Revising an Unexpected Interpretation in the Brain: The Interplay between Ageing and Bilingualism (RunIn-Brain)

The main goal of the RunIn-Brain project is to elucidate the cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying the ability to revise an unexpected interpretation by looking at the interplay between ageing and bilingualism. More concretely, this goal will be based on two general aims: 1) to study age-related cognitive decline during L1 and L2 text comprehension in bilinguals, and 2) to test the bilingual advantage hypothesis in younger and older adults during L1 text comprehension. A comprehensive two-fold approach will be used to achieve the two general aims: A first series of behavioural- electrophysiological (EEG) studies, to examine how the revision of an unexpected interpretation is performed during online text comprehension; and a second series of magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies, to identify brain areas recruited in (literal and inferential) monitoring and revision in monolingual and bilingual younger and older adults, by means of structural (Diffusion-Weighted Imaging or DWI) and functional (resting state-fMRI) connectivity.