.38 ± 218.28 | 1271.86 ± 562.76 |
English | 680.53 ± 150.88 | 755.73 ± 170.84 | 1038.87 ± 434.86 | |
Stroop effect | Dutch | 50.60 ± 93.57 | 159.06 ± 144.02 | 157.20 ± 292.41 |
English | 44.95 ± 44.95 | 84.71 ± 80.50 | 181.20 ± 140.76 |
English Stroop test | ANOVA test statistics |
---|---|
Accuracy scores | F(2,57) = 4.037, p < 0.05 |
RTs congruent items | F(2,57) = 8.454, p < 0.001 |
RTs incongruent items | F(2,57) = 12.418, p < 0.000 |
RTs neutral items | F(2,57) = 7.90, p < 0.001 |
Stroop effect | F(2,57) = 9.558, p < 0.000 |
Bilinguals’ performance on the Dutch versus English Stroop test | Age groups | ||
---|---|---|---|
40–50 | 60–70 | 71+ | |
Accuracy | n.s. | t(14) = −2.310, p < 0.05 | t(26) = −2.419, p < 0.05 |
RTs congruent trials | t(15) = 4.649, p < 0.000 | t(14) = 3.888, p < 0.005 | n.s. |
RTs incongruent trials | t(15) = 4.654, p < 0.000 | t(14) = 4.861, p < 0.000 | n.s. |
RTs neutral trials | t(15) = 3.234, p < 0.01 | t(14) = 5.205, p < 0.000 | t(26) = 3.126, p < 0.005 |
Stroop effect | n.s. | n.s. | n.s. |
Bilinguals’ versus monolingual English speakers’ performance on the English Stroop Test | Age groups | ||
---|---|---|---|
40–50 | 60–70 | 71+ | |
Accuracy | t(21.523) = 3.497, p < 0.005 | t(26.012) = 2.394, p < 0.05 | n.s. |
RTs congruent trials | t(29.837) = −3.524, p < 0.001 | t(31.824) = −4.066, p < 0.000 | t(22.311) = −2.940, p < 0.01 |
RTs incongruent trials | t(29.523) = −4.314, p < 0.000 | t(32.728) = −4.483, p < 0.000 | t(40) = −2.837, p < 0.01 |
RTs neutral trials | t(26.886) = −3.679, p < 0.001 | t(34.552) = −4.238, p < 0.000 | t(40) = −2.441, p < 0.05 |
Stroop effect | t(23.499) = −2.601, p < 0.05 | n.s. | n.s. |
5. Discussion
6. Conclusions
Acknowledgments
Conflicts of Interest
References and Notes
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Keijzer, M. Working Memory Capacity, Inhibitory Control and the Role of L2 Proficiency in Aging L1 Dutch Speakers of Near-Native L2 English. Brain Sci. 2013, 3, 1261-1281. https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci3031261
Keijzer M. Working Memory Capacity, Inhibitory Control and the Role of L2 Proficiency in Aging L1 Dutch Speakers of Near-Native L2 English. Brain Sciences. 2013; 3(3):1261-1281. https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci3031261
Chicago/Turabian StyleKeijzer, Merel. 2013. "Working Memory Capacity, Inhibitory Control and the Role of L2 Proficiency in Aging L1 Dutch Speakers of Near-Native L2 English" Brain Sciences 3, no. 3: 1261-1281. https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci3031261