ArticleNeuropsychologia2016
Bilingualism, social cognition and executive functions: A tale of chickens and eggs.
Article in Neuropsychologia, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 15 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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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.
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Who cites it
15 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 64 citations in OpenAlex.
- Multifactorial approaches to study bilingualism in the aging population: Past, present, future.Frontiers in psychology · 2022Pooled it
- Is there a bilingual advantage on interference-control tasks? A multiverse meta-analysis of global reaction time and interference cost.Psychonomic bulletin & review · 2019Pooled it
- Cross-Sectional Trajectories of Social Cognition in Later Life: Exploring Emotion Perception, Theory of Mind, and Emotional Empathy.Archives of clinical neuropsychology : the official journal of the National Academy of Neuropsychologists · 2025Article
- A Systematic Review on the Association Between Bilingualism and Theory of Mind in Adulthood.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Heterogeneity in cognitive profiles of monolingual and bilingual Hispanic/Latino older adults in HABS-HD.Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society : JINS · 2024Article
- The executive function of bilingual and monolingual children: A technical efficiency approach.Behavior research methods · 2022Article
- Lifelong Bilingualism Functions as an Alternative Intervention for Cognitive Reserve Against Alzheimer's Disease.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2021Review
- The Small and Efficient Language Network of Polyglots and Hyper-polyglots.Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2021Article
- Cognitive Persistence and Executive Function in the Multilingual Brain During Aging.Frontiers in psychology · 2020Article
- The moral case for sign language education.Monash bioethics review · 2019Article
- Does the Bilingual Advantage in Cognitive Control Exist and If So, What Are Its Modulating Factors? A Systematic Review.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2019Review
- What Do You Have in Mind? Measures to Assess Mental State Reasoning in Neuropsychiatric Populations.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2019Review
- The Importance of Socioeconomic Status as a Modulator of the Bilingual Advantage in Cognitive Ability.Frontiers in psychology · 2018Article
- Bilingual neurocognitive resiliency, vulnerability, and Alzheimer's disease biomarker correlates in Latino older adults enrolled in the Health and Aging Brain Study - Health Disparities (HABS-HD).Alzheimer's & dementia (Amsterdam, Netherlands)Article
- Redefining the norms: an interdisciplinary perspective on language testing in multilinguals with acquired and progressive neurogenic disorders.Alzheimer's & dementia (Amsterdam, Netherlands)Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
The influence of bilingualism on cognitive functioning is currently a topic of intense scientific debate. The strongest evidence for a cognitive benefit of bilingualism has been demonstrated in executive functions. However, the causal direction of the relationship remains unclear: does learning other languages improve executive functions or are people with better executive abilities more likely to become bilingual? To address this, we examined 90 male participants of the Lothian Birth Cohort 1936; 26 were bilingual, 64 monolingual. All participants underwent an intelligence test at age 11 years and were assessed on a wide range of executive and social cognition tasks at age 74. The only notable differences between both groups were found for the Simon Effect (which indexes stimulus-response conflict resolution; β=-.518, p=0.025) and a trend effect for the Faux Pas task (a measure of complex theory of mind; ToM, β=0.432, p=0.060). Controlling for the influence of childhood intelligence, parental and own social class significantly attenuated the bilingual advantage on the Faux Pas test (β=0.058, p=0.816), whereas the Simon task advantage remained (β=-.589, p=0.049). We find some weak evidence that the relationship between bilingualism and cognitive functions may be selective and bi-directional. Pre-existing cognitive and social class differences from childhood may influence both ToM ability in older age and the likelihood of learning another language; yet, bilingualism does not appear to independently contribute to Faux Pas score. Conversely, learning a second language is related to better conflict processing, irrespective of initial childhood ability or social class.
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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.