ReviewTrends in cognitive sciences2012
Bilingualism: consequences for mind and brain.
Review in Trends in cognitive sciences, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 243 papers, 4 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
243 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Cognitive Advantage of Bilingualism Over Monolingualism in Older Adults: A Meta-Analysis.Current Alzheimer research · 2022Pooled it
- Current Update on the Clinical Utility of MMSE and MoCA for Stroke Patients in Asia: A Systematic Review.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2021Pooled it
- The Bilingual Advantage in Children's Executive Functioning Is Not Related to Language Status: A Meta-Analytic Review.Psychological science · 2021Pooled it
- The Impact of Bilingualism on Executive Functions in Children and Adolescents: A Systematic Review Based on the PRISMA Method.Frontiers in psychology · 2020Pooled it
- The Effect of 6 weeks Physical Activity on Cognitive Control and Trait Impulsivity in Multi-problem Young Adults: First Findings of an RCT-study.International journal of offender therapy and comparative criminology · 2026Trial
- Redefining bilingualism as a spectrum of experiences that differentially affects brain structure and function.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2019Trial
- Cognitive outcomes among Latino survivors of childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia and lymphoma: A cross-sectional cohort study using culturally competent, performance-based assessment.Pediatric blood & cancer · 2018Trial
- Does Speaking Two Dialects in Daily Life Affect Executive Functions? An Event-Related Potential Study.PloS one · 2016Trial
- Affect labeling down-regulates amygdala only in a dominant native language.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Language dominance effects on bilingual children: investigating language switching among native Hindi speakers using picture-naming.Cognitive processing · 2026Article
- A Large-Scale Study on the Relation Between Multilingualism and Social Traits in Adults With and Without Autism Diagnoses.Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research · 2026Article
- From Recognition to Production: Receptive and Expressive Cross-Situational Word Learning in Monolingual and Bilingual Children.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Reinforcement-learning signals support dynamic adaptive control during language switching.Communications biology · 2026Article
- Language Contact in Bilingual Brains: Formal Features in the Mental Representation of English-Spanish Bilingual Children.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- The Educational Exposome: A life-course socioenvironmental framework for advancing Alzheimer's disease and ADRD research.Alzheimer's & dementia : the journal of the Alzheimer's Association · 2026Article
- Neuroanatomical differences in early bilingual and monolingual children.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Parallel contributions of socioeconomic status and bilingual experiences on executive function and the brain in young children.Brain and language · 2026Article
- Neural Correlates of Linguistic and Prosodic Processing in Chinese English-as-a-Foreign-Language (EFL) Learners.Journal of psycholinguistic research · 2026Article
- Rethinking language, cognition and assessment in psychosis: How bilingualism challenges psychiatry and how natural language processing can help.Schizophrenia (Heidelberg, Germany) · 2026Review
- Bilingual effects on cognitive control: a comprehensive bibliometric analysis of 50 years of research.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Review
183 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Building on earlier evidence showing a beneficial effect of bilingualism on children's cognitive development, we review recent studies using both behavioral and neuroimaging methods to examine the effects of bilingualism on cognition in adulthood and explore possible mechanisms for these effects. This research shows that bilingualism has a somewhat muted effect in adulthood but a larger role in older age, protecting against cognitive decline, a concept known as 'cognitive reserve'. We discuss recent evidence that bilingualism is associated with a delay in the onset of symptoms of dementia. Cognitive reserve is a crucial research area in the context of an aging population; the possibility that bilingualism contributes to cognitive reserve is therefore of growing importance as populations become increasingly diverse.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.