ISSN: 2226-6348
Open access
The research examines the threshold hypothesis in Saudi Arabia, concentrating on the impact of bilingualism on executive function. This study looks at the differences in metalinguistic awareness, inhibitory control, attentional control, and working memory between male high school students who are balanced, dominant, or semi-broad bilingual. This study enhances the neglected field of bilingualism in Arabic-speaking areas, focusing specifically on cognitive function and multilingual proficiency. A quantitative, causal-comparative analysis was performed with male secondary school students in Saudi Arabia, classified as balanced, dominating, and semi-broad bilinguals. Participants undertook language competency evaluations utilizing the TOEFL for English and the GCSE for Arabic. We employed four cognitive tasks—grammatical judgment, Stroop test, semantic and phonemic fluency, and backward digit recall—to assess executive processes. The research employed statistical analyses to determine substantial disparities in cognitive function across the three bilingual cohorts. The results corroborate the threshold hypothesis, as balanced and dominant bilinguals surpassed semi-bilinguals in executive function tests. The absence of substantial differences between balanced and dominating bilinguals suggests that attaining a specific skill level in two languages may improve cognitive capabilities. These findings underscore the need for cultivating robust bilingual abilities to enhance cognitive performance and reinforce the threshold hypothesis in non-Western settings.
Al Saud, A. F. (2016). The impact of bilingualism on the creative capabilities of kindergarten children in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. International Education Studies, 9(10), 263-275.
Aldosari, A., & Alsultan, M. (2017). The influence of early bilingual education (English) on the first language (Arabic) literacy skills in the second grade of elementary school: Saudi Arabia. Journal of Education and Practice, 8(5), 135-142.
Alhuqbani, M. N. (2016). Cognitive development of Arabic-English bilingual children: A cross-validation study of Bialystok’s theory of analysis and control. Semantic Scholar. https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:49232479
AlKhrisheh, H., & Bot, K. (2019). The effect of maturity and gender on verbal fluency in Jordanian university students. Alkalmazott Nyelvtudomány, 19(1).
Alshahrani, A. (2017). Effect of bilingualism on the development of cognitive processes among children. Arab World English Journal (AWEJ), 8(4).
Andreou, M. (2015). The effects of bilingualism on verbal and nonverbal cognition: The micro-and macro-structure of narratives in the weak and the dominant language of the bilingual child (Doctoral dissertation). Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTH).
Antoniou, M. (2019). The advantages of bilingualism debate. Annual Review of Linguistics, 5, 395-415.
Arizmendi, G. D., Alt, M., Gray, S., Hogan, T. P., Green, S., & Cowan, N. (2018). Do bilingual children have an executive function advantage? Results from inhibition, shifting, and updating tasks. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 49(3), 356-378.
Aziez, F., Alkhrisheh, H., Aziez, F., & Mualim, M. (2020). Measuring verbal fluency task performance of Indonesian bilinguals. Indonesian Research Journal in Education, 4(2), 306-323.
Baddeley, A. (1998). Random generation and the executive control of working memory. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology: Section A, 51(4), 819-852.
Baker, C. (2011). Foundations of bilingual education and bilingualism. Multilingual Matters.
Barac, R., Moreno, S., & Bialystok, E. (2016). Behavioral and electrophysiological differences in executive control between monolingual and bilingual children. Child Development, 87(4), 1277-1290.
Bennett, J., & Verney, S. P. (2019). Linguistic factors associated with phonemic fluency performance in a sample of bilingual Hispanic undergraduate students. Applied Neuropsychology: Adult, 26(4), 297-310.
Bialystok, E. (2010). Bilingualism. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Cognitive Science, 1(4), 559-572.
Bialystok, E., & Craik, F. I. M. (2010). Cognitive and linguistic processing in the bilingual mind. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 19(1), 19-23.
Bialystok, E., & Craik, F. I. M. (2022). How does bilingualism modify cognitive function? Attention to the mechanism. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 29(4), 1246-1269.
Bialystok, E., & Feng, X. (2009). Language proficiency and executive control in proactive interference: Evidence from monolingual and bilingual children and adults. Brain and Language, 109(2-3), 93-100.
Bialystok, E., Craik, F. I. M., & Luk, G. (2008). Lexical access in bilinguals: Effects of vocabulary size and executive control. Journal of Neurolinguistics, 21(6), 522-538.
