The pattern of cognitive consequenc

The pattern of cognitive consequences associated with
bilingual experience across the life span suggests that
bilinguals use language in ways that exercise brain net-works responsible for cognitive control. It is appealing
to think that the discoveries we have described, includ-ing the openness of the language system, the cross-language competition present at all levels of language
processing, and the adaptive nature of each of the bilin-gual’s two languages, create a dynamic system that
modulates the demands on cognitive resources. But
there may not be a single way in which the juggling of
the two languages produces the observed consequences
(e.g., Baum & Titone, in press; Green & Abutalebi, 2013;
Kroll & Bialystok, 2013). As Green and Abutalebi (2013)
have noted, bilinguals who are equally proficient may
differ in the demands placed on control networks
depending on whether they frequently code switch
between their two languages and on the context in
which code switching occurs. Bilinguals often speak to
others who themselves are not bilingual or not bilingual
in the same languages. Being bilingual therefore requires
skill in negotiating the discourse context for both speak-ers and listeners. The research agenda for investigating