The impact of task difficulty and bilingual features on the aging process of response inhibition in English-Mandarin bilinguals.

The current study investigated age-related declines in prepotent response inhibition in bilinguals, and the impact of factors such as task difficulty, degree of bilingualism and extent of language dominance on the decay process. Both young and old English-Mandarin bilinguals were recruited in the study. Using a 2 (Age: young adults, older adults) X 2 (Go/No-Go conditions: high impulsive, standard impulsive) mixed factorial design, the study varied the task difficulty of the Go/No-Go task. The study found that age was positively associated with prepotent response inhibition in bilinguals regardless of task difficulty, even after controlling for participants’ age-related generalized slowing in processing speed. Hence, the findings suggest that bilingualism may not only reduce but also reverse the age-related decay of prepotent response inhibition in bilinguals. Furthermore, a positive relationship between the degree of bilingualism and prepotent response inhibition was found but only for older bilingual adults in the high conflict monitoring condition. On the other hand, no relationship was observed between the extent of language dominance and prepotent response inhibition in bilinguals. Together, the current study illustrated the aging process of prepotent response inhibition in a bilingual population, and demonstrated the impact of factors such as task difficulty, degree of bilingualism, and extent of language dominance on this process.Bachelor of Art