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Keynote Article
I am indebted to a very large number of people, at least some of whom may agree with at least some of my conclusions. The list includes colleagues who made detailed comments on earlier versions of the paper, individuals who helpfully provided insights into their own research and perspectives during discussions, and those who commented on presentations of this work at the CUNY Graduate Center in 2012, the Boston University Conference on Language Development in 2012, the meeting of the Psychonomics Society in 2012, ISB9 in Singapore in 2013, and the International Conference on Multilingualism in Montreal in 2013. I thank Giulia M. L. Bencini, Ellen Bialystok, Susan Carey, Martin S. Chodorow, Harald Clahsen, Lynn Hasher, Eve Higby, April Humphrey, Judith Kroll, Jennifer Manly, Klara Marton, Michaela Mosca, Loraine Obler, Kenneth Paap, Clare Patterson, Laurel Perkins, Mary C. Potter, Sandeep Prasada, Irina Sekerina, Debra Titone, Janet van Hell, and Laura Zahodne, as well as three anonymous readers. This work was supported in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation (BCS-0236700).
The focus of this keynote is the cognitive benefits of bilingualism. "Bilingualism" should be understood to include knowledge of any number of languages beyond one. Section 1 examines "executive function"1, the main cognitive benefit of interest, and "cognitive reserve", or intact cognitive abilities despite neural damage. Section 2 examines the benefits of bilingualism and other "challenging" experiences for executive function and for protection from dementia. Section 3 summarizes where we are now.
Without understanding the components of executive function, the ways that executive function is measured, the relation between superior executive function and delay of cognitive decline, and the variety of experiences that are linked to improved executive function and cognitive reserve, it is not possible to assess the cognitive benefits of knowing or using more than one language.
With respect to bilingualism, I see two logical possibilities.
1.
There is a benefit of bilingualism for executive function, but that benefit competes with other benefits that both mono- and bilinguals have to varying degrees. Depending on the composition of each group in any given experiment, the other benefits may be more plentiful in the monolingual than bilingual group (or sufficiently plentiful in...