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Abstract
Recent discussion has called into question whether navigating and controlling multiple languages in daily life influences the development of executive function. Given the dearth in replications of studies that have documented differences in executive function between multilingual and monolingual children, the present study replicates a study on executive function in children (Poarch & Van Hell, 2012a) with a child population from the same educational and socio-economic background. Two executive function tasks (Simon & Flanker) were administered to 163 children aged 5-13 years who were either monolingual second language (L2) learners of English or multilinguals (German-English bilinguals or German-Language X bilingual third language (L3) learners of English). While the Simon task yielded no differences between groups, the Flanker task differed significantly across groups with multilinguals showing enhanced conflict resolution over L2 learners. While the children’s performance on the two tasks yielded diverging results, the outcome is partially in line with the view that enhanced executive function in multilingual children arises from their permanent need to monitor, control, and shift between multiple languages. These findings are discussed against the backdrop of varying inhibitory processes invoked by the specific nature of the two tasks and of developmental trajectories of executive function.
Highlights
There is a growing body of research documenting that children who grow up with and regularly use multiple languages exhibit differential non-verbal executive function compared to children who only grow up and use one language
Mean response times (RT) and mean accuracy rates were calculated for each condition of the two executive function tasks
The results indicate that the groups performed overall and displayed similar effect magnitudes, and as such did not differ in resolving conflict in the Simon task
Summary
There is a growing body of research documenting that children who grow up with and regularly use multiple languages exhibit differential non-verbal executive function compared to children who only grow up and use one language. The present study attempts to address these issues by closely replicating a published study (Poarch and Van Hell, 2012a) with a very similar population from the same environment (extended to a larger age range) and using the same types of experimental measures. Such an approach is warranted in light of the limited reproducibility of research in psychological science (Open Science Collaboration, 2015).
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