Comparing bilingual and monolingual performance on the attention network test: meta-analysis of a literature inspired by
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REVIEW
Comparing bilingual and monolingual performance on the attention network test: meta-analysis of a literature inspired by Albert Costa Swasti Arora . Raymond M. Klein
Received: 23 June 2020 / Revised: 17 September 2020 / Accepted: 26 September 2020 Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020
Abstract Are there differences between bilinguals and monolinguals in non-linguistic cognitive processes related to attention? Recent interest in this question, which has a long history, was stimulated by ideas presented in Bialystok’s 2001 book: Bilingualism in development: Language, literacy, and cognition. Because attention is a multi-faceted construct Costa et al. (Cognition 106(1):59–86, 2008, Cognition 113(2):135–149, 2009) sought to answer this question using the attention network test (ANT), a simple-toadminister tool that was designed to measure the efficacy of three attention networks: alerting, orienting and executive control. Using the ANT Database, a recently developed repository of data extracted from studies that have used the ANT to answer any question, we identified 16 papers that followed Costa’s pioneering use of the ANT to address the question whether bilingualism is associated with differences in attention. In this paper we begin by reviewing the methods and findings from Costa’s studies, and then report the results of three meta-analyses (conducted separately for children, young adults and middle-aged adults) of the data reported in these 16 papers. Whereas, there were no noteworthy effects of language status on alerting or orienting in any group, our meta-analysis of the studies that tested young adults S. Arora R. M. Klein (&) Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada e-mail: [email protected]
revealed, in agreement with Costa et al. (2008) a bilingual advantage in executive control. A similar bilingual advantage was not observed in the other age groups. Keywords Bilingual Attention network test Metaanalysis Alertness Orienting Executive control
Introduction It is generally agreed that the typical bilingual is confronted with a variety of situations that might regularly exercise aspects of attention. Consequently, a question of great interest has been: Are any aspects of attention improved by this exercise? Different aspects of attention were described in a taxonomy of attention proposed by Posner and Petersen (1990). Inspired by this taxonomy, the attention network test (ANT) was developed by Fan et al. (2002) to measure the efficacy of three isolable networks of attention: alerting (achieving and maintaining a state of readiness to respond), orienting (giving processing preference to some sensory inputs over others) and executive control (resolving conflict between activated response tendencies). Albert Costa, a renowned bilingualism researcher, was the first scientist to exploit the ANT to address this topic of great interest (Costa et al. 2008, 2009). Our purpose in this paper is to highlight
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