PreprintArticleVersion 2Preserved in Portico This version is not peer-reviewed
Study of Attentional Networks of Alert, Orientation and Executive Control in Bilingual and Monolingual Primary School Children: The Role of Socioeconomic Status
Version 1
: Received: 18 May 2023 / Approved: 18 May 2023 / Online: 18 May 2023 (10:02:28 CEST)
Version 2
: Received: 3 June 2023 / Approved: 5 June 2023 / Online: 5 June 2023 (08:01:58 CEST)
Federico, F.; Mellone, M.; Volpi, F.; Orsolini, M. Study of Alerting, Orienting, and Executive Control Attentional Networks in Bilingual and Monolingual Primary School Children: The Role of Socioeconomic Status. Brain Sci.2023, 13, 948.
Federico, F.; Mellone, M.; Volpi, F.; Orsolini, M. Study of Alerting, Orienting, and Executive Control Attentional Networks in Bilingual and Monolingual Primary School Children: The Role of Socioeconomic Status. Brain Sci. 2023, 13, 948.
Federico, F.; Mellone, M.; Volpi, F.; Orsolini, M. Study of Alerting, Orienting, and Executive Control Attentional Networks in Bilingual and Monolingual Primary School Children: The Role of Socioeconomic Status. Brain Sci.2023, 13, 948.
Federico, F.; Mellone, M.; Volpi, F.; Orsolini, M. Study of Alerting, Orienting, and Executive Control Attentional Networks in Bilingual and Monolingual Primary School Children: The Role of Socioeconomic Status. Brain Sci. 2023, 13, 948.
Abstract
Abstract: For decades, researchers have suggested the existence of a bilingual cognitive advantage, especially in tasks involving executive functions such as inhibition, shifting, and updating. Recently, an increasing number of studies have questioned whether bilingualism results in change in executive functions, highlighting conflicting data published in the literature. The present study compared the performance of third-, fourth-, and fifth-grade bilingual and monolingual children on attentional and cognitive tasks. Participants were 61 monolingual and 74 bilingual children (M = 114.6 months; SD = 8.48 months) who were tested on two versions of the Attention Network Task (ANT), with and without social stimuli, as well as tests investigating working memory, short-term memory, narrative memory, and receptive vocabulary. Data on families’ socioeconomic status and children’s reasoning abilities were also collected. The results showed that bilingualism and socioeconomic status affected attentional networks in tasks involving social stimuli. In tasks involving non-social stimuli, socioeconomic status only affected the alerting and executive conflict networks.Consistent with the literature, a positive relationship emerged between socioeconomic status and executive control in the context of social stimuli, and a negative relationship emerged between socioeconomic status and the alerting network in the context of non-social stimuli. Interestingly, neither socioeconomic status nor social attentional networks correlated with working memory. Therefore, although more investigations are required, the results suggest that differences in social contexts mainly affect attentional functions.
Keywords
attention development; socioeconomic status; bilingualism; cognitive development
Subject
Biology and Life Sciences, Neuroscience and Neurology
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Commenter: Francesca Federico
Commenter's Conflict of Interests: Author