Interaction of language and control processes in monolingual and bilingual cognition

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Neuroplasticity is the idea that brain structure and function change in response to experience, offering the possibility for lifelong adaptation of cognitive ability. Such adaptation may be a powerful approach to interventions designed to protect cognitive function with aging. One experience that has been shown to modify cognitive function is bilingualism: across the lifespan, bilinguals outperform monolinguals on various tests of executive control (EC). However, much is unknown about these effects, both for bilingualism in particular and neuroplasticity more generally. The proposed studies will use behavioural and EEG measures to study younger and older adults who are monolingual or bilingual to understand how this experience affects cognitive ability. There are two crucial outstanding issues in this research.