Summary: Speaking two languages can enhance attentional control and the ability to filter out irrelevant information.
A University of Florida study investigated how bilingual and monolingual people process new information and regulate attention. The findings indicate that bilinguals are more efficient at ignoring irrelevant stimuli, an ability that may develop from regularly switching between two languages. The results add nuance to ongoing research about bilingualism and cognitive control and underscore practical benefits of knowing more than one language.
Key Facts:
- Improved attentional control in bilinguals: Bilingual participants demonstrated stronger control over attention in tasks that required filtering out irrelevant information compared with monolinguals. This skill appears linked to the routine need to shift focus between active and inactive languages.
- Innovative measurement: Researchers applied the Partial Repetition Cost task—a paradigm not previously used in psycholinguistics—to assess how participants process incoming stimuli and manage attention. This method helped isolate whether bilingual experience affects low-level binding processes or higher-level attentional disengagement.
- Adaptable cognition: The study emphasizes that cognitive traits, including attention control, are dynamic and responsive to life experiences. Bilingualism is presented as one factor that can shape these processes over time, with potential reversibility if language use declines.
Source: University of Florida
People who speak two languages may be better at shifting attention than those who speak only one, a study published in Bilingualism: Language and Cognition reports.
The research, led by Grace deMeurisse, a Ph.D. candidate in linguistics at the University of Florida, and Edith Kaan, a UF linguistics professor, compared attentional control and the ability to ignore task-irrelevant information between bilingual and monolingual participants.
“Our results showed that bilinguals are more efficient at ignoring irrelevant information, rather than actively suppressing it,” said deMeurisse. “That efficiency may come from frequently switching between languages, which requires shifting attention away from the language not currently in use.”
For instance, during a conversation in Spanish, an individual who also knows English keeps English active in memory but effectively sidelines it until needed. This constant balancing may train attentional mechanisms to disengage from irrelevant cues more rapidly.
Previous research into bilingualism and cognition has produced mixed results, in part because different studies use varied tasks and definitions. Some literature finds small or inconsistent differences between bilinguals and monolinguals, and deMeurisse and Kaan designed their study to address methodological gaps by using the Partial Repetition Cost task.
The Partial Repetition Cost paradigm distinguishes whether performance differences arise from low-level processes—such as binding and unbinding stimulus–response features—or from higher-level attentional control. The study found no group differences when stimulus features were directly relevant to the task. However, bilingual participants showed smaller partial repetition costs when those features were irrelevant, indicating enhanced attentional disengagement rather than altered low-level binding.
Participants were classified as either functional monolinguals—individuals with minimal foreign-language exposure (two years or less) who primarily use their first language—or bilinguals who had acquired both languages in childhood (before ages nine to twelve) and continue to use both. This classification helped isolate effects tied to regular dual-language use.
Kaan emphasized that human cognition is flexible and adapts continuously to experience. “Being bilingual shapes cognitive processes while the experience continues,” she said. “If bilinguals stop using a second language, those cognitive patterns may change as well.”
The authors call for greater consistency across experiments that study bilingualism and cognition, advocating for standardized methodology and clearer participant definitions. Doing so will clarify which cognitive differences are robust and which depend on task design or participant background.
The researchers also stressed that the goal was not to claim overall superiority for bilinguals. “We are not framing this as an advantage or disadvantage,” deMeurisse said. “Learning a second language offers many benefits—cognitive, social, and cultural—and exposure to another language is never a detriment.”
About this language and neuroscience research news
Author: Karen Dooley
Source: University of Florida
Contact: Karen Dooley – University of Florida
Image: The image is credited to Neuroscience News
Original Research: Open access. “Bilingual attentional control: Evidence from the Partial Repetition Cost paradigm” by Grace deMeurisse et al., published in Bilingualism: Language and Cognition.
Abstract
Bilingual attentional control: Evidence from the Partial Repetition Cost paradigm
The impact of bilingual language experience on cognitive control remains debated. One proposal is that bilingualism enhances attentional control, reflected in reduced effects of preceding trials on current-task performance. However, such patterns can also arise from lower-level processes like the binding and unbinding of stimulus and response features. This study employed the Partial Repetition Cost paradigm to test whether language experience affects these basic processes or higher-level attentional control.
Results indicated that bilinguals and monolinguals performed similarly when stimulus features were task-relevant. Crucially, bilinguals exhibited smaller partial repetition costs when those features were task-irrelevant, suggesting that bilingual experience does not modify low-level binding mechanisms but is associated with enhanced ability to disengage attention from irrelevant information.