Is mere exposure enough? The effects of bilingual environments on infant cognitive development

Bilinguals purportedly outperform monolinguals in non-verbal tasks of cognitive control (the ‘bilingual advantage'). The most common explanation is that managing two languages during language production constantly draws upon, and thus strengthens, domain-general inhibitory mechanisms (Green 1998 Biling. Lang. Cogn. 1 , 67–81. ( doi:10.1017/S1366728998000133 )). However, this theory cannot explain why a bilingual advantage has been found in preverbal infants (Kovacs & Mehler 2009 Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 106 , 6556–6560. ( doi:10.1073/pnas.0811323106 )). An alternative explanation is needed. We propose that exposure to more varied, less predictable (language) environments drive infants to sample more by placing less weight on consolidating familiar information in order to orient sooner to (and explore) new stimuli. To confirm the bilingual advantage in infants and test our proposal, we administered four gaze-contingent eye-tracking tasks to seven- to nine-month-old infants who were being raised in either bilingual ( n = 51) or monolingual ( n = 51) homes. We could not replicate the finding by Kovacs and Mehler that bilingual but not monolingual infants inhibit learned behaviour (experiment 1). However, we found that infants exposed to bilingual environments do indeed explore more than those exposed to monolingual environments, by potentially disengaging attention faster from one stimulus in order to shift attention to another (experiment 3) and by switching attention more frequently between stimuli (experiment 4). These data suggest that experience-driven adaptations may indeed result in infants exposed to bilingual environments switching attention more frequently than infants exposed to a monolingual environment.

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Tracing bilingual advantage in cognitive control: Conflict processing and categorization switching

PsycEXTRA Dataset ◽

10.1037/e512592013-594 ◽

2011 ◽

Author(s):

A. Marzecova ◽

M. Bukowski ◽

J. Lupianez ◽

M. Boros ◽

Z. Wodniecka

Keyword(s):

Cognitive Control ◽

Bilingual Advantage ◽

Conflict Processing

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Inhibitory Mechanisms in the Processing of Negations: A Neural Reuse Hypothesis

Journal of Psycholinguistic Research ◽

10.1007/s10936-021-09796-x ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

David Beltrán ◽

Bo Liu ◽

Manuel de Vega

Keyword(s):

Cognitive Control ◽

Response Inhibition ◽

Cognitive Functions ◽

Functional Relation ◽

Control Mechanisms ◽

Inhibitory Effects ◽

General Domain ◽

Inhibitory Mechanisms ◽

Neural Reuse ◽

Theoretical Foundations

AbstractNegation is known to have inhibitory consequences for the information under its scope. However, how it produces such effects remains poorly understood. Recently, it has been proposed that negation processing might be implemented at the neural level by the recruitment of inhibitory and cognitive control mechanisms. On this line, this manuscript offers the hypothesis that negation reuses general-domain mechanisms that subserve inhibition in other non-linguistic cognitive functions. The first two sections describe the inhibitory effects of negation on conceptual representations and its embodied effects, as well as the theoretical foundations for the reuse hypothesis. The next section describes the neurophysiological evidence that linguistic negation interacts with response inhibition, along with the suggestion that both functions share inhibitory mechanisms. Finally, the manuscript concludes that the functional relation between negation and inhibition observed at the mechanistic level could be easily integrated with predominant cognitive models of negation processing.

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Are inconsistent bilingual-monolingual cognitive differences the result of population miscategorization?

10.31234/osf.io/r2c7n ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Kelly Kendro

Keyword(s):

Working Memory ◽

Cognitive Control ◽

Recent Work ◽

Cognitive Abilities ◽

Cognitive Tasks ◽

Psycholinguistic Research ◽

Cognitive Differences ◽

Heritage Speakers ◽

Bilingual Advantage ◽

Multiple Tasks

Decades of psycholinguistic research have attempted to determine whether a “bilingualadvantage” exists for cognitive abilities (e.g., Bialystok & Craik, 2010; Cummins, 1977; for a metaanalysis,see Grundy & Timmer, 2017). More recent work has shifted away from investigating thebroader matter of cognition and working memory to focus on specific domains within those capacities(e.g., Linck et al., 2014). Despite countless studies, however, the existence of thisphenomenon remains unconfirmed. This paper examines evidence for and against the presence of a“bilingual advantage” in multiple tasks of working memory and cognitive control, reviewing studies thatcompare monolingual and bilingual performance. It further looks at populations that are understudied inrelation to these questions (i.e., L2 learners and heritage speakers). Finally, the topic of L2 attrition isdiscussed, alongside a novel perspective that may explain the inconsistencies in bilingual-monolingualcomparisons of performance on cognitive tasks.

