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Review
. 2019 Mar 13;9(3):27.
doi: 10.3390/bs9030027.

Does the Bilingual Advantage in Cognitive Control Exist and If So, What Are Its Modulating Factors? A Systematic Review

Maurits van den Noort  1   2 , Esli Struys  3 , Peggy Bosch  4   5 , Lars Jaswetz  6 , Benoît Perriard  7 , Sujung Yeo  8 , Pia Barisch  9 , Katrien Vermeire  10 , Sook-Hyun Lee  11 , Sabina Lim  12
Affiliations
Review

Does the Bilingual Advantage in Cognitive Control Exist and If So, What Are Its Modulating Factors? A Systematic Review

Maurits van den Noort et al. Behav Sci (Basel). .

Abstract

Recently, doubts were raised about the existence of the bilingual advantage in cognitive control. The aim of the present review was to investigate the bilingual advantage and its modulating factors. We searched the Medline, ScienceDirect, Scopus, and ERIC databases for all original data and reviewed studies on bilingualism and cognitive control, with a cut-off date of 31 October 2018, thereby following the guidelines of the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analysis (PRISMA) protocol. The results of the 46 original studies show that indeed, the majority, 54.3%, reported beneficial effects of bilingualism on cognitive control tasks; however, 28.3% found mixed results and 17.4% found evidence against its existence. Methodological differences seem to explain these mixed results: Particularly, the varying selection of the bilingual participants, the use of nonstandardized tests, and the fact that individual differences were often neglected and that longitudinal designs were rare. Therefore, a serious risk for bias exists in both directions (i.e., in favor of and against the bilingual advantage). To conclude, we found some evidence for a bilingual advantage in cognitive control; however, if significant progress is to be made, better study designs, bigger data, and more longitudinal studies are needed.

Keywords: bilingual advantage; bilingualism; cognitive control; individual differences; longitudinal studies; methodology.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Overview of the selection process for the studies included in this review.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Overview of the growth in the number of bilingual (original and review) studies on cognitive control over the period from 1 January 2004 to 31 October 2018. Over the past six years, a clear increase in the number of bilingual studies on cognitive control can be seen. * = Only studies that were published on or before 31 October 2018 were included.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Overview of the absolute numbers of studies that found evidence in favor of a bilingual advantage in cognitive control, that found mixed results, and that found evidence against the existence of a bilingual advantage in cognitive control during the last 15 years. The results are specified for five three-year periods over the last 15 years.
Figure 4
Figure 4
The working model of the bilingual advantage and its modulating factors. The question mark refers to the fact that to date, the strengths of those separate modulating effects remain unclear.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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