Emergence (if at all) of a difference in inhibitory control between bilingual and monolingual infants

Despite 30+ years of research, the debate about the existence of a bilingual advantage in cognitive control continues. One possible explanation for this inconclusion is the appropriateness of tasks used to measure inhibitory control in young participants. This study used the Early Childhood Inhibitory Touchscreen Task (ECITT; Holmboe et al., 2021) to measure response inhibition in infants aged 10 and 16 months(N=208). A significant effect of inhibitory control (better performance on accuracy and reaction time; p<.001 [-.47, -32]) was found, such that performance was better when there was no inhibitory demand. This did not differ depending on the age of the infant (10 or 16 months), language background (monolingual or bilingual) or the interaction of age and language. This suggests that exposure to two languages does not influence inhibitory control in young infants, or at least may not be detectable in behavioural tests in infants under 16 months old. KEY WORDS: Cognitive control, Bilingualism, Response Inhibition, Bilingual advantage, Preverbal infants