Effect of experience on representation and control across the lifespan

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Throughout life, our experiences help shape our cognitive abilities. In childhood, the degree of environmental richness influences development; in adulthood, intense experience with specific skills promotes "expertise"; and in older age, ongoing participation in stimulating activities contributes to "cognitive reserve". In all these cases, cognitive performance is enhanced or modified through these experiences. However, little is known about how these experiences have their effect and how broad the impact is across the cognitive system. The present proposal is to examine these questions by studying two common experiences that have been shown to influence cognitive systems. These experiences are bilingualism, in which individuals routinely use two languages throughout their lives, and musical training, in which individuals engage in intensive study and practice of musical performance. Unlike previous research that has examined the effect of these experiences in discrete studies at a single point in time, the present proposal is to integrate this research into a coherent framework in order to compare and contrast their effects at three crucial points in the lifespan - childhood, young adulthood, and older age. There are three main objectives. The first is to conduct detailed investigations of how each of bilingualism and musical training affect cognitive ability in terms of the range of functions affected and the ages at which these effects are most apparent. The second is to interpret these patterns in a model of cognitive functioning that is based on a distinction between processes involved in representation of specialized knowledge systems and processes involved in control of attention. The third is to use these analyses to propose a mechanism (or set of mechanisms) through which experience has these effects. The results have implications for theoretical notions of cognitive systems and development and practical approaches of education, remediation, and rehabilitation.