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Is There a Cognitive Advantage for Spanish Heritage Bilinguals? A First Look

Heritage Language Journal ◽

10.46538/hlj.12.3.4 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 12 (3) ◽

pp. 292-309

Author(s):

Julio Torres ◽

Cristina Sanz

Keyword(s):

Cognitive Control ◽

Executive Control ◽

Language Use ◽

Cognitive Outcomes ◽

Language Experience ◽

Bilingual Advantage ◽

Conflicting Information ◽

Cognitive Benefits ◽

The Relationship ◽

Network Component

We report the findings from an ongoing study on the relationship between bilinguals’ language experience and cognitive control. Previous research suggests that early bilingualism exerts an advantage on executive control, possibly due to the cognitive requirements involved in the daily juggling of two languages (Adesope, Lavin, Thompson, & Ungerleider, 2010). However, other researchers also have argued against a cognitive control advantage in bilinguals (Hilchey & Klein, 2011). It remains unclear whether cognitive benefits hold true for bilinguals across different contexts, given differences in sociolinguistic and socioeducational settings that shape individual bilingualism. In the current study, following Costa, Hernández and Sebastián-Gallés (2008) who tested Catalan-Spanish bilinguals, young adult simultaneous heritage bilinguals and late classroom emerging bilinguals of Spanish in the U.S. completed three blocks of the Attentional Network Task (ANT) (Fan, McCandliss, Sommer, Raz, & Posner, 2002) to gauge executive control abilities. Results for the executive network component of the ANT reveal no significant differences between the two bilingual groups, although the descriptive data trend suggests that HL bilinguals experienced less difficulty in solving conflicting information and demonstrated fewer switching costs between trials. These first findings imply that the bilingual advantage is not replicated across contexts, and that socioeducational practices determine individual patterns of language use, which in turn leads to variation in cognitive outcomes.

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Effect of bilingualism on infants’ cognitive flexibility

Bilingualism Language and Cognition ◽

10.1017/s1366728921000912 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 1-14

Author(s):

Diane Poulin-Dubois ◽

Cassandra Neumann ◽

Sandra Masoud ◽

Adina Gazith

Keyword(s):

Conflict Resolution ◽

Cognitive Flexibility ◽

Language Proficiency ◽

Language Production ◽

Delayed Response ◽

Reaching Task ◽

Bilingual Advantage ◽

Cognitive Benefit ◽

Response Task ◽

Current Exposure

Abstract Research suggests that bilinguals often outperform monolinguals on tasks that tap into executive functions, such as those requiring conflict resolution and cognitive flexibility. Recently, better attentional control has been detected in infants as young as 6 months, thereby providing a possible basis for a cognitive benefit before language production. The goal of the present study was to examine if cognitive flexibility is more advanced in bilingual infants. A detour reaching task assessing conflict resolution, a delayed response task assessing shifting, and a multiple location task assessing maintaining, were administered to 17-month-old infants. The main findings revealed that being bilingual did not improve performance on any of the executive function tasks. Furthermore, current exposure to a second language or language proficiency did not impact executive functioning. We conclude that a bilingual advantage in cognitive flexibility may not be present before children have enough experience in code switching.

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Literacy, metalinguistic, and executive functions processing in bilingual children speakers of similar typology languages in a border area

Bilingualism Language and Cognition ◽

10.1017/s1366728920000735 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 1-9

Author(s):

Talita dos Santos Gonçalves ◽

Vanisa Fante Viapiana ◽

Rochele Paz Fonseca ◽

Lilian Cristine Hübner

Keyword(s):

