Bilingualism, Culture, and Executive Functions: Is There a Relationship?

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper attempts to set out an argument for culture to be scrutinised as a variable that may help to explain inconsistent findings in literature examining whether bilinguals benefit from a general advantage in cognitive control as a result of their experience selecting and inhibiting multiple languages. While it is likely to be of interest to bilingualism researchers, it suffers from two important weaknesses:

 

MAJOR 1

 

• Despite a stated aim to foreground the role of culture, the paper at no time either defines or operationalises culture. There is an attempt to present studies that have done some of this work (lines 390-448), but even here, the operationalisations used in the studies under discussion are not discussed in any detail. From reading this review, the reader understands that national origin has previously served as a proxy for culture - is this a good operationalisation? How does it differ from the role of context? The reader can’t tell how well it maps onto the construct because no definition is offered. 

• I appreciate the nuance the authors have brought to bear on the distribution of cultural traits within a population in line 407, but it is rather missing in the rest of the review. This is a cause for concern on two counts. The first is that a review paper of this type serves a function in setting out where a field can go in the near to medium term. As such it needs to problematise the key concepts and methods, and beyond offering very broad brush hints at possible mechanisms, make concrete hypotheses as to the conditions in which a specific set of culture-based attributes will be associated with advantages on specific measures. (e.g. late in the review (lines 561-2)  switching between “cultural frames and schemas” is offered as a likely influence on cognitive control. What is a cultural frame or schema? How might one measure it? What would constitute switching between cultural schema?). 

• The second cause for concern is that the lack of detail slides into an essentialising of East and West (e.g. implying that these broad categories are ‘diametrical opposites’ lines 523). Without a taxonomy of features or parameters on which cultures vary, this is a problematic statement (see Tran, Arrodondo & Yoshida, 2019 for a study which does offer such a scale). The authors might wish to refer to parallel work on culture as a mediating variable of statistical learning linking differences in local vs global perceptual biases to culture (e.g. Kiyokawa et al 2012, and other work by Zoltan Dienes and colleagues).

 

MAJOR 2

• The authors review the now very large body of literature suggesting that the true effect of bilingual advantage may be close to zero, but then proceed with the rest of the review as though this preliminary section had never happened (e.g. “While the jury is still out on which aspects bilinguals have a cognitive advantage over monolinguals…”. The questions raised by Paap and colleagues are not so much about hidden confounds  as about study quality (e.g. in Lowe et al. 2021 meta-analysis that coded for matching as a feature of study quality, the authors found an inverse relationship between study quality and effect size). It is entirely likely that more rigorous research that takes account of the many individual differences that may confound bilingualism will follow this trend. Given that there is now a fairly large accumulation of evidence against a bilingual advantage, this must be the starting point for a conceptual review. This type of  review may be read and referred to as a rationale for planning empirical studies for years to come. It feels irresponsible to start off with sentences like “bilinguals are known to have an advantage over their monolingual peers due to the constant monitoring, selection, and inhibition of languages …”. 

 

MINOR

 

The abstract and introductory paragraphs need to be proofread to eliminate undefined antecedents and  dangling modifiers.

 

References 

Kiyokawa, S., Dienes, Z., Tanaka, D., Yamada, A., & Crowe, L. (2012). Cross cultural differences in unconscious knowledge. Cognition, 124(1), 16-24.

 

Lowe, C. J., Cho, I., Goldsmith, S. F., & Morton, J. B. (2021). The bilingual advantage in children’s executive functioning is not related to language status: A meta-analytic review. Psychological science, 32(7), 1115-1146.

 

Paap, K. R., & Sawi, O. (2014). Bilingual advantages in executive functioning: problems in convergent validity, discriminant validity, and the identification of the theoretical constructs. Frontiers in psychology, 5, 962.

 

Paap, K. (2019). The bilingual advantage debate: Quantity and quality of the evidence. In J.    W. Schwieter (Ed). The handbook of the neuroscience of multilingualism, 701-735. London: Wiley-Blackwell.

