Introduction

Bilingualism and executive function

An interdisciplinary approach

Irina A. Sekerina1,2 and Lauren Spradlin2

1College of Staten Island / 2The Graduate Center, The City University of New
York

Following in the footsteps of cognitive psychology, theoretical linguistics, and

psycholinguistics as they forged the new field of cognitive science, the study of
bilingualism has charted a dramatically new, important, and exciting course in
the 21st century. Bilingualism had been a well-established field of research within
linguistics and education for several decades (De Groot & Kroll, 1997; Homel,
Palij, & Aaronson, 1987), but prior to the 1990s, it had not yet stirred as much in-
terest in the public eye as some other phenomena, such as obedience to authority
(Milgram, 1974/2009), which delivered both immediate and long-term benefits
to society at large, and also sparked much public scrutiny. Around the same time,
Miyake and colleagues (2000) proposed a new influential model of executive func-
tion that was argued to be the result of the complex interaction of a suite of func-
tions (i.e., mental set shifting, information updating and monitoring, and inhibi-
tion of prepotent responses), rather than being a unitary phenomenon.
Ellen Bialystok, who had by then accumulated a large volume of experimen-
tal results from bilingual children and adults, made a bold connection between
the experience of speaking more than one language and executive function when
she formulated the Bilingual Advantage Hypothesis (BAH; 1999), which brought
bilingualism to the forefront of the public interest. In two decades of research,
Bialystok and her colleagues published several highly influential articles on the
effect of bilingualism on literacy (Bialystok, 2002), aging (Bialystok et al., 2004),
maintenance of gray and white matter (Olsen et al., 2015), and illnesses such
as dementia, Alzheimer’s disease (AD; Bialystok et al., 2007; Craik et al., 2010),
Parkinson’s (Bialystok et al., 2008), and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder
(ADHD; Sorge et al., 2016).
The first decade of the 21st century served as the initial phase of research con-
cerning the proposed positive impact of bilingualism on children’s cognitive de-
velopment and its protective effect against age-related neurodegenerative diseases.

Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism 6:5 (2016), 505–516. doi 10.1075/lab.16031.sek

issn 1879–9264 / e-issn 1879–9272 © John Benjamins Publishing Company
506 Irina A. Sekerina and Lauren Spradlin

Researchers hypothesized a strong interaction between bilingualism and executive

function and broadened the empirical investigation to include more languages,
adapted the experimental tasks, and evaluated the contribution of previously un-
explored social and demographic factors. The range of language pairs under in-
vestigation expanded; what began as work on primarily Indo-European languages
such as French, German, and English became more typologically diverse, as in the
case of the genetically unrelated and geographically distant Mandarin and English
(Prior & Gollan, 2011; Yow & Li, 2015), the unrelated, but geographically adja-
cent Swedish and Finnish (Soveri et al., 2011), and the closely related and adjacent
Spanish and Catalan (Costa et al., 2009). A wider range of tasks used to measure
executive function was implemented from study to study, but always included one
or more of the main five tasks (e.g., ANT, antisaccade task, flanker, Simon, and
Stroop tasks). Finally, additional non-linguistic social and demographic factors,
including bilingual speakers’ socio-economic status (SES) and level of education
(Calvo & Bialystok, 2014; Morton & Harper, 2007), were added as moderators that
significantly affect the bilingualism-executive function relationship.
Journalists were quick to pick up on the explosion of research on the cognitive
benefits of bilingualism, and its coverage in the news media also grew tremen-
dously. Furthermore, as is often the case, journalists got carried away in their inter-
pretations of the more nuanced scientific reports; blogs, advice columns, and TV
news programs exaggerated the claims made by researchers and extended them
beyond those in the original studies. We read intriguing headlines like “Want a
new job? Wish you had better health? Want a more fulfilling personal life? – Learn
a second language!” (Kostiuk, 2016), heard that bilinguals have superior social
skills (Kinzler, 2016), and learned they may even be better lovers (as cited by Bak,
2016). Even when journalists reported on important findings related to the cogni-
tive benefits of bilingualism, such as delay in the onset of AD, they did not always
get the story right (Dell’Amore, 2011).
As more scientists became intrigued by the findings and delved deeper into
the topic, we entered a second, more skeptical decade of research on the BAH.
Articles began to appear arguing that the tasks that measure executive function,
such as the flanker task, do not always yield better performance by bilingual adults
in comparison to monolingual controls (Costa et al., 2009). Twenty years after its
original formulation, some of those who had begun as strong BAH supporters
revised their initial positions in light of emerging experimental data, proclaiming
that the cognitive benefits of bilingualism in young adults are negligible (Hilchey
& Klein, 2011). Others joined the debate and have taken the position that the
BAH is plainly non-existent (Paap & Greenberg, 2013; Paap et al., 2015). Raymond
Klein’s personal account (Klein, 2016) offers a fascinating glimpse of this trans-
formation. In a keynote paper published in Bilingualism: Language and Cognition,
 Introduction: Bilingualism and executive function 507

