Does language dominance affect cognitive performance in bilinguals? Lifespan evidence from preschoolers through older adults on card sorting, Simon, and metalinguistic tasks
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Summary
This study investigates whether language dominance influences cognitive performance in bilinguals, specifically testing for a "bilingual advantage" in executive function across the lifespan. The research addresses conflicting literature regarding whether bilinguals outperform monolinguals in tasks requiring inhibitory control and attention switching. The authors aimed to determine if such advantages exist in a carefully controlled population of Welsh-English simultaneous and early sequential bilinguals compared to English monolinguals, while accounting for variables like socioeconomic status and language proficiency. The researchers tested 650 participants in card sorting tasks, 557 in Simon tasks, and 354 in metalinguistic judgment tasks. Participants ranged from 3-year-old preschoolers to older adults and were categorized by home language use: only Welsh (OWH), Welsh and English (WEH), only English (OEH), or English monolinguals (MonE). The card sorting task measured switching costs in accuracy and reaction time. The Simon task assessed response times to congruent and incongruent spatial stimuli. The metalinguistic task evaluated the ability to judge grammatically correct but semantically anomalous sentences. The results provided little support for a general bilingual advantage. In card sorting, there was no significant difference in switching costs between groups for most ages. Notably, monolinguals or English-dominant bilinguals often performed faster than Welsh-dominant or balanced bilinguals in younger age groups and younger adults. In the Simon task, the text indicates that performance differences were minimal, with no consistent advantage for bilinguals in conflict conditions. The study found that when differences did occur, they were frequently driven by language proficiency or automaticity rather than bilingual status itself; for instance, monolinguals sometimes outperformed bilinguals, and Welsh-dominant participants occasionally showed lower performance on tasks administered in English. The authors conclude that the widely reported bilingual advantage in executive function is not robust in this population of fully fluent bilinguals. The findings suggest that previous reports of advantages may be confounded by factors such as socioeconomic background, language proficiency, and the specific type of bilingualism. The study highlights the need for stricter scrutiny of participant characteristics and conditions, indicating that bilingualism alone does not guarantee superior cognitive control performance compared to monolinguals.
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| Stage | Outcome | Tool | Model | Prompt | Attempts | Completed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| discover | success | OpenAlex-citations | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-18 |
| archive | success | unpaywall | — | — | 2 | 2026-06-25 |
| extract | success | cached | — | — | 2 | 2026-06-26 |
| clean | success | clean | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-18 |
| chunk | success | chunk | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-18 |
| embed | success | embed | Qwen/Qwen3-Embedding-8B | — | 1 | 2026-06-18 |
| promote | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-18 |
| summarize | success | llm | qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant | summ-v5 | 1 | 2026-06-26 |
| tag | success | vector_similarity | — | — | 6 | 2026-06-18 |
| verify | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-26 |
Summary generated by qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant on 2026-06-26; verification: verified.
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