The Cognitive Benefits of Being Bilingual

Overview

Journal Cerebrum

Date 2013 Mar 1

PMID 23447799

Citations 26

Authors

Viorica Marian

Anthony Shook

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Today, more of the world's population is bilingual or multilingual than monolingual. In addition to facilitating cross-cultural communication, this trend also positively affects cognitive abilities. Researchers have shown that the bilingual brain can have better attention and task-switching capacities than the monolingual brain, thanks to its developed ability to inhibit one language while using another. In addition, bilingualism has positive effects at both ends of the age spectrum: Bilingual children as young as seven months can better adjust to environmental changes, while bilingual seniors can experience less cognitive decline.

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