Cultural Effects Rather Than a Bilingual Advantage in Cognition: A Review and an Empirical Study

Steven Samuel; Karen Roehr‐Brackin; Hyensou Pak; Hyunji Kim

doi:10.1111/cogs.12672

journal article Aug 22, 2018

Cultural Effects Rather Than a Bilingual Advantage in Cognition: A Review and an Empirical Study

Steven Samuel Karen Roehr‐Brackin Hyensou Pak Hyunji Kim

Cognitive Science Vol. 42 No. 7 pp. 2313-2341 · Wiley

View at Publisher Save 10.1111/cogs.12672

Abstract

AbstractThe bilingual advantage hypothesis contends that the management of two languages in the brain is carried out through domain‐general mechanisms, and that bilinguals possess a performance advantage over monolinguals on (nonlinguistic) tasks that tap these processes. Presently, there is evidence both for and against such an advantage. Interestingly, the evidence in favor has been thought strongest in children and older adults, leading some researchers to argue that young adults might be at peak performance levels, and therefore bilingualism is unable to confer an improvement. We conducted a large‐scale review of the extant literature and found that the weight of research pointed to an absence of positive evidence for a bilingual advantage at any age. We next gave a large number of young adult participants a task designed to test the bilingual advantage hypothesis. Reasoning from the literature that young adults from an East Asian (Korean) culture would likely outperform those from a Western (British) culture, we also compared participants on this factor. We found no evidence for a bilingual advantage but did find evidence for enhanced performance in the Korean group. We interpret these results as further evidence against the bilingual advantage hypotheses.

Topics

No keywords indexed for this article. Browse by subject →

References

99

[1]

10.1093/cercor/bhr287

[2]

10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2015.01.040

[3]

Antón E. "Is there a bilingual advantage in the ANT task? Evidence from children" Frontiers in Psychology (2014)

[4]

10.1016/j.jml.2016.04.007

[5]

10.1016/j.cognition.2015.12.002

[6]

10.1111/desc.12377

[7]

10.1177/0013164494054002013

[8]

10.1111/j.1467-8624.2011.01707.x

[9]

Random effects structure for confirmatory hypothesis testing: Keep it maximal

Dale J. Barr, Roger Levy, Christoph Scheepers et al.

Journal of Memory and Language 10.1016/j.jml.2012.11.001

[10]

10.1007/bf01067389

[11]

10.1111/1467-8624.00046

[12]

10.1037/cjep2006008

[13]

10.1037/a0015466

[14]

10.1037/bul0000099

[15]

10.1016/j.neuroimage.2004.09.044

[16]

Bilingualism, Aging, and Cognitive Control: Evidence From the Simon Task.

Ellen Bialystok, Fergus I. M. Craik, Raymond Klein et al.

Psychology and Aging 10.1037/0882-7974.19.2.290

[17]

Cognitive control and lexical access in younger and older bilinguals.

Ellen Bialystok, Fergus Craik, Gigi Luk

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memo... 10.1037/0278-7393.34.4.859

[18]

10.1016/j.cognition.2017.10.019

[19]

10.1177/13670069050090010701

[20]

10.1111/j.1467-7687.2005.00451.x

[21]

10.1016/j.cognition.2009.06.014

[22]

10.1017/s1366728913000564

[23]

10.1111/j.1467-8624.1996.tb01741.x

[24]

10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00250

[25]

Independent effects of bilingualism and socioeconomic status on language ability and executive functioning

Alejandra Calvo, Ellen Bialystok

Cognition 10.1016/j.cognition.2013.11.015

[26]

10.3346/jkms.2014.29.10.1416

[27]

10.1007/s11145-017-9779-4

[28]

10.1016/j.appdev.2006.06.006

[29]

On the bilingual advantage in conflict processing: Now you see it, now you don’t

Albert Costa, Mireia Hernandez, Jordi Costa-Faidella et al.

Cognition 10.1016/j.cognition.2009.08.001

[30]

10.1016/j.cognition.2006.12.013

[31]

10.1177/0956797614557866

[32]

10.1017/s0272263116000486

[33]

Donnelly S. (2015)

[34]

10.1027/1618-3169/a000243

[35]

10.3758/bf03203267

[36]

10.1162/089892902317361886

[37]

10.1080/002202798183558

[38]

Does language dominance affect cognitive performance in bilinguals? Lifespan evidence from preschoolers through older adults on card sorting, Simon, and metalinguistic tasks

Virginia C. Mueller Gathercole, Enlli M. Thomas, Ivan Kennedy et al.

Frontiers in Psychology 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00011

[39]

Gellman A. (2007)

[40]

10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2014.10.042

[41]

Mental control of the bilingual lexico-semantic system

David W. Green

Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 10.1017/s1366728998000133

[42]

Language control in bilinguals: The adaptive control hypothesis

David W. Green, Jubin Abutalebi

Journal of Cognitive Psychology 10.1080/20445911.2013.796377

[43]

10.1016/j.cognition.2017.02.010

[44]

10.1016/j.tics.2008.11.003

[45]

10.1016/j.cognition.2016.01.016

[46]

10.1017/s1366728909990010

[47]

10.3758/s13423-011-0116-7

[48]

10.1017/cbo9781107447257.026

[49]

10.1016/j.actpsy.2010.04.011

[50]

10.1016/j.brainres.2012.01.052

Showing 50 of 99 references

Metrics

68

Citations

99

References

Details

Published: Aug 22, 2018
Vol/Issue: 42(7)
Pages: 2313-2341
License: View

Authors

S

Steven Samuel

Department of Psychology University of Essex; Department of Psychology University of Cambridge

K

Karen Roehr‐Brackin

Department of Language and Linguistics University of Essex

H

Hyensou Pak

ALLICE Yeungnam University

H

Hyunji Kim

Faculty of Psychology University of Vienna

Cite This Article

Steven Samuel, Karen Roehr‐Brackin, Hyensou Pak, et al. (2018). Cultural Effects Rather Than a Bilingual Advantage in Cognition: A Review and an Empirical Study. Cognitive Science, 42(7), 2313-2341. https://doi.org/10.1111/cogs.12672

Cultural Effects Rather Than a Bilingual Advantage in Cognition: A Review and an Empirical Study

You May Also Like