 

Author Response

MAJOR 1

Despite a stated aim to foreground the role of culture, the paper at no time either defines or operationalises culture. There is an attempt to present studies that have done some of this work (lines 390-448), but even here, the operationalisations used in the studies under discussion are not discussed in any detail. From reading this review, the reader understands that national origin has previously served as a proxy for culture - is this a good operationalisation? How does it differ from the role of context? The reader can’t tell how well it maps onto the construct because no definition is offered. 

• Thank you for pointing this out and we see your point. We have included a definition of culture that fits with the articles being reviewed, and have expanded the section on culture to provide more information (lines 338-363).
• We share your concerns that national origin serving as a proxy for culture is not the best operationalization, and have further highlighted it as an issue we came across in our review of the extant literature it in our manuscript at various points (lines 349-357; 918-927).

I appreciate the nuance the authors have brought to bear on the distribution of cultural traits within a population in line 407, but it is rather missing in the rest of the review. This is a cause for concern on two counts. The first is that a review paper of this type serves a function in setting out where a field can go in the near to medium term. As such it needs to problematise the key concepts and methods, and beyond offering very broad brush hints at possible mechanisms, make concrete hypotheses as to the conditions in which a specific set of culture-based attributes will be associated with advantages on specific measures. (e.g. late in the review (lines 561-2)  switching between “cultural frames and schemas” is offered as a likely influence on cognitive control. What is a cultural frame or schema? How might one measure it? What would constitute switching between cultural schema?). 

• Thank you for this important comment. To address this major point, we have expanded the section on bicultural switching significantly, tracing the extant literature and we hope this will provide a clearer understanding of how switching between cultural frames hones the same cognitive faculties as code switching in bilingualism (lines 618-795)

 

The second cause for concern is that the lack of detail slides into an essentialising of East and West (e.g. implying that these broad categories are ‘diametrical opposites’ lines 523). Without a taxonomy of features or parameters on which cultures vary, this is a problematic statement (see Tran, Arrodondo & Yoshida, 2019 for a study which does offer such a scale). The authors might wish to refer to parallel work on culture as a mediating variable of statistical learning linking differences in local vs global perceptual biases to culture (e.g. Kiyokawa et al 2012, and other work by Zoltan Dienes and colleagues).

• Thank you for this important suggestion, and we have reviewed Tran, Arrodondo & Yoshida, 2019 and we have provided a taxonomy of parameters on which cultures can be vary based on Hofstede’s cultural dimensions, showing certain features widely accepted as embodying the idea of ‘East-vs.-West’ (table 1). We have also made more explicit - our view that we do not agree with the essentializing of East and West, although this how the studies we reviewed have generally divided their participants (lines 361-363).
• Thank you bringing to our attention the Kiyokawa et al 2012 references. It is most relevant indeed and we have integrated it in lines 620-625, as well as other work by the group (e.g. Kiyokawa et al. 2010; Ling et al, 2018) where appropriate.
• We have removed essentializing words/phrases, including ‘Diametrical opposites’ which you suggested.

MAJOR 2

The authors review the now very large body of literature suggesting that the true effect of bilingual advantage may be close to zero, but then proceed with the rest of the review as though this preliminary section had never happened (e.g. “While the jury is still out on which aspects bilinguals have a cognitive advantage over monolinguals…”. The questions raised by Paap and colleagues are not so much about hidden confounds  as about study quality (e.g. in Lowe et al. 2021 meta-analysis that coded for matching as a feature of study quality, the authors found an inverse relationship between study quality and effect size). It is entirely likely that more rigorous research that takes account of the many individual differences that may confound bilingualism will follow this trend. Given that there is now a fairly large accumulation of evidence against a bilingual advantage, this must be the starting point for a conceptual review. This type of  review may be read and referred to as a rationale for planning empirical studies for years to come. It feels irresponsible to start off with sentences like “bilinguals are known to have an advantage over their monolingual peers due to the constant monitoring, selection, and inhibition of languages …”. 