Virginia Valian took a more moderate approach, arguing that bilingualism repre-
sents just one type of challenging life experience, and that it, along with education,
music training, and active video game playing, can contribute to enhanced execu-
tive function (Valian, 2015).
It is not surprising then that in addition to dealing with the complexity of
executive function and the tasks that measure it, we find inconsistency in the re-
ported benefits of bilingualism, especially in young adults. Surveys of published
research on the connection between bilingualism and executive function also
reveal noticeable biases. Out of 128 conference presentations between 1999 and
2012 identified by de Bruin and colleagues (de Bruin et al., 2015), 63% of those
supporting the BAH made it into peer-reviewed journals, in contrast to only 29%
of those that failed to support the BAH (the remaining 8% studies produced mixed
results). Donnelly and colleagues, in their meta-analysis of 39 published stud-
ies that compared global RTs and the cost of interference control tasks between
monolingual and bilingual participants, found that the studies which report dif-
ferences that favor bilinguals tend to come from certain laboratories, but not from
others, revealing a laboratory bias (Donnelly et al., 2015).
The need for a better understanding of how bilingualism is related to executive
function, and more generally related to cognition, continues to dominate the field
today. If bilinguals indeed have more efficient executive control processes than
monolinguals, then there are practical implications for educational and health sys-
tems that should be considered and implemented in public policy. This has led to
special sessions at conferences (e.g., Bilingual advantage in children and adults:
Types of inhibition control at the 9th International Symposium on Bilingualism
(ISB-9) in Singapore, 2013, and Unpacking bilingual executive control at the ISB-10,
Rutgers University, 2015), specialized workshops (e.g., the International workshop
on bilingualism and cognitive control in Krakow, Poland, 2013), symposia (e.g.,
Experience-induced neuroplasticity: Evidence from bilingualism at the 54th Annual
meeting of the Psychonomic Society in Toronto, 2013) and special issues of jour-
nals (e.g., What bilinguals tell us about cognitive control, vol. 25(3) of Journal of
Cognitive Psychology, 2013). Most recently, in 2015, two guest issues were pub-
lished featuring contributions from leading experts. Bilingualism: Language and
Cognition’s guest issue (vol. 18(1)) began with the previously mentioned key-
note article by Virginia Valian (Valian, 2015), and was followed by 11 peer com-
ments. In the same year, Cortex (vol. 73) published a discussion forum article by
Kenneth Paap and colleagues (Paap et al., 2015) on the topic of bilingualism and
executive control.
Simultaneously, we (Irina Sekerina and Virginia Valian) proposed a work-
shop at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York on 18-19 May of
2015 with the aim of clarifying the relation between bilingualism and executive
508 Irina A. Sekerina and Lauren Spradlin

