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
Citation
YANG, Hwajin, HARTANTO, Andree, & YANG, Sujin.(2016). The importance of bilingual experience in assessing bilingual advantages in executive functions. Cortex, 75, 237-240.
Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/1900
Copyright Owner and License
Author
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Additional URL
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2015.11.018