Bilingualism and Cognitive Ageing: Domain-Specific Benefits After Controlling for Education and Lifestyle
Abstract
Lifelong bilingualism has been proposed as a cognitively enriching experience that mitigates age-related declines in cognitive abilities; however, the evidence remains mixed due to issues such as small samples, absence of effects in younger samples, and not accounting for confounding factors (e.g. education). Here we address these issues by examining adults aged 18-88 from the Cam-CAN dataset in two ways: by comparing monolinguals to bilinguals (N=390) and by examining bilingual experience as a continuous factor with a newly devised metric (N=460). Generalised additive models assessed fluid reasoning, ecological multitasking, and verbal abstraction. Increased age was associated with declined fluid reasoning and multitasking, but better verbal abstraction. Compared to monolinguals, bilinguals showed better preserved fluid reasoning in older age, suggesting decelerated cognitive decline, and higher verbal abstraction scores. Our results help refine theories on the effects of bilingualism on cognition by showcasing that are likely to emerge in older age only.
Related
- The plant specific Histone Lysine Demethylase MtPKDM9B mediates the root nodule symbiosis by controlling H3K27me3 levels and expression of symbiotic genes
- Naturalistic spatial education engages distinct neural processes for mental rotation, cognitive load, and linguistic demands
- Psychosocial Characteristics and Objective Performance in Immersive Virtual Reality: Associations of Social Support, Psychological Distress, and Education with Psychomotor Speed and Cognitive Flexibility
- Recurrent and system-specific model-attribution patterns in PISA 2022 science performance across nine education systems
- Patient-specific functional networks track early cognitive alterations and minor hallucinations in Parkinson’s disease
BibTeX
@misc{liu2026bilingualism,
title = {{Bilingualism and Cognitive Ageing: Domain-Specific Benefits After Controlling for Education and Lifestyle}},
author = {Xinyu Liu and Umit Aydin and Christos Pliatsikas},
howpublished = {PsyArXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.31234/osf.io/dz6ut_v1},
url = {https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/dz6ut_v1/},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Bilingualism and Cognitive Ageing: Domain-Specific Benefits After Controlling for Education and Lifestyle
AU - Xinyu Liu
AU - Umit Aydin
AU - Christos Pliatsikas
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/20
PB - PsyArXiv
DO - 10.31234/osf.io/dz6ut_v1
UR - https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/dz6ut_v1/
AB - Lifelong bilingualism has been proposed as a cognitively enriching experience that mitigates age-related declines in cognitive abilities; however, the evidence remains mixed due to issues such as small samples, absence of effects in younger samples, and not accounting for confounding factors (e.g. education). Here we address these issues by examining adults aged 18-88 from the Cam-CAN dataset in two ways: by comparing monolinguals to bilinguals (N=390) and by examining bilingual experience as a continuous factor with a newly devised metric (N=460). Generalised additive models assessed fluid reasoning, ecological multitasking, and verbal abstraction. Increased age was associated with declined fluid reasoning and multitasking, but better verbal abstraction. Compared to monolinguals, bilinguals showed better preserved fluid reasoning in older age, suggesting decelerated cognitive decline, and higher verbal abstraction scores. Our results help refine theories on the effects of bilingualism on cognition by showcasing that are likely to emerge in older age only.
ER -