**2. Cognitive consequences of bilingualism**

When a bilingual person uses one language, the other is almost always present at the same time, according to research. When a human hears a phrase, he or she does not hear the whole word at once; rather, the sounds are delivered in sequence. Long before the word is done, the language machine in the brain starts to infer what it is by triggering a large number of words that complement the signal. If you hear the word "may," you are likely to think about words like "candy" and "candle," at least in the early stages of word comprehension. This stimulation is not limited to a single language for bilingual people; auditory feedback triggers matching words regardless of the language they belong to. Dealing with this constant linguistic rivalry will lead to linguistic difficulties. Knowing many languages, for example, will allow speakers to name pictures more slowly7 and increase tip-of-the-tongue states.

As a consequence, the frequent balancing of two languages necessitates the need to limit how much time a person spends in - language. This is a valuable attribute from a communicative standpoint—it can be tough to interpret a message in one language if the other language is constantly interfering.

Similarly, if a bilingual person switches between languages constantly while speaking, the listener can become confused, particularly if the listener only knows one of the speaker's languages. The bilingual brain depends on executive functions, a regulatory mechanism of general cognitive skills that involves mechanisms including concentration and inhibition, to maintain the relative equilibrium between two languages.

Since a bilingual person's two language systems are both alive and competitive, she or he employs these control structures while she or he speaks or listens. Consistent activity enhances regulation systems and alters brain regions associated with them. When it comes to activities that include dispute resolution, bilingual people often outperform their monolingual counterparts. People are asked to name the color of the font of a word in the classic Stroop task. Where the color and the term complement each other. If the color and the word do not align, people are more likely to call the color wrong. To ignore the meaningless term and concentrate on the correct color, the neural system must use additional tools. Inhibitory regulation refers to the capacity to suppress conflicting visual stimuli and concentrate on the specific features of the input. When it comes to activities that need inhibitory regulation, bilinguals often outperform monolinguals. Bilinguals are also faster

#### *The Effect of Bilingualism and Multilingualism on Academic Behavior DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.100366*

than monolinguals at switching between tasks; for example, when converting from categorizing objects by color (red or green) to categorizing them by form (circle or triangle), bilinguals transition more quickly than monolinguals. 13 When adjusting tactics on the move, this reflects greater cognitive function.

According to research, bilingual benefits of executive performance are not limited to the language networks of the brain. 9 Researchers have investigated which brain regions are involved as bilingual people undergo activities that require them to alternate between their two languages using brain imaging techniques such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).

When bilingual people have to transition between naming pictures in Spanish and English, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), a brain area correlated with processing abilities including concentration and avoidance, shows increased activity. Language switching has been discovered to include mechanisms such as the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), bilateral supermarginal gyri, and left inferior frontal gyrus (left-IFG), both of which are involved in cognitive function. The left-IFG, which is also referred to as the brain's language processing node, tends to be active in both linguistic15 and non-linguistic processes. The bilingual benefit has neural origins in subcortical brain regions that are typically concerned with sensory perception. Simple speech sounds are heard by monolingual and bilingual teenagers. They exhibit very close brain stem responses to sensory input when there is no external noise. When the same sound is played to both classes in the presence of external noise, the bilingual listeners' neuronal response is even greater, indicating improved decoding of the sound's fundamental pitch.

A sound quality that is closely linked to pitch perception To put it another way, when bilingual people hear a sound, blood pressure (a measure of neuronal activity) increases in the brain stem. Surprisingly, this increase in sound encoding seems to be linked to improved auditory attention.

The cognitive regulation taken to manipulate multiple languages tends to have a wide range of effects on neurological performance, fine-tuning both cognitive and sensory functions.