functions. The workshop was generously funded by the NSF’s Developmental and
Learning Sciences and Linguistics Programs (grant #1451631) and was held im-
mediately preceding the 10th International Symposium on Bilingualism at Rutgers
University (20-24 May, 2015).
We were particularly interested in bringing together researchers whose fields
did not always overlap and who could learn from each other’s insights. In atten-
dance were linguists working on bilingualism, cognitive psychologists interested in
executive function and working memory, and medical researchers studying execu-
tive function in the laboratory and also ‘in the wild.’ Until our workshop, the con-
ditions and factors instrumental to connecting bilingualism and executive func-
tion were primarily explored from within bilingualism, with less direct input from
cognitive psychologists, linguists, and researchers on aging. Thus, our goal was to
bring together experts from different disciplines who rarely had opportunity to in-
teract at the same scientific venues and to facilitate interdisciplinary conversation
that could bridge the gaps between the fields. It was the perfect occasion to discuss
different approaches to and perspectives on the connections between bilingual-
ism and executive function, and to consider the specific mechanisms underlying
the phenomena. Our face-to-face forum for scholars from these distinct areas of
inquiry offered the scientific community an opportunity to map out the directions
we should pursue next as well as fostered a fruitful discussion of emerging issues.
By including posters as well as talks, we ensured a wide range of ongoing studies.
What emerged as the result of intensive discussion during the workshop was a
list of pressing issues that must be addressed by the field. The first set is comprised
of methodological concerns, such as whether the field should undertake exact rep-
lications, conceptual replications, or both in order to determine the conditions
under which the cognitive effects of bilingualism are reliably obtained (Paap, 2014;
Simons, 2014; Stroebe & Strack, 2014) and whether and how measures, tasks, and
scores should be standardized (see Paap, 2014; also Pashler & Harris, 2012; and
the following series of articles on methods in Perspectives in Psychological Science,
9(3), 2014).
Second, we need to rethink theoretical issues central to research on execu-
tive function, bilingualism, and the relation between them. Is there actually such
a thing as general executive function that can justifiably be separated from other
cognitive processes? If so, what are its underlying cognitive mechanisms? Is inhi-
bition the underlying mechanism moderating the ability to efficiently negotiate
having two or more languages, and does it transfer to non-linguistic tasks? Among
children and young adults, the evidence for inhibition at the cognitive level is
weak, and is also insufficient to explain some benefits of bilingualism (Kroll &
Bialystok, 2013). Alternatively, is monitoring the key facility, since bilinguals must
monitor which language is appropriate (e.g., Costa et al., 2009)? This, too, seems
 Introduction: Bilingualism and executive function 509

less than fully explanatory. We could instead entertain inhibition as the sole un-
derlying mechanism by investigating many specific mechanisms. By pinpointing
when and where specific effects occur, as well as the experiences and contexts that
support superior executive function, it would be possible to both understand the
mechanisms that subserve bilinguals’ excellent performance with their languages
and the consequences of those mechanisms for cognitive processes.
To discuss these emerging issues productively, we designed a novel structure
for the CUNY Workshop on Bilingualism and Executive Function. It included five
discussion panels and a special summary and synthesis talk by Ellen Bialystok.
The five panels were: 1) Introduction, 2) Methodological issues, 3) Bilingualism
and cognition in young adults, 4) Bilingualism, linguistic structure, and executive
function in children, and 5) Bilingualism and cognitive reserve in older adults.
Each of the five panels featured invited talks presented by two experts from dif-
ferent disciplines and a third who acted as discussant. Following the presenta-
tions and discussion, there was a group question-and-answer session, moderated
by Virginia Valian. The workshop was quite a success, with 170 attendees and 48
posters hailing from 25 different countries. The full set of materials generated by
the workshop is openly available on the workshop’s website,1 including the slides
from the invited talks and their video-recorded versions, as well as electronic ver-
sions of the posters.2
This guest issue of Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism (LAB), together with
the materials on the website, are the physical products of the workshop. The guest
issue was made possible thanks to the enthusiastic support of the LAB editors,
Sharon Unsworth and Jason Rothman, who not only agreed to publish a collec-
tion of articles based on the invited talks, but managed to complete the entire
process in just one year. Anyone who has ever worked on a journal guest issue
(and ours has 12 contributions) will be amazed that we all — two guest editors
(Irina Sekerina and Lauren Spradlin), two LAB editors, 7 single authors, 5 teams
of co-authors, 27 reviewers, and the LAB editorial team at John Benjamins (Denny
Berndt, Heleen Groesbeek, and Kees Vaes) — have managed to successfully get the
issue to publication with such lightning speed! We have deliberately chosen a short
format (i.e., the contributions in this guest issue are half the size of a standard
research article) to keep the focus on the most significant results in the fields of
bilingualism, executive function, and their interaction.

