“Hot” executive functions are comparable across monolingual and bilingual elementary school children: Results from a study with the Iowa Gambling Task

Abstract

Past research found performance differences between monolingual and bilingual children in the domain of executive functions (EF). Furthermore, recent studies have reported advantages in processing efficiency or mental effort in bilingual adults and children. These studies mostly focused on the investigation of “cold” EF tasks. Studies including measures of “hot” EF, i.e., tasks operating in an emotionally significant setting, are limited and hence results are inconclusive. In the present study, we extend previous research by investigating performance in a task of the “hot” EF domain by both behavioral data and mental effort via pupillary changes during task performance. Seventy-three monolingual and bilingual school children (mean age = 107.23 months, SD = 10.26) solved the Iowa Gambling Task in two different conditions. In the standard task, characterized by constant gains and occasional losses, children did not learn to improve their decision-making behavior. In a reversed task version, characterized by constant losses and occasional gains, both monolinguals and bilinguals learned to improve their decision-making behavior over the course of the task. In both versions of the task, children switched choices more often after losses than after gains. Bilinguals switched their choices less often than monolinguals in the reversed task, indicating a slightly more mature decision-making strategy. Mental effort did not differ between monolinguals and bilinguals. Conclusions of these findings for the bilingual advantage assumption will be discussed.

Quantifying Executive Functions: Bilingual Education's Cognitive Impact in Special Education

“…Prior research has mostly focused on generally developing children or adults, with less consideration for persons with unique educational needs. A study conducted by Enke et al (2022) analyzed the executive functions of bilingual and monolingual children with and without language impairment. The study revealed that bilingual children with language impairment exhibited superior executive function performance in comparison to monolingual children with similar language deficits.…”

The impact of multiple language exposure on cognition during childhood: evidence from the UK Millennium Cohort Study

“…In contrast, hot EFs often refer to tasks that are assessing decision-making using rewards (e.g., digital points, fictional money). While there are several studies investigating cool EFs in children exposed to or using more than one language (e.g., van den Noort et al, 2019 ), to our knowledge, there is only one instance where hot EF was studied through the context of decision-making which was conducted in monolingual and bilingual children (Enke et al, 2022 ). The period between preschool and late childhood is of particular interest as it precedes adolescence, a phase of differential developmental trajectories for hot and cool EFs (Poon, 2017 ), and changes in problem-solving, risk-taking (Casey et al, 2008 ; Mills et al, 2014 ; Crone et al, 2016 ) and decision-making (Blakemore and Robbins, 2012 ).…”