Bialystok, E., Craik, F. I. M., Klein, R., & Viswanathan, M. (2004). Bilingualism, aging, and cognitive control: Evidence from the Simon task. Psychology and Aging, 19(2), 290-303.
Bialystok, E., Luk, G., Peets, K. F., & Sujin, Y. (2010). Receptive vocabulary differences in monolingual and bilingual children. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 13(4), 525-531.
Bialystok, E., Poarch, G., Luo, L., & Craik, F. I. M. (2014). Effects of bilingualism and aging on executive function and working memory. Psychology and Aging, 29(3), 696-705.
Blumenfeld, H. K., & Marian, V. (2011). Bilingualism influences inhibitory control in auditory comprehension. Cognition, 118(2), 245-257.
Blumenfeld, H. K., Bobb, S. C., & Marian, V. (2016). The role of language proficiency, cognate status and word frequency in the assessment of Spanish–English bilinguals’ verbal fluency. International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 18(2), 190-201.
Bonifacci, P., Giombini, L., Bellocchi, S., & Contento, S. (2011). Speed of processing, anticipation, inhibition, and working memory in bilinguals. Developmental Science, 14(2), 256-269.
Brito, N. H., Greaves, A., Leon-Santos, A., Fifer, W. P., & Noble, K. G. (2021). Associations between bilingualism and memory generalization during infancy: Does socioeconomic status matter? Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 24(2), 231-240.
Calvo, A., & Bialystok, E. (2014). Independent effects of bilingualism and socioeconomic status on language ability and executive functioning. Cognition, 130(3), 278-288.
Charles, C. M. (1998). Introduction to educational research. Addison Wesley Longman, Inc.
Conboy, B. T., & Mills, D. L. (2006). Two languages, one developing brain: Event?related potentials to words in bilingual toddlers. Developmental Science, 9(1), F1-F12.
Cummins, J. (1979). Cognitive/academic language proficiency, linguistic interdependence, the optimum age question and some other matters. Working Papers on Bilingualism, No. 19. The Ontario Institute.
Cummins, J. (1983). Bilingualism and special education: Program and pedagogical issues. Learning Disability Quarterly, 6(4), 373-386.
Cummins, J. (2009). Bilingual and immersion programs. In M. H. Long & C. Doughty (Eds.), The handbook of language teaching (pp. 159-181). Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
Daneman, M., & Carpenter, P. A. (1980). Individual differences in working memory and reading. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 19(4), 450-466.
Grossmann, J. A., Koelsch, V. M., Degirmenci, M. G., Aschenbrenner, S., Teichmann, B., & Meyer, P. (2022). The role of bilingualism in executive functions in healthy older adults: A systematic review. International Journal of Bilingualism, 26(4), 426-449.
Diaz, R. M. (1983). Chapter 2: Thought and two languages: The impact of bilingualism on cognitive development. In Review of Research in Education, 10(1), 23-54.
Diaz, R. M. (1985). Bilingual cognitive development: Addressing three gaps in current research. Child Development, 56(6), 1376-1388.
Duñabeitia, J. A., Hernández, J. A., Antón, E., Macizo, P., Estévez, A., Fuentes, L. J., & Carreiras, M. (2014). The inhibitory advantage in bilingual children revisited. Experimental Psychology.
Eilers, R. E., Pearson, B. Z., & Cobo-Lewis, A. B. (2006). Social factors in bilingual development: The Miami experience. In Childhood bilingualism: Research on infancy through school age (pp. 68-90).
Elbedour, S., Sawan, M. A., Bawalsah, J. A., Mariam, A. A., Tarawneh, H., & Reed, G. (2019). The relationship between bilingualism and cognitive development among Saudi Arabian school-aged children. International Journal of Child Health & Human Development, 12(2).
Emmorey, K., Luk, G., Pyers, J. E., & Bialystok, E. (2008). The source of enhanced cognitive control in bilinguals: Evidence from bimodal bilinguals. Psychological Science, 19 (12), 1201-1206.
Abreu, P. M. (2011). Working memory in multilingual children: Is there a bilingual effect? Memory, 19(5), 529-537.
Abreu, P. M. J., Cruz-Santos, A., Tourinho, C. J., Martin, R., & Bialystok, E. (2012). Bilingualism enriches the poor: Enhanced cognitive control in low-income minority children. Psychological Science, 23(11), 1364-1371.
Escobar, G. P., Kalashnikova, M., & Escudero, P. (2018). Vocabulary matters! The relationship between verbal fluency and measures of inhibitory control in monolingual and bilingual children. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 170, 177-189.
