Understanding the Consequences of Bilingualism for Language Processing and Cognition

By Judith F. Kroll, Ellen Bialystok. Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 2013

663 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Contemporary research on bilingualism has been framed by two major discoveries. In the realm of language processing, studies of comprehension and production show that bilinguals activate information about both languages when using one language alone. Parallel activation of the two languages has been demonstrated for highly proficient bilinguals as well as second language learners and appears to be present even when distinct properties of the languages themselves might be sufficient to bias attention towards the language in use. In the realm of cognitive processing, studies of executive function have demonstrated a bilingual advantage, with bilinguals outperforming their monolingual counterparts on tasks that require ignoring irrelevant information, task switching, and resolving conflict. Our claim is that these outcomes are related and have the overall effect of changing the way that both cognitive and linguistic processing are carried out for bilinguals. In this paper we examine each of these domains of bilingual performance and consider the kinds of evidence needed to support this view. We argue that the tendency to consider bilingualism as a unitary phenomenon explained in terms of simple component processes has created a set of apparent controversies that masks the richness of the central finding in this work: the adult mind and brain are open to experience in ways that create profound consequences for both language and cognition.

Subfields: Cognitive Neuroscience, Developmental and Educational Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/da618f75aecb131dd49db7a2fbe36545781f926f

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Citations in the corpus

Moving toward a neuroplasticity view of bilingualism, executive control, and aging (2014, background): “…argued that the null effect observed by Morton and Harper may have arisen because of a lack of power for detecting such an effect attributable to large response time variability combined with a relatively small sample size in their study (n = 17; Bialystok, 2009; see also Kroll & Bialystok, 2013).”
Teaching and Researching Genre Knowledge: Toward an Enhanced Theoretical Framework (2020, background): “Recent studies on bilingual neural processing have corroborated this hypothesis, showing that both languages are active when one single language is being used (e.g., Kroll & Bialystok, 2013).”
Examining the effects of active versus inactive bilingualism on executive control in a carefully matched non-immigrant sample (2015, neutral): “A commonly used argument when no bilingual advantage is found in groups of younger adults is that this age group has already reached a peak in executive control performance, thus masking potential effects of bilingualism (cf., Kroll & Bialystok, 2013).”
The Bilingual Adaptation: How Minds Accommodate Experience (2017, methodology): “…elsewhere and include the selection and designation of the participants as monolingual or bilingual, the statistical methods used in the analyses, the features of the tasks, and the interpretation of the results (Bak, 2015, 2016; Bialystok, 2016; Kroll & Bialystok, 2013; Zhou & Krott, 2016).”
Equity Beyond Bias in Language Technologies for Education (2019, background): “…languages, especially English, comes despite cognitive science ﬁndings that bilingualism and code-switching ability has a marked positive effect on cognitive function (Petitto et al., 2012; Kroll and Bialystok, 2013) and may even have a positive economic effect on lifetime earnings (Agirdag, 2014).”
Bilingual advantages in executive functioning either do not exist or are restricted to very specific and undetermined circumstances. (2015, background): “Similarly, Kroll and Bialystok (2013) observed that “… studies of executive function demonstrate a bilingual advantage, with bilinguals outperforming their monolingual counterparts on tasks that required ignoring irrelevant information, task switching, and resolving conflict [emphasis added]” (p.…”
Describing bilinguals: A systematic review of labels and descriptions used in the literature between 2005–2015 (2017, neutral): “The recent surge in research output and annual citations reflect this need (Kroll & Bialystok, 2013).”
Bilingualism and cognition (2014, background): “(For somewhat different reasons, Bialystok, Craik & Luk, 2012, and Kroll & Bialystok, 2013, also reject reliance on inhibition.)”
Are bilingual advantages dependent upon specific tasks or specific bilingual experiences? (2014, background): “…Psychology, 2014 Vol. 26, No. 6, 615–639, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/20445911.2014.944914 The hypothesis of bilingual advantages in EF There is a widely held belief that bilinguals enjoy an advantage over monolinguals with regard to EF (Bialystok, Craik, & Luk, 2012; Kroll & Bialystok, 2013).”
The Advantages of Bilingualism Debate (2019, neutral): “F or p er so na l u se o nl y. (Bialystok 2009, 2017; Bialystok et al. 2012; Hilchey & Klein 2011; Kroll & Bialystok 2013; Paap et al. 2015a; Valian 2015).”