Both ageing and bilingualism can have positive as well as adverse cognitive effects. We investigated their combined impact on subcomponents of attention. We used the Attention Network Task to examine alerting, orienting, executive control and task-switching costs. Group comparisons revealed age-related declines for alerting alongside benefits for executive control, for mono- and bilinguals alike. For orienting, age-related decline was more pronounced for bilinguals than monolinguals. Task-switching was unaffected by age or language group. Within bilinguals, we found limited impact of individual differences in L2 proficiency, language switching or mixing: proficiency improves orienting and decreases switch costs, for young and older bilinguals alike; but no other individual differences effects were found. Thus, attention is a multi-faceted network, with clear adverse (alerting) and protective (executive control) ageing effects. We found these to be largely similar for mono- and bilinguals, with variability within bilinguals having only limited impact.

中文翻译：

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健康老龄化和双语对注意力网络的影响

衰老和双语都会对认知产生积极和消极的影响。我们研究了它们对注意力子组成部分的综合影响。我们使用注意力网络任务来检查警报、定向、执行控制和任务切换成本。群体比较显示，对于单语和双语者来说，与年龄相关的警觉性下降以及执行控制能力的提高都是如此。对于定向能力而言，双语者与年龄相关的能力下降比单语者更为明显。任务切换不受年龄或语言群体的影响。在双语者中，我们发现第二语言熟练程度、语言转换或混合方面的个体差异影响有限：对于年轻和年长的双语者来说，熟练程度可以提高方向感并降低转换成本；但没有发现其他个体差异效应。因此，注意力是一个多方面的网络，具有明显的不利（警报）和保护（执行控制）老化作用。我们发现这些对于单语和双语者来说在很大程度上是相似的，双语者内部的差异影响有限。