• We have made clearer reference to the Lowe et al paper (lines 228-235) and presented the view regarding the presence/absence of a bilingual advantage more factually. We have reworded and framed our statements in a more neutral way (e.g. lines 146-14; 1007-1009)

 

MINOR

 The abstract and introductory paragraphs need to be proofread to eliminate undefined antecedents and dangling modifiers.

• Thank you, we have proofread the manuscript carefully.

We would like to thank the Reviewer 1 and the Languages editorial team again for the invaluable comments and the opportunity to revise our manuscript. We are very grateful for the input as it has enabled us to clarify our thoughts. Should you have any additional comments or suggestions, please do not hesitate to contact us

 

Reviewer 2 Report

 

This paper provides a clear and succinct overview of the history and controversies surrounding research on the bilingual advantage. It motivates questions about why there is so little consensus surrounding this complex set of topics, as well as establishing that it is unlikely that there will be a single variable that can fully explain the wide variability in findings.

 

However, it was harder to understand the precise nature of the proposed contributions of “culture” to differences in executive function between monolingual and bilingual participants. The latter half of the paper referred to a variety of interesting studies and findings, but these findings were not directly connected to proposed models of bilingualism and executive function in a way that made it clear how existing theories could be modified to have more explanatory power. For example, it is undoubtedly true that changes in globalization and contact between different communities are likely to have widespread influences on people’s lives and cognition (p. 10). But it is not immediately clear how these trends can be applied to explain patterns of executive function in different populations that have been tested.

 

Importantly, “culture” is a complex construct, and it is never explicitly defined. For the most part, the term is used to refer to participants of different nationalities (or sometimes ethnicities), but culture can be defined at many levels, and to understand how and why this is argued to be a potential explanation of cognitive differences, it is important to be more specific. There are allusions to macro vs. micro levels of culture, but no criteria are ever listed, making it hard to understand how culture might be operationalized in a such way that its role could be tested and/or incorporated into theoretical models of bilingualism and executive function. For example, is culture viewed as distinct from SES (a known influence on EF at all ages), or is one a component of the other? Is culture a single variable or something that needs to be measured along a variety of dimensions?

 

Moreover, it was unclear whether “culture” is being proposed as an independent explanation/contributor to EF, or as a factor that can interact with bilingual experience in shaping EF. There are interesting possibilities either way, but it needs to be stated how culture is conceptualized as explaining the presence or absence of monolingual/bilingual differences in EF. In addition, making specific claims (e.g., how might culture shape EF? Or what cultural differences would be expected to have the largest impact?) would help make a more compelling argument that accounting for culture is a crucial missing factor in the current understanding of how bilingualism is related to executive function.

 

In sum, this paper is well-written and draws connections between variety of important topics. It is highly likely that the experiences and values that individuals learn from their communities, families, and larger society have measurable influences on their cognitive functioning. But, to make a substantive contribution to the very active debates surrounding the existence or non-existence of a bilingual advantage, it is necessary to more clearly explain not only what is meant by “culture” but how this construct contributes to or explains differences in performance of different groups of participants on EF measures.

Author Response

This paper provides a clear and succinct overview of the history and controversies surrounding research on the bilingual advantage. It motivates questions about why there is so little consensus surrounding this complex set of topics, as well as establishing that it is unlikely that there will be a single variable that can fully explain the wide variability in findings.

However, it was harder to understand the precise nature of the proposed contributions of “culture” to differences in executive function between monolingual and bilingual participants. The latter half of the paper referred to a variety of interesting studies and findings, but these findings were not directly connected to proposed models of bilingualism and executive function in a way that made it clear how existing theories could be modified to have more explanatory power. For example, it is undoubtedly true that changes in globalization and contact between different communities are likely to have widespread influences on people’s lives and cognition (p. 10). But it is not immediately clear how these trends can be applied to explain patterns of executive function in different populations that have been tested.