1. https://bef2015.commons.gc.cuny.edu/about-the-workshop/

2. Due to the technical error, two final presentations on the second day of the workshop, 19
May, were not recorded. These include the discussion by Lynn Hasher and the presentation by
Ellen Bialystok.
510 Irina A. Sekerina and Lauren Spradlin

Following our guest editorial introduction, the issue opens with articles by
two preeminent experts — Ellen Bialystok, the leading scholar on the connection
between bilingualism and executive function and the architect of the BAH, and
Naomi Friedman, who, with her colleague Akira Miyake, laid the foundations of
the influential multicomponent model of executive function. Bialystok (2016) ag-
gregates current research concerned with the existence of a bilingual advantage
in tasks measuring executive function. She examines a variety of reported null
results, and concludes that only by paying serious attention to methodological
details and considering the full body of available data can claims be made. She
urges those conducting future research to carefully consider the definition of bi-
lingualism, the nuances of human cognition, the nature of categorical verification
(or disproof) of hypotheses, and conscientious use of statistical procedures and
analysis in the hopes that such considerations will advance the field in its pursuit
of untangling the complex phenomenon that is bilingualism, and help researchers
find “the signal in the noise.”
In a similar vein, Friedman (2016) describes how the original view of the mul-
ticomponent nature of executive function (Miyake et al., 2000) has evolved and
how it can be impacted by individual differences. The latest model of executive
function that includes a common EF function and separate updating- and shift-
ing-specific functions requires researchers’ diligent attention both while perform-
ing experimental research and when interpreting results. Even the best-designed
tasks cannot definitively measure a single component of executive function to the
exclusion of other components and adjacent cognitive processes, and such task
impurities can have noticeable consequences for bilingualism research. They can
instill false trust in results, while also not measuring what we believe them to
be. EFs act in concert, and are difficult, if not impossible, to isolate. In this issue,
Friedman discusses the impact of these factors on bilingual advantage research
and provides recommendations for overcoming such obstacles.
The next two articles are written by the workshop participants most closely
associated with critical views of the BAH. One presents a personal history of the
debate surrounding the hypothesis, spanning the past 15 years (Klein, 2016); the
other champions viewing bilingualism as one of many diverse life experiences that
contribute to executive function (Valian, 2016). Klein (2016) began working on
bilingualism with Bialystok and has since written comprehensive surveys of the
bilingual advantage literature. In this issue, he traces the development of his per-
sonal interest in the topic, remarking on landmark moments and seminal stud-
ies within the field. Comparing earlier works suggesting a bilingual advantage to
recent publications, he notes that his position on the BAH has followed a similar
trajectory; while initially a supporter of the hypothesis, the current evidence has
compelled him to promote the opposite position. Klein concludes that today’s
 Introduction: Bilingualism and executive function 511

comprehensive body of research suggests that there exist no extra-linguistic cog-