Feder, L., & Abu-Rabia, S. (2022). Cognitive retroactive transfer of language skills from English as a foreign language to Hebrew as the first language. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 55(3), 213-228.
Ferjan Ramirez, N., & Kuhl, P. (2017). Bilingual baby: Foreign language intervention in Madrid's infant education centers. Mind, Brain, and Education, 11(3), 133-143.
Friesen, D. C., Chung-Fat-Yim, A., & Bialystok, E. (2016). Lexical selection differences between monolingual and bilingual listeners. Brain and Language, 152, 1-13.
Ghafouri, S., & Rezai, M. J. (2023). Exploring the effect of late, unbalanced bilingualism on cognitive control. Journal of Neurodevelopmental Cognition, 3(1), 29-35.
Ghonsooly, B., & Showqi, S. (2012). The effects of foreign language learning on creativity. English Language Teaching, 5(4), 161-167.
Giovannoli, J., Martella, D., & Casagrande, M. (2023). Executive functioning during verbal fluency tasks in bilinguals: A systematic review. International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders, 58(4), 1316-1334.
Goldin-Meadow, S. (2014). Widening the lens: What the manual modality reveals about language, learning, and cognition. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 369(1651), 20130295.
Gollan, T. H., Fennema-Notestine, C., Montoya, R. I., & Jernigan, T. L. (2007). The bilingual effect on Boston Naming Test performance. Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society, 13(2), 197-208.
Gollan, T. H., Montoya, R. I., & Werner, G. A. (2002). Semantic and letter fluency in Spanish-English bilinguals. Neuropsychology, 16(4), 562-576.
Goriot, C., Van Hout, R., Broersma, M., Lobo, V., McQueen, J. M., & Unsworth, S. (2021). Using the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test in L2 children and adolescents: Effects of L1. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 24(4), 546-568.
Estes, K., & Hay, J. F. (2015). Flexibility in bilingual infants' word learning. Child Development, 86(5), 1371-1385.
Green, D. W. (1998). Mental control of the bilingual lexico-semantic system. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 1(2), 67-81.
Grote, K. S., Scott, R. M., & Gilger, J. W. (2021). Bilingual advantages in executive functioning: Evidence from a low-income sample. First Language, 41(6), 677-700.
Hamers, J. F., & Blanc, M. (2000). Bilinguality and bilingualism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hao, Y., Luo, Y., Lin-Hong, K. H., & Yan, M. (2023). Shared translation in second language activates unrelated words in first language. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 1, 1-11.
Heidlmayr, K., Moutier, S., Hemforth, B., Courtin, C., Tanzmeister, R., & Isel, F. (2014). Successive bilingualism and executive functions: The effect of second language use on inhibitory control in a behavioral Stroop Colour Word task. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 17(3), 630-645.
Hernández, M., Martin, C. D., Barceló, F., & Costa, A. (2013). Where is the bilingual advantage in task-switching? Journal of Memory and Language, 69(3), 257-276.
Hoff, E., Core, C., Place, S., Rumiche, R., Señor, M., & Parra, M. (2012). Dual language exposure and early bilingual development. Journal of Child Language, 39(1), 1-27.
Hoffman, M. F. (2001). Salvadoran Spanish/-s/ aspiration and deletion in a bilingual context. University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics, 7(3), 115-127.
Jeon, M., Galarza Centeno, E., Morales Morejón, S., & Alvarez Peña, M. (2020). Bilingualism and cognitive development in second language speakers. Journal of Science and Research: Revista Ciencia e Investigación, 5(3), 126-133.
Just, M. A., & Carpenter, P. A. (1992). A capacity theory of comprehension: Individual differences in working memory. Psychological Review, 99(1), 122.
Kane, M. J., Bleckley, M. K., Conway, A. R. A., & Engle, R. W. (2001). A controlled-attention view of working-memory capacity. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 130(2), 169-183.
Kharkhurin, A. V. (2011). The role of selective attention in bilingual creativity. Creativity Research Journal, 23(3), 239-254.
Kormi-Nouri, R., Jalali-Moghadam, N., & Moradi, A. (2015). The dissociative effects in lexical and non-lexical reading tasks for bilingual children. British Journal of Education, Society & Behavioural Science, 8(1), 47-62.
Kousaie, S., & Phillips, N. A. (2012). Ageing and bilingualism: Absence of a “bilingual advantage” in Stroop interference in a nonimmigrant sample. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 65(2), 356-369.