Executive Functions ◽

Cognitive Abilities ◽

Brazilian Portuguese ◽

Effect Sizes ◽

Executive Attention ◽

Reading And Writing ◽

Bilingual Advantage ◽

Verbal Tasks ◽

Memory Inhibition ◽

Trail Making

Abstract This study aimed to analyze whether there are differences between bilingual (Brazilian Portuguese and Spanish) and monolingual (Brazilian Portuguese) school children regarding reading and writing learning achievement, in executive functions (EF) components and metalinguistic abilities. Twenty-three bilingual and 23 monolingual children, aged 6 to 8 years, were assessed in terms of their writing, reading, and metalinguistic abilities, and with verbal and non-verbal tasks testing EF. A bilingual advantage was observed in reading and writing abilities and in 16 of the 44 EF measures, including subcomponents of working memory, inhibition, cognitive flexibility, and executive attention, mainly in non-verbal paradigms, while monolingual children outperformed bilingual ones in three scores: counting errors (Five Digits Test), omission of bells (Bells test) and sequential trial B (Trail Making Test). There were moderate and weak effect sizes in metalinguistic subcomponents showing bilingual advantage. Literacy improvement seems to have the potential to increase linguistic and cognitive abilities.

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Hierarchical Cognitive Control for Unknown Dynamic Systems Tracking

Mathematics ◽

10.3390/math9212752 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 9 (21) ◽

pp. 2752

Author(s):

Mircea-Bogdan Radac ◽

Timotei Lala

Keyword(s):

Cognitive Control ◽

Reference Model ◽

Current Knowledge ◽

Space Representation ◽

Value Iteration ◽

State Space Representation ◽

Learning Framework ◽

Model Free ◽

Tracking Tasks ◽

Tracking Behavior

A general control system tracking learning framework is proposed, by which an optimal learned tracking behavior called ‘primitive’ is extrapolated to new unseen trajectories without requiring relearning. This is considered intelligent behavior and strongly related to the neuro-motor cognitive control of biological (human-like) systems that deliver suboptimal executions for tasks outside of their current knowledge base, by using previously memorized experience. However, biological systems do not solve explicit mathematical equations for solving learning and prediction tasks. This stimulates the proposed hierarchical cognitive-like learning framework, based on state-of-the-art model-free control: (1) at the low-level L1, an approximated iterative Value Iteration for linearizing the closed-loop system (CLS) behavior by a linear reference model output tracking is first employed; (2) an experiment-driven Iterative Learning Control (EDILC) applied to the CLS from the reference input to the controlled output learns simple tracking tasks called ‘primitives’ in the secondary L2 level, and (3) the tertiary level L3 extrapolates the primitives’ optimal tracking behavior to new tracking tasks without trial-based relearning. The learning framework relies only on input-output system data to build a virtual state space representation of the underlying controlled system that is assumed to be observable. It has been shown to be effective by experimental validation on a representative, coupled, nonlinear, multivariable real-world system. Able to cope with new unseen scenarios in an optimal fashion, the hierarchical learning framework is an advance toward cognitive control systems.

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Is Bilingualism Associated with Enhanced Executive Functioning in Adults? A Meta-Analytic Review_Pre-Print

10.31234/osf.io/vwcgu ◽

2018 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Minna Lehtonen ◽

Anna Soveri ◽

Aini Laine ◽

Janica Järvenpää ◽

Angela de Bruin ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Working Memory ◽

Executive Functioning ◽

Cognitive Control ◽

Verbal Fluency ◽

Effect Sizes ◽

Extensive Investigation ◽

Potential Influence ◽

Bilingual Advantage ◽

Control Functions ◽

Study Task

Due to enduring experience of managing two languages, bilinguals have been argued to develop superior executive functioning compared to monolinguals. Despite extensive investigation, there is, however, no consensus regarding the existence of such a bilingual advantage. Here we synthesized comparisons of bilinguals’ and monolinguals’ performance in six executive domains using 891 effect sizes from 152 studies on adults. We also included unpublished data, and considered the potential influence of a number of study-, task-, and participant-related variables. Before correcting estimates for observed publication bias, our analyses revealed a very small bilingual advantage for inhibition, shifting, and working memory, but not for monitoring or attention. No evidence for a bilingual advantage remained after correcting for bias. For verbal fluency, our analyses indicated a small bilingual disadvantage, possibly reflecting less exposure for each individual language when using two languages in a balanced manner. Moreover, moderator analyses did not support theoretical presuppositions concerning the bilingual advantage. We conclude that the available evidence does not provide systematic support for the widely held notion that bilingualism is associated with benefits in cognitive control functions in adults.

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