• Thank you for allowing us the opportunity to clarify specifically how and why culture relates to bilingualism and EF. We have expanded on this at various points (e.g. lines 435-448; 709-802).
• Also, after much deliberation, as well as extensive lengthening of other sections to provide more depth and detail, we have decided to remove the section on “globalization and contact between different communities (originally p. 10)” so as to keep within the stipulated word limit and to keep the focus on culture as a macro and micro variable.

Importantly, “culture” is a complex construct, and it is never explicitly defined. For the most part, the term is used to refer to participants of different nationalities (or sometimes ethnicities), but culture can be defined at many levels, and to understand how and why this is argued to be a potential explanation of cognitive differences, it is important to be more specific. There are allusions to macro vs. micro levels of culture, but no criteria are ever listed, making it hard to understand how culture might be operationalized in a such way that its role could be tested and/or incorporated into theoretical models of bilingualism and executive function. For example, is culture viewed as distinct from SES (a known influence on EF at all ages), or is one a component of the other? Is culture a single variable or something that needs to be measured along a variety of dimensions?

• Thank you very much – this is indeed true and we have made several adjustments to rectify this.
  • We have included a definition of culture that fits with the articles being reviewed, and have expanded the section on culture to provide more information (lines 338-363).
  • We have taken these important comments on board, and have reorganized the manuscript to have 2 sections: one on Macro and one on Micro culture, including an much longer section bringing the reader through the relationship between culture, biculturalism, cultural frame switching, and then relating it to the Adaptive Control Hypothesis (lines 709-802).

Moreover, it was unclear whether “culture” is being proposed as an independent explanation/contributor to EF, or as a factor that can interact with bilingual experience in shaping EF. There are interesting possibilities either way, but it needs to be stated how culture is conceptualized as explaining the presence or absence of monolingual/bilingual differences in EF. In addition, making specific claims (e.g., how might culture shape EF? Or what cultural differences would be expected to have the largest impact?) would help make a more compelling argument that accounting for culture is a crucial missing factor in the current understanding of how bilingualism is related to executive function.

• It is our contention that culture is a moderating variable that interacts with bilingual experience in shaping EF. We hope that the newly added sections (addressed in the prior points) have provided more clarity in regards to our argument.

We would like to thank the Reviewer 2 and the Languages editorial team again for the invaluable comments and the opportunity to revise our manuscript. We are very grateful for the input as it has enabled us to clarify our thoughts. Should you have any additional comments or suggestions, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Reviewer 3 Report

The manuscript aims to show if there is any link between bilingualism, cognition and culture. The authors start with discussing a debate in the literature on the advantages of bilingualism in cognition and discuss the possible reasons for capturing conflicting findings in the literature (such as different experimental designs and not controlling different factors). They highlight culture as a potential confounding variable and discuss some studies in young children and adults which looked at “culture” as a factor.  The authors finish by suggesting some directions for future research. The manuscript is well-written and I enjoyed reading it. 

 

However, I have few minor comments. I think it would be nice if the authors define culture as they think it should be defined and measured to reflect the “fluidity in cultural identity” (as they noted) in today's world. For instance, they can highlight the fact that culture is not only being born or raised in the country of origin. As we know, heritage speakers can be born in a host country but raised in a family with a different culture. Therefore, future research in the field should consider these points in measuring and quantifying “culture” as a variable. Additionally, I would suggest adding some lines on what culture, as was measured in the cited literature, brings to the table. Is it just being from East or West?  Or is it (for example) the education system individuals have experienced?   

 

  

Author Response

The manuscript aims to show if there is any link between bilingualism, cognition and culture. The authors start with discussing a debate in the literature on the advantages of bilingualism in cognition and discuss the possible reasons for capturing conflicting findings in the literature (such as different experimental designs and not controlling different factors). They highlight culture as a potential confounding variable and discuss some studies in young children and adults which looked at “culture” as a factor.  The authors finish by suggesting some directions for future research. The manuscript is well-written and I enjoyed reading it. 

