Recent evidence has challenged long-standing claims that multi-language acquisition
confers long-term advantages in executive function and may protect against age-related
cognitive deterioration. We assessed evidence for a bilingual advantage in older
monolingual and bilingual residents matched on age, gender and socioeconomic status. A
comprehensive battery of tests was administered to measure non-verbal reasoning,
working memory capacity, visuo-spatial memory, response inhibition, problem-solving
and language proficiency. Analyses, including Bayes factors, revealed comparable
performance in both groups, with no significant differences on any task (and the only
trend, found for the Tower of London task performance, indicated a monolingual
advantage). Overall, therefore, our findings run counter to the bilingual advantage
hypothesis. We consider the implications of our study, and offer suggestions for future
work in this area