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Psycholinguistics Coffee

Psycholinguistics Coffee

Informal Meeting to Discuss Psycholinguistic Research

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Please join us for the following talk in room G26, 7 George Square. The link to the online Teams meeting will be sent to the mailing list closer to the time for those who cannot join us in Edinburgh.

 

Speaker

Professor Andriy Myachykov

 

Time and date

Tuesday 16th June, 2 PM.

 

Title and abstract
Bilingualism, Brain, & Cognitive Performance

This talk examines how bilingualism shapes cognitive performance and brain structure across the lifespan. Drawing on neuroimaging and behavioral studies with, we demonstrate that bilingual experience enhances executive control, working memory, and cognitive efficiency. Using tasks including the Attention Network Test and N-back paradigms, our research reveals that higher second language proficiency correlates with improved conflict resolution, reduced performance decline under cognitive load, and inverted speed-accuracy tradeoffs reflecting automaticity in processing.

Critically, individual differences modulate these effects. Linguistic distance between languages demonstrates a dynamic effect: greater distance benefits cognitive control during initial learning stages, while smaller distance proves advantageous at higher proficiency levels for language maintenance. Sleep quality interacts with bilingualism, where bilingual experience buffers against cognitive impairments associated with poor sleep, suggesting protective effects of accumulated cognitive reserve.

Our structural neuroimaging studies demonstrate that bilingual experience drives neuroplasticity in regions supporting language control and executive functions. Gray matter volume in the caudate nucleus, hippocampus, and cerebellum correlates with bilingual proficiency and predicts executive performance. Notably, highly proficient bilinguals maintain optimal cognitive performance even with reduced structural volumes, indicating efficient neural compensation and reserve accumulation.

Together, our findings position bilingualism as a lifelong experience that fundamentally restructures brain organization and enhances cognitive resilience, with implications for understanding neurocognitive reserve mechanisms and cognitive aging trajectories.

 

Link to session

The meeting link is distributed on our mailing list. If you’re not subscribed to this list, please email us at ppls.psycholingcoffee@ed.ac.uk

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