However, I have few minor comments. I think it would be nice if the authors define culture as they think it should be defined and measured to reflect the “fluidity in cultural identity” (as they noted) in today's world. For instance, they can highlight the fact that culture is not only being born or raised in the country of origin. As we know, heritage speakers can be born in a host country but raised in a family with a different culture. Therefore, future research in the field should consider these points in measuring and quantifying “culture” as a variable. Additionally, I would suggest adding some lines on what culture, as was measured in the cited literature, brings to the table. Is it just being from East or West?  Or is it (for example) the education system individuals have experienced?  

• Thank you for the comment – We have included a definition of culture that fits with the articles being reviewed, and have expanded the section on culture to provide more information (lines 338-363).
• We very much agree with you that culture is not only being born or raised in a country of origin - we have also included a section in the future directions section that further emphasizes the importance of micro-level culture (lines 806-815). Furthermore, we have also provided more depth in various instances suggesting that culture is not just East or West, but can be a result of upbringing and expectation (lines 435-449), or the result of the interaction between family culture and host country culture (lines 828-845) among other factors.

We would like to thank the Reviewer 3 for the encouraging and critical comments. Thank you too to the Languages editorial team again for the invaluable comments and the opportunity to revise our manuscript. We are very grateful for the input as it has enabled us to clarify our thoughts. Should you have any additional comments or suggestions, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The revised version of the paper is significantly improved: it has more coherently integrated the findings of meta-science studies expressing methodological concerns re the Bilingual Advantage literature, and sharpened its conceptual position on culture. I also appreciate the authors’ distinction between culture at a macro and micro level, and greater critical engagement with the operationalisation of each. Finally, the detailing of possible mechanisms for culture to modulate bilingualism effects is also welcome. Many thanks to the authors for their thoughtful comments and revisions.

My remaining reservations concern the language used to describe the relatively large number of studies with designs that investigate the role of bilingualism and/or bi-culturalism by sampling participants with different backgrounds. In the vast majority of these studies, language and cultural experiences are observed, rather than manipulated, and these study designs entail that causal language cannot be used to describe their findings.

A few examples follow, but I suggest the authors review the manuscript for others:

 

• P. 7, 326 “we observe that cultural upbringing exerts an important effect on early EF development”

• P. 8, 364 “activating different cultural frames can influence performance on inhibition control tasks.”

• P. 9, 418  “culture as a variable influencing cognition, in particular, EF,”

• P. 9 “ due to” →  associated with

• P. 13, “have an impact on EF” – > are associated with differences in EF

The manuscript would also benefit from a careful reading to ensure that tenses are consistent throughout.

 

Author Response

Dear Mr Antić,

 

Thank you for your correspondence with us and the opportunity to revise our manuscript.

 

We would like to thank the reviewers again for taking the time to reread the manuscript and for their comments on the revised draft. We are heartened that our effort to improve on the manuscript has been well received by the reviewers, and have made the minor revisions according to the suggestions made. We hope that our revision meets the expectations of the reviewers and the Journal.

 

To organize our reply letter, we have included all comments and suggestions from the decision letter; our responses are written in italics. Our revisions to the manuscript are made per the instructions of your email, that is, to use the ‘track changes’ function in our revised Word format manuscript.

 

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 The revised version of the paper is significantly improved: it has more coherently integrated the findings of meta-science studies expressing methodological concerns re the Bilingual Advantage literature, and sharpened its conceptual position on culture. I also appreciate the authors’ distinction between culture at a macro and micro level, and greater critical engagement with the operationalisation of each. Finally, the detailing of possible mechanisms for culture to modulate bilingualism effects is also welcome. Many thanks to the authors for their thoughtful comments and revisions.

 

• Thank you for your helpful, and insightful comments and suggestion that helped us make our argument stronger.

 

My remaining reservations concern the language used to describe the relatively large number of studies with designs that investigate the role of bilingualism and/or bi-culturalism by sampling participants with different backgrounds. In the vast majority of these studies, language and cultural experiences are observed, rather than manipulated, and these study designs entail that causal language cannot be used to describe their findings.

 

 

A few examples follow, but I suggest the authors review the manuscript for others:

 

• P. 7, 326 “we observe that cultural upbringing exerts an important effect on early EF development”
• P. 8, 364 “activating different cultural frames can influence performance on inhibition control tasks.”
• P. 9, 418  “culture as a variable influencing cognition, in particular, EF,”
• P. 9 “ due to” →  associated with
• P. 13, “have an impact on EF” – > are associated with differences in EF

The manuscript would also benefit from a careful reading to ensure that tenses are consistent throughout.

• Thank you for highlighting this, we have reiterated that many of the cultural experiences assumed in the studies we reviewed were not explicitly manipulated. We have also edited each of the examples that the reviewer suggested, and proofread the review carefully.

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Reviewer 2 Report

 

I thank the authors for their responsiveness and find that the revised manuscript makes a significantly stronger argument that culture may play an overlooked role in contributing to apparent monolingual/bilingual differences that have previously been reported. In particular, the clearer definition of “culture” and the thoughtful discussion of how individuals may identify with one or more cultural frameworks has the potential to inspire interesting future studies that tease apart the effects of language knowledge vs. other experiential influences on attention and behavior. It still might be helpful to articulate directly how unexplored cultural factors could explain specific apparent inconsistencies reported in the literature. But overall, this paper now makes a compelling argument for the consideration of culture in future studies that examine EF differences between groups of participants.

Author Response

Mr. Aleksandar Antić
Publishing Manager, MDPI Novi Sad
MDPI Branch Office, Novi Sad
Bulevar Oslobođenja 83, 21000 Novi Sad, Serbia

 

Manuscript ID: languages-1749808
Title: Bilingualism, Culture and Executive Functions – Is there a 
relationship?

Authors: Xie Wenhan, Jeanette Altarriba, Ng Bee Chin

 

 

Dear Mr Antić,

 

Thank you for your correspondence with us and the opportunity to revise our manuscript.

 

We would like to thank the reviewers again for taking the time to reread the manuscript and for their comments on the revised draft. We are heartened that our effort to improve on the manuscript has been well received by the reviewers, and have made the minor revisions according to the suggestions made. We hope that our revision meets the expectations of the reviewers and the Journal.

 

To organize our reply letter, we have included all comments and suggestions from the decision letter; our responses are written in italics. Our revisions to the manuscript are made per the instructions of your email, that is, to use the ‘track changes’ function in our revised Word format manuscript.

 

 

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I thank the authors for their responsiveness and find that the revised manuscript makes a significantly stronger argument that culture may play an overlooked role in contributing to apparent monolingual/bilingual differences that have previously been reported. In particular, the clearer definition of “culture” and the thoughtful discussion of how individuals may identify with one or more cultural frameworks has the potential to inspire interesting future studies that tease apart the effects of language knowledge vs. other experiential influences on attention and behavior. It still might be helpful to articulate directly how unexplored cultural factors could explain specific apparent inconsistencies reported in the literature. But overall, this paper now makes a compelling argument for the consideration of culture in future studies that examine EF differences between groups of participants.

 

 

• Thank you for your encouraging comments, we have reiterated the suggestion to directly address how cultural factors could explain apparent inconsistencies (e.g. p.7, lines 398-404; p. 8, lines 459-463).

 

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We would like to thank the reviewers and the Languages editorial team again for taking time our of their busy schedules to help us improve on our paper. We are very grateful for the input and the highlighting our ‘blind spots’ that has allowed us to put forth a more rigorous and convincing paper. Should you have any additional comments or suggestions, please do not hesitate to contact us.

 

Sincerely,

 

Xie Wenhan

Ng Bee Chin

Jeanette Altarriba