Bilingualism has complex effects on cognitive abilities, with both advantages and disadvantages seen across different domains. While bilingual individuals have shown enhanced executive function and conflict resolution abilities, they tend to have smaller vocabularies and slower lexical access in each language compared to monolinguals. The effects of bilingualism also depend on the specific tasks involved - bilinguals may show disadvantages on verbal recall tasks but perform equally to or better than monolinguals on nonverbal tasks or tasks requiring greater cognitive control. Overall, bilingualism influences cognitive functions in varied ways that cannot be simply characterized as positive or negative.