ABSTRACT
Bilingual populations provide a rich source of information processing knowledge that has been used to shape our understanding of language learning, understanding, and general communication. However, much of the present literature focusing on bilingual individuals is faced with sample specificities that can limit generalizability. It is well acknowledged that the bilingual experience can be heavily influenced by individual and group differences, including geography, age of acquisition, learning environment, and cultural upbringing. The heterogeneous mix of characteristics that can classify one as a bilingual can result in complex patterns of empirical findings, often leading to conflicting results regarding a “bilingual advantage”. The growing interest in multi-language processing research is accompanied by the need to consider appropriate research approaches. The present chapter examines a variety of commonly cited demographic and learning variables within the literature. Topics include selecting appropriate experimental participants and comparison groups, as well as task and protocol development. A compilation of suggestions for researchers to enhance our understanding of results obtained from bilingual populations is presented, and findings are applicable to a variety of fields, including but not limited to linguistics, cognition, education, and law.
