The Impact of Bilingual Experience on Healthy Age-Related Changes in Reading

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Older adults (65+) represent an ever-increasing segment of the New Brunswick, Canadian, and world population. The aging process can impact essential life skills, such as reading, in ways that limit older adults' social interaction, job performance, independence, and quality of life. However, little scientific research has investigated reading in older adults. To date, nearly all studies have focused on monolingual older adults (individuals who know one language only), leaving reading in bilingual older adults (individuals who know two languages) poorly understood. Given that bilinguals have both qualitatively and quantitatively different language experiences from their monolingual peers, which likely influence the brain-behaviour dynamics involved in reading, the research involving monolinguals likely does not generalize to bilinguals. With more and more people becoming bilingual in New Brunswick, Canada, and the world, it is crucial to develop a better understanding of how aging and bilingualism jointly influence reading. To address this critical gap in the scientific literature, the proposed research will investigate naturalistic reading performance in both monolinguals and bilinguals across the adult lifespan. It will determine whether bilingualism (as opposed to monolingualism) improves or hinders naturalistic reading performance among the elderly. A collection of studies will employ eye-tracking methods to investigate how a lifetime of using one vs. two languages influences: (1) local (word-level) aspects of naturalistic reading, with a specific focus on lexical properties; (2) global (sentence-level) aspects of naturalistic reading, with a specific focus on the role of visual attention; and (3) global (text-level) aspects of naturalistic reading, with a specific focus on the role of mind wandering. It will also investigate the contribution of graded differences in lexical knowledge and executive control. Taken together, the proposed research will clarify how healthy aging impacts reading in an under-studied population: bilinguals. It will contribute to a more comprehensive and inclusive account of language, cognition, and the brain. Insights gathered from this work will lead to a better understanding of healthy age-related changes in cognition (especially among people with different language backgrounds) and will inform healthy aging programs, especially those aimed at maintaining older adults' functional independence. By including a sizable team of undergraduate and graduate trainees, the proposed research will also contribute to the education and training of junior scientists.