Publication Type

Journal Article

Version

acceptedVersion

Publication Date

2-2016

Abstract

Paap, Johnson, and Sawi (2015) contend that bilingual advantages in executive functions (EF) do not exist, and that there is no compelling evidence that a certain bilingual experience hones a specific component of EF (p. 272). We believe that this conclusion is premature, because Paap et al.'s approach was not sufficiently refined to effectively capture the real-world complexity of bilingualism. In this commentary, we draw on the adaptive control hypothesis (Green & Abutalebi, 2013) and argue that studies of bilingualism should consider specific bilingual experiences that potentially moderate bilingual advantages through substantial demand for language control (for similar commentaries, see Marzecová, 2015, and Woumans & Duyck, 2015). Based on this framework, we address two issues that have received relatively little attention in the literature and even less in this discussion forum: the interactional context of bilinguals' conversational exchanges and the age of active bilingualism.

Keywords

Bilingualism, Executive functions, Bilingual experience' Bilinguals' interactional context, Age of active bilingualism

Discipline

Cognitive Psychology | Multicultural Psychology

Research Areas

Psychology

Publication

Cortex

Volume

75

First Page

237

Last Page

240

ISSN

0010-9452

Identifier

10.1016/j.cortex.2015.11.018

Publisher

Elsevier

Copyright Owner and License

Author

Additional URL

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2015.11.018

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