Shenakht Journal of Psychology & Psychiatry

Introduction: Being bilingual from the beginning of life affects cognitive functions including working memory and inhibitory functions of the frontal lobe.

purpose: Thus, the aim of this study is to compare verbal working memory and inhibitory function of frontal lobe in the young bilingual and monolingual.

Methods: The method of research was causal-comparative. The Sample of this study included female college students who was bilingual(Azeri language- Persian language) and monolingual(Persian language) at Azarbaijan Shahid Madani University during 2014- 2015.  For this purpose, 30 female bilingual students and 30 female monolingual students from whom were selected by convenience sampling method. Computerized test was used for collecting data to measure in this study. To measure the inhibitory function of the frontal lobe we have used the Stroop task, and computer software was used to measure working memory task from laboratory cognitive psychology. The gathered data were analyzed by SPSS 22 software. Descriptive statistics and data were analyzed by using t student.

Results: The results showed that verbal working memory performance in young bilinguals and monolinguals was not  significantly different(p<0/05). And Inhibitory frontal lobe function in young bilinguals and monolinguals was significantly different(p<0/05).

Conclusion: Based on these Results, we can conclude that Bilingualism does not increase verbal working memory performance. On the other hand, bilingualism enhances the performance of  bilingual people in the inhibitory function of frontal lobe; in fact, bilinguals perform duties related to executive function inhibition better than monolinguals.