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Effect of bilingualism on visual tracking attention and resistance to distraction.

ABSTRACT: Speaking more than one language has been associated with enhanced cognitive capacities. Here we evaluated whether bilingual individuals have advantages in visual tracking attention. Adult bilingual (n?=?35) and monolingual (n?=?35) participants were tested in the Multiple Object Tracking task (MOT). In one condition, the MOT was performed by itself establishing the baseline performance of each group, and in the other condition, it was performed while participants counted backward out loud in their mother tongue. At baseline, the average speed tracking threshold of bilinguals was not better than that of the monolinguals. Importantly, for bilinguals, counting backward decreased their threshold by only 15%, but, for monolinguals, it decreased it three times as much. This result suggests that bilingualism confers advantages to visual tracking attention when dual tasking is required, extending the evidence that bilingualism affords cognitive benefits beyond verbal communication.

SUBMITTER: Janic A

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7459295 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Effect of bilingualism on visual tracking attention and resistance to distraction.

Janic Ana A Cavanagh Patrick P Rivest Josée J

Scientific reports 20200831 1

Speaking more than one language has been associated with enhanced cognitive capacities. Here we evaluated whether bilingual individuals have advantages in visual tracking attention. Adult bilingual (n = 35) and monolingual (n = 35) participants were tested in the Multiple Object Tracking task (MOT). In one condition, the MOT was performed by itself establishing the baseline performance of each group, and in the other condition, it was performed while participants counted backward out loud in the ...[more]

PMID: 32868794

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Project description:Multiple emotion regulation strategies have been identified and found to differ in their effectiveness at decreasing negative emotions. One reason for this might be that individual strategies are associated with differing levels of cognitive demand and require distinct patterns of visual attention to achieve their effects. In the current study, we tested this hypothesis in a sample of psychiatrically healthy participants (n = 25) who attempted to down-regulate negative emotion to photographs from the International Affective Picture System using cognitive reappraisal or distraction. Eye movements, pupil dilation, and subjective reports of negative emotionality were obtained for reappraisal, distraction, unpleasant passive viewing, and neutral passive viewing conditions. Behavioral results indicated that reappraisal and distraction successfully decreased self-reported negative affect relative to unpleasant passive viewing. Successful down regulation of negative affect was associated with different patterns of visual attention across regulation strategies. During reappraisal, there was an initial increase in dwell time to arousing scene regions and a subsequent shift away from these regions during later portions of the trial, whereas distraction was associated with reduced total dwell time to arousing interest areas throughout the entire stimulus presentation. Pupil dilation was greater for reappraisal than distraction or unpleasant passive viewing, suggesting that reappraisal may recruit more effortful cognitive control processes. Furthermore, greater decreases in self-reported negative emotion were associated with a lower proportion of dwell time within arousing areas of interest. These findings suggest that different emotion regulation strategies necessitate different patterns of visual attention to be effective and that individual differences in visual attention predict the extent to which individuals can successfully decrease negative emotion using reappraisal and distraction.

Dataset Information

Effect of bilingualism on visual tracking attention and resistance to distraction.

Publications

Effect of bilingualism on visual tracking attention and resistance to distraction.

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