The Bilingualism Paradox

40 The Hearing Journal January 2017 H ow does bilingualism affect listening? We think of bilingualism— and language experience more broadly—as a form of auditory learning. Children who grow up speaking multiple languages have enriched auditory environments. They need to focus on making multiple sound-tomeaning connections in their ongoing interactions. While they are speaking one language, they need to actively suppress the other. This stimulates the development of inhibitory control—the ability to suppress irrelevant information. Indeed, bilinguals have stronger inhibitory and executive skills than their monolingual peers (PNAS. 2012; 109[20]:7877). This experience also shapes auditory processing. Bilinguals have stronger neural processing of the fundamental frequency (F0) in speech (PNAS. 2012). The F0 is a major cue used for identifying and tracking auditory objects and, therefore, is crucial to communication in complex soundscapes. Indeed, individuals with stronger neural processing of the F0 hear better in noise than their peers. It also makes sense that inhibitory skills are important to hearing in noise. After all, when trying to listen in a restaurant, shutting out the din is often harder than focusing on a single talker.