Bilingual language production: The neurocognition of language representation and control

“…are several models which assume that conflict monitoring is involved in the initiation of production-based language control (Abutalebi et al., 2013; Abutalebi & Green, 2007; Branzi, Della Rosa, Canini, Costa, & Abutalebi, 2015; Green & Abutalebi, 2013; however, see Costa, Miozzo, & Caramazza,…”

“Abutalebi and Green (2008; Green and Abutalebi 2013; 2007) suggest that bilinguals cope with the potential interference by recruiting at least partly domain-general cognitive control regions, such as the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), the inferior…”

“And neuroimaging studies have found that brain areas associated with inhibition become activated during switch tasks (Abutalebi and Green 2007; Guo et al. 2011). Taken together, these studies provide evidence that both of the bilingual’s language are activated during communication tasks, and the non-target language be…”

“Drawing on substantial evidence from psycholinguistic and neuroimaging studies (e.g., Abutalebi & Green, 2007; Knupsky & Amrhein, 2007; Kroll, Bobb, Misra & Guo, 2008), bilingual models of lexical access propose that the spreading activation principle is simultaneously functional across both…”

“Gray matter volume density increases in the IFG, caudate, STG, SMG, putamen, and the pars opercularis as proficiency in both L2 and third languages (L3) increases (Abutalebi & Green, 2007; Abutalebi et al., 2013a, 2013b; García- Pentón et al., 2016; Stein et al., 2012).”

“Research shows that knowing more than one language entails a cognitive advantage at the executive function level (Bialystok et al., 2004; Abutalebi and Green, 2007; Ansaldo et al., 2015; Zhou and Krott, 2016; Dash et al., 2019; DeLuca et al., 2019), which induces neuroplasticity and structural adaptations (Abutalebi a…”

“We conclude that there was no evidence that CA’s cross-language errors were related to the need to inhibit the non-target language and disruption to this ability as a result of an impairment of inhibitory control (Abutalebi & Green, 2007; Green, 1998; Paradis, 2004).”

“…such language-culture dissociation effects must involve interactions between brain structures involved in language-selection networks (e.g., Abutalebi & Green, 2007; Luk et al., 2012), basic emotion generation (e.g., limbic areas, Damasio et al., 2000; Dalgleish, 2004) and regions of the…”

“…(thalamus) in EH02, and the connections between the thalamus to the basal ganglia and the frontal lobe, which make up part of the control network (Abutalebi & Green, 2007) support the possibility of interference control involvement and subsequent improvement, potentially contributing to the…”

“Some differences in the processing of a language by a native speaker compared to a second language speaker can be attributed to differences in the level of proficiency associated with how speakers manage competition between their languages (Abutalebi and Green, 2007).”

“Their evident success as skilled dual-language communicators is attributable to Language Control – cognitive processes that facilitate unhindered use of a desired target language while managing any potential language interference that might arise (Abutalebi & Green, 2007; Green, 1998).”

“…speech in one language while preventing interference from other languages, revolving around questions of accessing the relevant mental lexicon (for reviews, see Costa, 2005; Hartsuiker & Pickering, 2008), and controlling the language systems (e.g., Abutalebi & Green, 2007; Green & Abutalebi, 2013).”

“Cross-language activation makes bilinguals susceptible to cross-language interference when planning speech (Abutalebi & Green, 2007).”

“…& Green, 2016) and with changes in procedural memory circuits underlying learning and use of both first and second language (Ullman, 2020) as posited by the adaptive control hypothesis and the conditional routing model (Abutalebi & Green, 2007; Green & Abutalebi, 2013; Stocco et al., 2010, 2014).”

“Therefore, damage to the BG may disrupt late integrative language processes such as suppression of competing alternatives in bilingual patients (Abutalebi & Green, 2007; Friederici, Kotz, Werheid, Hein, & Von Cramon, 2003).”

“Thus, an adaptive response to the linguistic processing demands facing bilinguals shapes the way in which they leverage cognitive skills during language processing (Abutalebi and Green, 2007).”

“Creole or French) and switch between theses languages involves general executive processing (Bialystok 2017), is regarded as a linguistic ability dependent upon frontal lobe activity (Abutalebi and Green 2007; Hernandez et al. 2001) and is increased with second language proficiency (Zhao et al. in press). The Creole b…”

“, switch trials), as bilinguals need to select the appropriate language for verbal/written communication, as required by the context, by transiently suppressing cross-language interference (Abutalebi and Green 2007; Bialystok et al. 2005; Calvo and Bialystok 2014; Declerck et al. 2017; Kovács and Mehler 2009; Prior an…”

“Considerable research demonstrates neural overlap across language and executive control in bilinguals, for example, in the dorsolateral prefrontal and anterior cingulate regions.(26) These regions have also been shown to be connected more efficiently in aging bilinguals or those with AD.”

“Importantly, all these auditory-related and frontal brain regions have previously been shown to contribute to the representation and control of speech and language in association with cognitive functions (Abutalebi and Green, 2007; Hagoort, 2014; Scott and Johnsrude, 2003; Specht, 2014).”

“Various studies therefore propose that a breakdown in the domain-general control system, particularly in inhibition abilities, may be responsible for involuntary code-switching (Abutalebi & Green, 2007; Green & Abutalebi, 2008; Kohnert, 2004).”

