Measures of Bilingual Cognition – From Infancy to Adolescence

[i] Note: Tasks are ordered by ability (EF, memory, ToM, information processing), then alphabetically. VExCP = Visual Expectation Cueing Paradigm; ECBQ = Early Childhood Behavior Questionnaire; DIMG = Deferred Imitation Memory Generalization task.

^a Visual Perspective-Taking yielded a bilingual advantage on an easy condition, but not a more difficult condition (Liberman et al., 2017).

[i] Note: Tasks are ordered by ability (EF, ToM, IQ, general cognitive ability, creativity), then alphabetically. ANT = Attention Network Task; C=TONI = Comprehensive Test of Nonverbal Intelligence; CEN = Creating Equal Number task; DCCS = Dimensional Change Card Sort task; K-CPT-2 = Conner’s Kiddie Continuous Performance Test – Second Edition; KRISP = Kansas Reflection/Impulsivity Scale; NSND = Non-Symbolic Numerical Discrimination task; TEC = Tasks of Executive Control.

^a In one study that followed a longitudinal design, the DCCS, Unexpected location, Unexpected contents, and Appearance-Reality, Object Identity tasks yielded a bilingual advantage at one time point but not another (Diaz & Farrar, 2018b).^b In one study, bilinguals showed an advantage for only one of two versions of each of the following tasks: Appearance-Reality: Object Identity, Level 2 Perspective-taking, and Unexpected Contents (Goetz, 2003).

[i] Note: Tasks are ordered by ability (EF, IQ), then alphabetically. ANT = Attention Network Task; BST = Bivalent Shape Task; DCCS = Dimensional Change Card Sort task; RCPM = Raven’s Colored Progressive Matrices.

[i] Note: Tasks are ordered by ability (EF, general cognitive ability, stimulus-in-noise perception), then alphabetically. ANT = Attention Network Task; RPM = Raven’s Progressive Matrices.

[i] Note: As many experiments measured abilities from more than one category, the percentages for each ability in each age group always add up to more than 100%.

^a One experiment in the preschool group and one in the school group also tested adolescent participants (Gathercole et al., 2016; Kapa & Colombo, 2013). These experiments are represented in both the preschool/school and adolescent categories in this table, which is why the total number of experiments in the bottom row is fewer for EF and General Cognitive Ability than the sum of those experiments across all age groups. ^b The Theory of Mind category includes perspective-taking tasks. ^c The Intelligence category includes abstract reasoning.

[i] Note: Numbers indicate the Appendix entry for each article. Adolescent experiments are omitted from this table due to the very small number of experiments that tested EF in this population. The two experiments that did measure EF in adolescents measured attention using the ANT (Kapa & Colombo, 2013) and inhibition using the Simon task (Gathercole et al., 2016). ANT = Attention Network Task; CF = Cognitive flexibility; C-TONI = Comprehensive Test of Nonverbal Intelligence; DCCS = Dimensional Change Card Sort Task; ECBQ = Early Childhood Behavior Questionnaire; K-CPT-2 = Conner’s Kiddie Continuous Performance test – Second Edition; KRISP = Kansas Reflection/Impulsivity Scale; NSND = Non-Symbolic Numerical Discrimination task; TEC = Tasks of Executive Control; VExCP = Visual Expectation Cueing Paradigm (also referred to as an ‘anticipatory looking paradigm’); WM = Working memory.

^a Experiments assessed different types of attention, including ‘controlled attention’; ‘selective attention’; ‘attentional flexibility’; and ‘attention allocation’. ^b Experiments assessed different types of inhibition, with some forms of inhibition being referred to using different terms in different articles. The types of inhibition assessed included ‘inhibitory control’ (also ‘interference suppression’); ‘response suppression’ (also ‘response inhibition’); and ‘response control’. ^c Shifting was also referred to as ‘task switching’ or ‘switching’ in some experiments. ^d Working memory was also referred to as ‘updating’ in some experiments.