Kovács, Á. M., & Mehler, J. (2009). Cognitive gains in 7-month-old bilingual infants. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106(16), 6556-6560.
Kovyazina, M. S., Oschepkova, E. S., Airapetyan, Z. V., Ivanova, M. K., Dedyukina, M. I., & Gavrilova, M. N. (2021). Executive functions’ impact on vocabulary and verbal fluency among mono-and bilingual preschool-aged children. Psychology in Russia, 14(4), 65-77.
Kudo, M., & Swanson, H. L. (2014). Are there advantages for additive bilinguals in working memory tasks? Learning and Individual Differences, 35, 96-102.
Kuhl, P., & Rivera-Gaxiola, M. (2008). Neural substrates of language acquisition. Annual Review of Neuroscience, 31, 511-534.
Kuo, L.-J., Ku, Y.-M., Chen, Z., & Gezer, M. Ü. (2020). The relationship between input and literacy and metalinguistic development: A study with Chinese–English bilinguals. International Journal of Bilingualism, 24(1), 26-45.
Ladas, A. I., Carroll, D. J., & Vivas, A. B. (2015). Attentional processes in low-socioeconomic status bilingual children: Are they modulated by the amount of bilingual experience? Child Development, 86(2), 557-578.
Langley, A. K., García Cardona, P. B., & Alonso Díaz, S. (2022). The bilingual dilemma: Inhibiting interference & its effect on the bilingual advantage. Revista Signos. Estudios de Lingüística, 55(109).
Lasagabaster, D. (2001). Bilingualism, immersion programmes, and language learning in the Basque Country. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 22(5), 401-425.
Lehtonen, M., Soveri, A., Laine, A., Järvenpää, J., De Bruin, A., & Antfolk, J. (2018). Is bilingualism associated with enhanced executive functioning in adults? A meta-analytic review. Psychological Bulletin, 144(4), 394-425.
Lin, H.-J. (2009). Bilingualism, feedback, cognitive capacity, and learning strategies in L3 development (Doctoral dissertation). Georgetown University.
MacSwan, J. (2000). The architecture of the bilingual language faculty: Evidence from intrasentential code switching. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 3(1), 37-54.
Mehrani, M. B., & Zabihi, R. (2017). A comparative study of shifting ability, inhibitory control, and working memory in monolingual and bilingual children. Psychological Studies, 62, 421-427.
Meltzoff, A. N. (2008). Bilingual experience and executive functioning in young children. Developmental Science, 11(2), 282-298.
Nadzir, A. A. M., & Abdul Halim, H. (2022). The implementation of Jim Cummins’ theory of second language acquisition in ESL classrooms. Journal of Educational Research, 40, 1-13.
Nguyen, M. V. H., Xu, Y., Vaughn, K. A., & Hernandez, A. E. (2024). Subcortical and cerebellar volume differences in bilingual and monolingual children: An ABCD study. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 65, 101334.
Ongun, Z. (2018). Bilingualism, vocabulary knowledge, and nonverbal intelligence: Turkish-English bilingual children in the UK (Doctoral dissertation). University of Reading.
Paap, K. (2019). The bilingual advantage debate: Quantity and quality of the evidence. In M. Paradis (Ed.), The handbook of the neuroscience of multilingualism (pp. 701-735). New York: John Wiley & Sons.
Paap, K. R., Johnson, H. A., & Sawi, O. (2015). Bilingual advantages in executive functioning either do not exist or are restricted to very specific and undetermined circumstances. Cortex, 69, 265-278.
Paradis, J. (2007). Early bilingual and multilingual acquisition. In Handbook of Multilingualism and Multilingual Communication (pp. 15-44).
Parra, M., Hoff, E., & Core, C. (2011). Relations among language exposure, phonological memory, and language development in Spanish–English bilingually developing 2-year-olds. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 108(1), 113-125.
Pathak, L. S., & Rijal, S. (2022). A study on bilingual verbal fluency tasks to measure the effect of instruction in first and second language performance. Nepalese Linguistics, 36(1), 53-61.
Patra, A., Bose, A., & Marinis, T. (2020). Performance differences in verbal fluency in bilingual and monolingual speakers. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 23(1), 204-218.
Peal, E., & Lambert, W. E. (1962). The relation of bilingualism to intelligence. Psychological Monographs: General and Applied, 76(27), 1-23.
