Language control in bilinguals: The adaptive control hypothesis

By David W. Green, Jubin Abutalebi. Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 2013

1,500 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Speech comprehension and production are governed by control processes. We explore their nature and dynamics in bilingual speakers with a focus on speech production. Prior research indicates that individuals increase cognitive control in order to achieve a desired goal. In the adaptive control hypothesis we propose a stronger hypothesis: Language control processes themselves adapt to the recurrent demands placed on them by the interactional context. Adapting a control process means changing a parameter or parameters about the way it works (its neural capacity or efficiency) or the way it works in concert, or in cascade, with other control processes (e.g., its connectedness). We distinguish eight control processes (goal maintenance, conflict monitoring, interference suppression, salient cue detection, selective response inhibition, task disengagement, task engagement, opportunistic planning). We consider the demands on these processes imposed by three interactional contexts (single language, dual language, and dense code-switching). We predict adaptive changes in the neural regions and circuits associated with specific control processes. A dual-language context, for example, is predicted to lead to the adaptation of a circuit mediating a cascade of control processes that circumvents a control dilemma. Effective test of the adaptive control hypothesis requires behavioural and neuroimaging work that assesses language control in a range of tasks within the same individual.

Subfields: Cognitive Neuroscience, Developmental and Educational Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/f6ad5f372d5104634ff1d1b1115c7526d8fabcf0

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Citations in the corpus

Understanding structural plasticity in the bilingual brain: The Dynamic Restructuring Model (2019, background): “…Saddy, 2017) and putamen (Abutalebi, Della Rosa, Gonzaga, Keim, Costa & Perani, 2013), both structures related to fluency and articulatory control (Green & Abutalebi, 2013); it is worth noting though that the cerebellar and subcortical effects are reported in groups with at least some limited…”
No compelling evidence for a bilingual advantage in switching or that frequent language switching reduces switch cost (2017, background): “Green and Abutalebi (2013) allowed that their predictions may prove false and that there may be”
Characterizing the social diversity of bilingualism using language entropy (2019, methodology): “…holds theoretical implications for behavior, brain structure, and brain function (Abutalebi & Green, 2016; Beatty-Martínez & Dussias, 2017; Green & Abutalebi, 2013; Gullifer et al., 2018; Hartanto & Yang, 2016; H. Yang, Hartanto, & Yang, 2016; Poarch, Vanhove, Berthele, 2018), and our…”
The influence of language-switching experience on the bilingual executive control advantage* (2015, background): “This has also been suggested by Green and Abutalebi (2013) in their adaptive control hypothesis, which states that the interactional context (e.g. switching languages with different speakers vs. switching within a conversation) is important for the bilingual adaptation of cognitive control…”
The neuroprotective effects of bilingualism upon the inferior parietal lobule: A Structural Neuroimaging Study in Aging Chinese Bilinguals (2015, neutral): “More recent theoretical work (Abutalebi & Green, 2007; Green & Abutalebi, 2013) supports the relevance of left parietal regions in the maintenance and implementation of task representations during bilingual language production.”
Describing bilinguals: A systematic review of labels and descriptions used in the literature between 2005–2015 (2017, neutral): “…acquisition history or language dominance (Birdsong, 2016; Birdsong & Vanhove, 2016), and contextual factors such as opportunities to use one’s languages and the local status of one’s languages (for adults, see Green & Abutalebi, 2013; for children, see Paradis & Nicoladis, 2007) are reported.”
Voluntary language switching: When and why do bilinguals switch between their languages? (2018, background): “In Green and Abutalebi's (2013) Adaptive Control Hypothesis, three bilingual language contexts are described that are associated with different levels of language control.”
Understanding bilingual brain function and structure changes? U bet! A unified bilingual experience trajectory model (2020, background): “Specifically, both greater intensity and diversity of language use are predicted to be associated with increased control demands (Beatty-Martínez et al., 2019; Green & Abutalebi, 2013).”
Bilingual experience shapes language processing: Evidence from codeswitching (2017, background): “…perspective, codeswitching bears the hallmark of cross-language activation and represents a research tool to examine how bilinguals systematically (dis)engage two languages (Green & Abutalebi, 2013; Kroll, Dussias, Bice, & Perrotti, 2015; Kroll, Dussias, Bogulski, & Valdés Kroff, 2012).”
The Bilingual Adaptation: How Minds Accommodate Experience (2017, methodology): “Recognizing the limits of inhibition as an explanation, Green and Abutalebi (2013) recently expanded the IC model to provide a more detailed description of the processes responsible for bilingual language selection and the implications for cognition.”
A control process model of code-switching (2014, background): “The precise demand though will depend on how bilingual speakers use their languages (e.g., Green, 2011; Green & Abutalebi, 2013).”
Executive control in bilinguals: A concise review on fMRI studies. (2016, neutral): “A detailed review can be found in Green and Abutalebi (2013) and Abutalebi and Green (Abutalebi & Green), while some more recent evidence has been provided by Branzi, Della Rosa, Canini, Costa and Abutalebi (2015), De Baene, Duyck, Brass and Carreiras, (2015), de Bruin, Roelofs, Dijkstra and…”
Neuroimaging of language control in bilinguals: neural adaptation and reserve (2016, methodology): “Indeed, contrary to the dACC/Pre-SMA, the left prefrontal cortex is not involved in conflict monitoring but rather in the complicated process of response control such as response selection and suppression (Green & Abutalebi, 2013).”