Cover not available
Part of
Bilingualism, Executive Function, and Beyond: Questions and insights
Edited by Irina A. Sekerina, Lauren Spradlin and Virginia Valian
[Studies in Bilingualism 57] 2019
► pp. 209–222

Chapter 13
Research on individual differences in executive functions

Implications for the bilingual advantage hypothesis

| University of Colorado, Boulder
Executive functions (EFs), such as response inhibition, interference control, and set shifting, are general-purpose control mechanisms that enable individuals to regulate their thoughts and behaviors. Because bilingual individuals use EF-like processes during language control, researchers have become interested in the hypothesis that this use might train EFs, resulting in better performance on non-linguistic EF tasks. Although this bilingual advantage hypothesis seems straightforward to test, it involves a number of important decisions in terms of how to assess bilingualism and EFs. In this article, I focus on the complexity of measuring EFs, drawing on individual differences research (conducted with participants not selected for bilingualism). Specifically, I discuss issues related to (1) the measurement of EFs (particularly the effects of task impurity and unreliability) and (2) the multicomponent nature of EFs. Within each of these topics, I elaborate on consequences for research on bilingual advantages and provide some recommendations.
Keywords: executive control, executive functioning, multilingualism, latent variables
Article outline
  • 1.Measuring EFs
    • 1.1Individual tasks
    • 1.2Latent variables
    • 1.3Recommendations
  • 2.Multi-component nature of EFs
    • 2.1Unity and diversity
    • 2.2No inhibition-specific ability
    • 2.3Recommendations
  • 3.Summary
  • Acknowledgments
  • References
Published online: 12 June 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/sibil.57.13fri
References (27)
References
Aron, A. R., Robbins, T. W., & Poldrack, R. A. (2014). Inhibition and the right inferior frontal cortex: One decade on. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 18, 177–185. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Banich, M. T., & Depue, B. E. (2015). Recent advances in understanding neural systems that support inhibitory control. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, 1, 17–22. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bialystok, E., Craik, F. I. M., & Luk, G. (2012). Bilingualism: Consequences for mind and brain. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 16, 240–250. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bollen, K. A. (1989). Structural equations with latent variables. New York: Wiley. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Button, K. S., Ioannidis, J. P. A., Mokrysz, C., Nosek, B. A., Flint, J., Robinson, E. S. J., & Munafò, M. R. (2013). Power failure: Why small sample size undermines the reliability of neuroscience. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 14, 365–376. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chevalier, N., Chatham, C. H., & Munakata, Y. (2014). The practice of going helps children to stop: The importance of context monitoring in inhibitory control. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 143, 959–965. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Colzato, L. S., Bajo, M. T., van den Wildenberg, W., Paolieri, D., Nieuwenhuis, S., La Heij, W., & Hommel, B. (2008). How does bilingualism improve executive control? A comparison of active and reactive inhibition mechanisms. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 34, 302–312. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Costa, A., Hernández, M., Costa-Faidella, J., & Sebastián-Gallés, N. (2009). On the bilingual advantage in conflict processing: Now you see it, now you don’t. Cognition, 113, 135–149. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
de Bruin, A., Treccani, B., & Sala, Della S. (2015). Cognitive advantage in bilingualism: An example of publication bias? Psychological Science, 26, 99–107. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Diamond, A. (2013). Executive functions. Annual Review of Psychology, 64, 135–168. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Friedman, N. P., & Miyake, A. (2004). The relations among inhibition and interference control functions: A latent-variable analysis. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 133, 101–135. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Friedman, N. P., Miyake, A., Robinson, J. L., & Hewitt, J. K. (2011). Developmental trajectories in toddlers’ self-restraint predict individual differences in executive functions 14 years later: A behavioral genetic analysis. Developmental Psychology, 47, 1410–1430. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gathercole, V. C. M. (2014). Does language dominance affect cognitive performance in bilinguals? Lifespan evidence from preschoolers through older adults on card sorting, Simon, and metalinguistic tasks. Frontiers in Psychology, 5, 11. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hilchey, M. D., & Klein, R. M. (2011). Are there bilingual advantages on nonlinguistic interference tasks? Implications for the plasticity of executive control processes. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 18, 625–658. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Johns, G. (1981). Difference score measures of organizational behavior variables: A critique. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 27, 443–463. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kline, R. B. (2011). Principles and practice of structural equation modeling. New York: Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Kroll, J. F., & Bialystok, E. (2013). Understanding the consequences of bilingualism for language processing and cognition. Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 25, 497–514. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Miller, E. K., & Cohen, J. D. (2001). An integrative theory of prefrontal cortex function. Annual Review of Neuroscience, 24, 167–202. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Miyake, A., & Friedman, N. P. (2012). The nature and organization of individual differences in executive functions: Four general conclusions. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 21, 8–14. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Miyake, A., Friedman, N. P., Emerson, M. J., Witzki, A. H., Howerter, A., & Wager, T. D. (2000). The unity and diversity of executive functions and their contributions to complex “frontal lobe” tasks: A latent variable analysis. Cognitive Psychology, 41, 49–100. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Munakata, Y., Herd, S. A., Chatham, C. H., Depue, B. E., Banich, M. T., & O’Reilly, R. C. (2011). A unified framework for inhibitory control. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 15, 453–459. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Paap, K. R., & Greenberg, Z. I. (2013). There is no coherent evidence for a bilingual advantage in executive processing. Cognitive Psychology, 66, 232–258. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Paap, K. R., Johnson, H. A., & Sawi, O. (2015). Bilingual advantages in executive functioning either do not exist or are restricted to very specific and undetermined circumstances. Cortex, 69, 265–278. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rabbitt, P. (1997). Introduction: Methodologies and models in the study of executive function. In P. Rabbitt, Methodology of frontal and executive function (pp. 1–38). Hove, UK: Psychology Press.Google Scholar
Shipstead, Z., Redick, T. S., & Engle, R. W. (2012). Is working memory training effective? Psychological Bulletin, 138, 628–654. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Valian, V. (2015). Bilingualism and cognition. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 18, 3–24. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
von Bastian, C. C., Souza, A. S., & Gade, M. (2015). No evidence for bilingual cognitive advantages: A test of four hypotheses. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, Advance online publication. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by (2)

Cited by two other publications

Poulin-Dubois, Diane
2023. Chapter 7. Bilingualism in development. In Understanding Language and Cognition through Bilingualism [Studies in Bilingualism, 64], ► pp. 142 ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2022. Bilingualism, Language Development and Processing across the Lifespan [Bilingual Processing and Acquisition, 15], DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 29 july 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.