Prior, A., & MacWhinney, B. (2010). A bilingual advantage in task switching. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 13(2), 253-262.
Prior, A., Goldwasser, N., Ravet-Hirsh, R., & Schwartz, M . (2016). Executive functions in bilingual children. Cognitive Control and Consequences of Multilingualism, 2, 323-471.
Ratiu, I., & Azuma, T. (2015). Working memory capacity: Is there a bilingual advantage? Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 27(1), 1-11.
Rosselli, M., Loewenstein, D. A., Curiel, R. E., Penate, A., Torres, V. L., Lang, M., Greig, M. T., & Duara, R. (2019). Effects of bilingualism on verbal and nonverbal memory measures in mild cognitive impairment. Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society, 25(1), 15-28.
Sabourin, L., & V?nerte, S. (2015). The bilingual advantage in the Stroop task: Simultaneous vs. early bilinguals. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 18(2), 350-355.
Sadat, J., Martin, C. D., Magnuson, J. S., Alario, F.-X., & Costa, A. (2016). Breaking down the bilingual cost in speech production. Cognitive Science, 40(8), 1911-1940.
Salmon, D. P., Heindel, W. C., & Lange, K. L. (1999). Differential decline in word generation from phonemic and semantic categories during the course of Alzheimer's disease: Implications for the integrity of semantic memory. Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society, 5(7), 692-703.
Sampedro, A., & Peña, J. (2019). The effect of bilingualism level on creative performance during the preadolescent period. The Spanish Journal of Psychology, 22, E12.
Sandoval, T. C., Gollan, T. H., Ferreira, V. S., & Salmon, D. P. (2010). What causes the bilingual disadvantage in verbal fluency? The dual-task analogy. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 13(2), 231-252.
Shao, Z., Janse, E., Visser, K., & Meyer, A. S. (2014). What do verbal fluency tasks measure? Predictors of verbal fluency performance in older adults. Frontiers in Psychology, 5, 89695.
Sharaan, S., Fletcher-Watson, S., & MacPherson, S. E. (2021). The impact of bilingualism on the executive functions of autistic children: A study of English–Arabic children. Autism Research, 14(3), 533-544.
Shook, A., & Marian, V. (2013). The bilingual language interaction network for comprehension of speech. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 16(2), 304-324.
Siame, P. (2022). Potholes in the teaching of Zambian languages in secondary schools: A case of Bemba language. EduLine: Journal of Education and Learning Innovation, 2(4), 548-560.
Soliman, A. M. (2014). Bilingual advantages of working memory revisited: A latent variable examination. Learning and Individual Differences, 32, 168-177.
Takakuwa, M. (2000). What's wrong with the concept of cognitive development in studies of bilingualism? Bilingual Review/La Revista Bilingüe, 25(3), 225-237.
Thomas, J. G., Milner, H. R., & Haberlandt, K. F. (2003). Forward and backward recall: Different response time patterns, same retrieval order. Psychological Science, 14(2), 169-174.
Tsushima, W. T., & Hogan, T. P. (1975). Verbal ability and school achievement of bilingual and monolingual children of different ages. The Journal of Educational Research, 68(9), 349-353.
Vega, C., & Fernandez, M. (2011). Errors on the WCST correlate with language proficiency scores in Spanish-English bilingual children. Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology, 26(2), 158-164.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Harvard University Press.
Wei, R., Reynolds, B. L., Kong, M., & Liu, Z. (2022). Is bilingualism linked to national identity? Evidence from a big data survey. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 1(1), 1-15.
Weiss, D. J. (2020). Introduction: The use of artificial languages in bilingualism research. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 23(1), 72-73.
Woumans, E. V. Y., Santens, P., Sieben, A. J. N., Versijpt, J. A. N., Stevens, M., & Duyck, W. (2015). Bilingualism delays clinical manifestation of Alzheimer's disease. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 18(3), 568-574.
Yang, S., & Yang, H. (2016). Bilingual effects on deployment of the attention system in linguistically and culturally homogeneous children and adults. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 146, 121-136.
Maayah, A. K., Moindjie, M. A., & Kasuma, S. A. A. (2024). Threshold Hypothesis and Executive Function: Insights from Saudi International School Bilinguals. International Journal of Academic Research in Progressive Education and Development, 13(4), 1912–1934.
Copyright: © 2024 The Author(s)
Published by HRMARS (www.hrmars.com)
This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this license may be seen at: http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode