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Bilingualism is always cognitively advantageous, but this doesn’t mean what you think it means
For decades now a research question has firmly established itself as a staple of psychological and neuroscientific investigations on language, namely the question of whether and how bilingualism is cognitively beneficial, detrimental or neutral. As more and more studies appear every year, it seems a...
Autores principales: | , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Frontiers Media S.A.
2022
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9426683/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36051209 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.867166 |
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author | Sanches de Oliveira, Guilherme Bullock Oliveira, Maggie |
author_facet | Sanches de Oliveira, Guilherme Bullock Oliveira, Maggie |
author_sort | Sanches de Oliveira, Guilherme |
collection | PubMed |
description | For decades now a research question has firmly established itself as a staple of psychological and neuroscientific investigations on language, namely the question of whether and how bilingualism is cognitively beneficial, detrimental or neutral. As more and more studies appear every year, it seems as though the research question itself is firmly grounded and can be answered if only we use the right experimental manipulations and subject the data to the right analysis methods and interpretive lens. In this paper we propose that, rather than merely improving prior methods in the pursuit of evidence in one direction or another, we would do well to carefully consider whether the research question itself is as firmly grounded as it might appear to be. We identify two bodies of research that suggest the research question to be highly problematic. In particular, drawing from work in sociolinguistics and in embodied cognitive science, we argue that the research question of whether bilingualism is cognitively advantageous or not is based on problematic assumptions about language and cognition. Once these assumptions are addressed head on, a straightforward answer to the question arises, but the question itself comes to seem to be a poor starting point for research. After examining why this is so, we conclude by exploring some implications for future research. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-9426683 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2022 |
publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-94266832022-08-31 Bilingualism is always cognitively advantageous, but this doesn’t mean what you think it means Sanches de Oliveira, Guilherme Bullock Oliveira, Maggie Front Psychol Psychology For decades now a research question has firmly established itself as a staple of psychological and neuroscientific investigations on language, namely the question of whether and how bilingualism is cognitively beneficial, detrimental or neutral. As more and more studies appear every year, it seems as though the research question itself is firmly grounded and can be answered if only we use the right experimental manipulations and subject the data to the right analysis methods and interpretive lens. In this paper we propose that, rather than merely improving prior methods in the pursuit of evidence in one direction or another, we would do well to carefully consider whether the research question itself is as firmly grounded as it might appear to be. We identify two bodies of research that suggest the research question to be highly problematic. In particular, drawing from work in sociolinguistics and in embodied cognitive science, we argue that the research question of whether bilingualism is cognitively advantageous or not is based on problematic assumptions about language and cognition. Once these assumptions are addressed head on, a straightforward answer to the question arises, but the question itself comes to seem to be a poor starting point for research. After examining why this is so, we conclude by exploring some implications for future research. Frontiers Media S.A. 2022-08-16 /pmc/articles/PMC9426683/ /pubmed/36051209 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.867166 Text en Copyright © 2022 Sanches de Oliveira and Bullock Oliveira. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. |
spellingShingle | Psychology Sanches de Oliveira, Guilherme Bullock Oliveira, Maggie Bilingualism is always cognitively advantageous, but this doesn’t mean what you think it means |
title | Bilingualism is always cognitively advantageous, but this doesn’t mean what you think it means |
title_full | Bilingualism is always cognitively advantageous, but this doesn’t mean what you think it means |
title_fullStr | Bilingualism is always cognitively advantageous, but this doesn’t mean what you think it means |
title_full_unstemmed | Bilingualism is always cognitively advantageous, but this doesn’t mean what you think it means |
title_short | Bilingualism is always cognitively advantageous, but this doesn’t mean what you think it means |
title_sort | bilingualism is always cognitively advantageous, but this doesn’t mean what you think it means |
topic | Psychology |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9426683/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36051209 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.867166 |
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