nitive benefits associated with multilingualism.
Valian (2016) offers commentary on the variability found in current research
considering the potential cognitive benefits of bilingualism, as well as the means by
which the connection between bilingualism and executive function can be more
precisely investigated. She advocates for the position that bilingualism does confer
a cognitive benefit, but that such a benefit coexists with and complements other
life-enriching experiences such as education, musical training, and video game
playing. She suggests that we continue to systematically investigate factors associ-
ated with superior executive function, and comments on the need to develop new
tools to do so. The lack of fine-grained task analyses (for executive function as well
as other cognitive processes) and a formalized theory of the cognitive mechanisms
underlying multilingualism muddies the waters when it comes to developing and
testing hypotheses. The final factor Valian urges researchers to consider in their
analyses and experimental design is the interplay between the neural and behav-
ioral consequences of bilingualism.
The next three articles provide a lifespan perspective on the BAH and are writ-
ten by researchers from different fields. Klara Marton is a speech-language-hear-
ing scientist who works with bilingual children (Marton, 2016). Laura Zahodne
and colleagues (Watson et al., 2016) conduct prospective community-based lon-
gitudinal studies of cognitive decline in aging bilingual adults. Virginia Mueller
Gathercole and colleagues (Gathercole et al., 2016) have accumulated a very large
data set spanning five different ages groups (age 4 to older adults) of monolin-
gual and bilingual speakers within an otherwise homogenous Welsh community.
Again, all three articles emphasize the complex interaction between many factors
and urge the field to press on in the pursuit to better verify and understand them.
Marton (2016) explores why inconsistency exists within EF research findings,
citing the multiplex and not fully understood interaction between such factors as
characteristics of bilingual individuals (e.g., age, language proficiency, culture, and
SES), variation in the specific executive functions targeted by researchers (e.g.,
inhibitory functions, monitoring and switching skills, and working memory),
task type (e.g., WCST, Stroop, Tower of London, Trail Making, Simon, flanker,
among others), and measurement differences as an explanation. Watson, Manly, &
Zahodne (2016) offer a survey of the literature that aims to establish the nature of
the relationship between bilingualism and delayed onset of age-related neurocog-
nitive decline. After addressing the variability in these findings, the authors shift
their focus to pertinent methodological issues. They recommend the use of pro-
spective, longitudinal, community-based studies that measure both cognitive level
and rate of cognitive decline, as opposed to cross-sectional, clinic-based studies
where subjects’ age of onset is self- or caregiver-reported, and where rate of decline
512 Irina A. Sekerina and Lauren Spradlin

is not considered. Additionally, they discuss the complexity inherent in establish-

ing a causal relationship between bilingualism and enhanced cognitive reserve,
suggest incorporating individual differences in brain structure among the two
populations, and urge methodically identifying and controlling for confounding
factors. Tying all of these together, they conclude by suggesting ways to improve
future research at the intersection of bilingualism, cognitive decline, and aging.
Gathercole et al. (2016) eliminate cultural and geographic variability as po-
tential confounding factors by using data gathered from a homogeneous group
of speakers in North Wales. With data from a cross-sectional sample of five age
groups, they employ regression analyses to assess the relative contributions of lan-
guage proficiency, age, cognitive ability, and mono- or bilingualism. Age was most
predictive at the extreme ends of the youngest and oldest groups; though, at 4
years of age, children are still developing cognitively, and at 70+, speakers may be
affected by cognitive decline. Within the other age groups, the most predictive fac-
tor appears to be general language ability. Once age, general language ability, and
other factors are accounted for, the authors conclude that bilingualism’s impact
on executive function is minimal and that it is also not consistently an advantage.
This guest issue also includes a more specialized set of three articles from lin-
guists working on bilingualism and pursuing the fascinating idea of linking sepa-
rate components of executive function to specific linguistic domains. Theodoros
Marinis and colleagues (Hofweber et al., 2016) consider three types of dense code-
switching, and Antonella Sorace uses a novel theoretical framework to examine
the effect of the reciprocal impact of language use and cognition by investigating
speakers’ abilities to establish anaphoric relations between a pronoun and its an-
tecedent (Sorace, 2016). Harald Clahsen and João Veríssimo investigate the influ-
ence of masked priming on processing of inflectional and derivational morpho-
logical forms by bilingual speakers (Clahsen & Veríssimo, 2016).
Hofweber, Jones, & Marinis (2016) assert that code-switching is a primary
component of the bilingual experience, and that it is responsible for reshaping ex-
ecutive control networks. Although code-switching has long been acknowledged
as a factor relevant to bilingualism and cognition research, this study is the first
to control for its quality and quantity, rather than quantity alone. Speaker popu-
lations were matched for language combination, age, SES, and IQ, allowing the
quantity of dense code-switching to be the variable under study. They find that
morphosyntactic control processes activated during dense code-switching involve
some form of inhibitory control, depending on whether monitoring of co-activat-
ed languages is high or low. However, inhibition and monitoring are not mutu-
ally exclusive, and it is possible that some past studies did not find the bilingual
advantage in inhibition because of low-monitoring circumstances. The authors
argue that code-switching, rarely taken into consideration in bilingual studies,
 Introduction: Bilingualism and executive function 513

