There is evidence to suggest that bilingual individuals have enhanced auditory processing and inhibitory control, and this study in Frontiers in Neuroscience by Nina Kraus et al looks at how these cognitive and sensory enhancements are used during real-world listening, comparing the responses of both bilingual and monolingual individuals. During the active and passive listening periods, evoked responses to the competing talkers were collected to understand how online auditory processing facilitates active listening and if this processing differs between bilinguals and monolinguals. Additionally, participants were tested on a separate measure of inhibitory control to see if inhibitory control abilities related with performance on the selective attention task. The results are consistent with the hypothesis that bilinguals utilize inhibitory control and enhanced subcortical auditory processing in everyday listening situations to engage with sound in ways that are different than monolinguals.
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