“These networks comprise regions such as the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), and basal ganglia, which mediate processes such as selection, inhibition, and set shifting [6,8,60,61,121,122].”

“Therefore, lexical and semantic activation of one language can lead to activation of another language as a result to naming improvement in the untreated language (cross-linguistic transfer) (Abutalebi et al., 2009; Abutalebi & Green, 2007; Kroll & De Groot, 2009; Paradis, 1997).”

“A bilingual cognitive control advantage, especially in executive functions such as inhibition and switching, has been put forward (see, e.g., Kroll, Dussias, Bogulski, & Kroff, 2012; Bialystok, Craik, Green, & Gollan, 2009; Abutalebi & Green, 2007, for reviews).”

“These same areas are also found to be active in bilinguals during language control tasks (Abutalebi & Green, 2007; Luk, Green, Abutalebi, & Grady, 2012).”

“Besides, bilingual speakers are more susceptible to tip of the tongue states, (Gollan and Acenas 2004) which consist of “a temporary inaccessibility of information that one is sure exists in long-term memory and is on the verge of recovering” (Abutalebi and Green 2007, p. 250).”

“, attentional, monitoring, and inhibitory control) have been reported (Abutalebi 2008; Abutalebi and Green 2007; Bialystok and Martin 2004; Bialystok et al. 2005b; Borella et al. 2008; Costa et al. 2006a; Hasher et al. 2006; Schwartz and Kroll 2006).”

“…individuals controlling two or more languages has attracted wide interest in neurocognitive research focusing on multilingual processing, language control and code-switching (i.e., Abutalebi & Green, 2007; Fabbro, 2001; Mechelli et al., 2004; Perani et al., 1998; Rodriguez-Fornells et al., 2009).”

“In experimental contexts, forced language selection is typically examined with paradigms involving artificial language cues (e.g., colours or shapes) that are arbitrarily associated with languages (Abutalebi & Green, 2007, 2008, 2016; Green & Abutalebi, 2013).”

“These findings are consistent with theoretical models that posit a single and highly overlapping brain network in which multiple languages are processed 94–99 .”

“…both language monitoring and switching engage key brain regions of cognitive control such as the anterior cingulate cortex, the inferior frontal gyrus, the basal ganglia, and parietal areas (Abutalebi & Green, 2007; Garbin et al., 2010; Rodriguez-Fornells et al., 2006; van Heuven et al., 2008).”

“This systematic effect of the left posterior MFG across different functional brain mapping modalities (fMRI and ESM) provides evidence that MFG might be a key mediator for cognitive control in bilinguals, supporting the notion that LS is a very demanding task that shares features with other kinds of cognitive control…”

“C IH R A uthor M anuscript C IH R A uthor M anuscript C IH R A uthor M anuscript However, another model of bilingual control identifies the anterior cingulate cortex as being important in conflict monitoring and error detection (Abutalebi, 2008; Abutalebi and Green, 2007).”

“(2018) supports a functional overlap in bilinguals’ left IFG in verbal and non-verbal switching tasks. Arredondo’s group (2017) also found greater left frontal lobe activation during a non-verbal attention task among bilingual children compared with monolinguals.”

“Proposals similar to ours have been made previously (Costa and Santesteban, 2004; Abutalebi and Green, 2007; Abutalebi, 2008).”

“The aim of this analysis was to empirically test the claims of Abutalebi and Green’s (2008) domain-general bilingual language control network.”

“In addition, literature showed that cerebellum was also engaged in cognitive control [15].”

“Processes develop from controlled to more automatic with training (Abutalebi & Green, 2007; Segalowitz, 2010: 142–3), but, for example in the case of L2, their distribution is still quite different even at a very advanced stage (e.g., in word naming, see Plat et al., 2018).”

“On average, bilinguals are similarly left - hemisphere dominant for all languages ( 4 – 6 ) but patterns of language lateralization are more extensive and more variable than those observed in monolinguals ( 5 , 7 , 8 ).”

“…cognitive control, particularly in the bilingualism field where researchers investigate control processes involved in managing multiple languages (Abutalebi & Green, 2007; Bialystok, 2024; Bialystok & Craik, 2022; Luk et al., 2012) or in studies with monolinguals investigating linguistic stimuli…”

“In this regard, some brain differences that have been linked to the bilingual advantage are sometimes accompanied by disadvantages or null differences in behaviour or could be interpreted as a bilingual disadvantage (see Abutalebi & Green, 2007; Bialystok et al., 2012; García-Pentón et al., 2014).”

“…focusing on semantic processing have brought forward evidence that supports the convergence hypothesis (Consonni et al., 2013; and for reviews, Frontiers in Psychology | www.frontiersin.org 9 August 2017 | Volume 8 | Article 1438 see Indefrey, 2006; Abutalebi and Green, 2007; Abutalebi, 2008).”

“Linguistic-cognitive control frameworks suggest that, with higher proficiency and more frequent use, a given language is likely processed more quickly, and that the need for controlled processing decreases (Abutalebi and Green 2007).”

“It is referred to as the most crucial cognitive achievement in early childhood (Abutalebi & Green, 2007; Bialystok et al., 2009; Del Maschio et al., 2018).”

“More specifically, a total of 336 pseudo-randomized trials were distributed into four conditions: (1) non-switch trials in Spanish (118 trials), (2) non-switch trials in Basque (118 trials), (3) switch trials in Spanish (50 trials), (4) switch trials in Basque (50 trials).”