Is There a Bilingual Advantage in Executive Functions in Healthy Adults? A Systematic Review

Abstract

Research on the benefits of bilingualism for executive functions has produced conflicting findings. This review systematically summarizes the findings of 27 studies from 23 articles on this topic from the last decade, with participants’ ages ranging from 18 to 60. We extracted data on participants’ backgrounds and the results of different task paradigms. We found no significant bilingual advantage in executive functions in healthy adults between 18 and 60 years of age, although the conflicting results make it challenging to draw a decisive conclusion.