Bilingualism and the Executive Function Trade-Off: A Latent Variable Examination of Behavioral and Event-Related Brain Potentials

The impact of bilingualism on the executive functioning constructs of inhibition, shifting, and updating remains unclear, with prior findings yielding inconsistent results. Several explanations for the lack of congruency have been suggested, including the dependence on observed variables, the impact of test modality on performance, and the need to examine the density of dual languages in the environment. To address these concerns, the current study examined differences between a large group of monolingual (n = 109) and bilingual (n = 152) college students on nonlinguistic behavioral and neural measures of inhibition, shifting, and updating using a latent variable approach. We investigated the impact of test modality by presenting each task in the auditory and visual modalities. Additionally, we examined the effects of language balance and language switching in daily life on the measures of executive functioning. Results revealed greater neural expenditure (i.e., higher ERP amplitude) and weaker performance on tasks assessing response inhibition and shifting abilities in bilinguals. Further, although a neural marker of memory updating did not reveal group differences, performance was stronger in monolinguals. These findings were consistent across test modality. Last, language balance was a stronger predictor of behavioral and neural measures than language switching frequency. Our findings highlight the importance of examining differences at the latent level and exploring the influence of linguistic balance.