needs to be attended to in the future to disentangle the contributions of inhibition

and monitoring.
Sorace (2016) explores the BAH at a structural, sentential level, moving be-
yond the oft-cited lexical bilingual disadvantage. She proposes a theory in which
the bilingual experience affects the relationship between language and general
cognition and has the potential to impact the relationships between individual
executive functions. She then argues that the processing differences exhibited by
bilingual speakers are the result of bilingualism reshaping their cognition. Clahsen
& Veríssimo (2016) report results of several masked priming experiments. While
surveying current literature, they argue for the relevance and benefits of ground-
ing hypotheses in linguistic theory and designing experimental stimuli that make
prudent use of linguistic categories, structures, and research. They urge research-
ers to implement directly comparable experimental materials, and to analyze this
data using techniques appropriate to the measure being used. They report that
when such considerations are taken, results suggest a highly selective interaction
between age of acquisition and the distinction between derivational and inflec-
tional morphology.
Last, but not least, is Thomas Bak’s creative and inspiring discussion of where
we are now in the debate on the relationship between bilingualism and execu-
tive function and where we should go from here. Closing the issue, Bak (2016)
argues that rather than considering experiments undertaken in different locations
and yielding different results as contributing to the replication crisis, they should
instead be regarded as reflective of the larger contexts in which those bilingual
participants live. Many complex interactions between bilingualism and executive
function are supported in the growing body of research, and Bak suggests that
cultural and linguistic values may be relevant to our conceptualization of and atti-
tudes toward bilingualism and its effect on cognition. With this in mind, the read-
er is left with a snapshot of a thriving field of study, brimming with possibilities
for incorporating the world’s range of diversity into the field’s range of research.
We’d like to take this opportunity to thank the many people and organiza-
tions that made this workshop and guest issue possible. First, we thank the invited
speakers at the workshop for their insightful talks, as well as their excellent con-
tributions to this issue. Special thanks go to Stephen Boatright, who designed and
maintained the workshop website. Additionally, this guest issue would not have
been possible without our 27 reviewers and the hard work they put in into making
the contributions even better. We are grateful to the Graduate Center of the City
University of New York for providing facilities for the workshop, which was sup-
ported by the National Science Foundation under Grant #1451631 (Irina Sekerina,
PI, and Virginia Valian, Co-PI). (Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or rec-
ommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not
514 Irina A. Sekerina and Lauren Spradlin

necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.) Preparation of

the guest issue and writing of the guest editors’ introduction was supported by
the grant Experimental Psycholinguistics and Bilingualism: Teaching and Research
in Norway from the Fulbright Core Program to the first author. Lauren Spradlin,
the second author and co-editor, made so many contributions to the organiza-
tion and execution of the workshop, as well as writing of this editorial intro-
duction and preparation of this special issue, that we could have acknowledged
her on every page!

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