Contributions of bilingualism and public speaking training to cognitive control differences among young adults

Abstract

The Flanker and Number Stroop tasks, and the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) were adopted to examine how bilingualism and public speaking training would contribute to cognitive control differences among young adults. Four groups of participants (of similar cultural and language backgrounds) were tested: monolinguals, general bilinguals, L1 public speaking bilinguals, and L2 public speaking bilinguals. Both ANOVA and multiple regression analyses showed that public speaking experience (esp. in L2) significantly contributed to conflict monitoring as tested in the global reaction times in the Flanker and Number Stroop tasks, whereas bilingualism (L2 verbal fluency, to be more specific) significantly contributed to mental set shifting as tested in the WCST. These results suggest that specific aspects of language experience, either in L1 or in L2, may incur enhancement in specific aspects of cognitive control, which has implications for bilingual advantage research.

Second language (L2) proficiency, socioeconomic status (SES), and intelligence (IQ) are significant predictors of cognitive control differences among young adult unbalanced Chinese–English bilinguals

“…Prior and MacWhinney (2010), for example, adopted a Color-Shape switch task to compare monolinguals’ and bilinguals’ switching ability and found that bilinguals incurred smaller switching costs than monolinguals. In a more recent study, Xie and Dong (2017) compared Chinese–English bilinguals and Chinese monolinguals on the WCST and found that bilinguals performed better than monolinguals by completing more categories and making fewer errors. However, in the current study we found no differences between groups that differed in L2 proficiency, although a monolingual group was not included.…”

Bilingualism, Demographics, and Cognitive Control: A Within-Group Approach

“…The indicator for conflict monitoring is sometimes the RT difference between trials in a pure block and the congruent trials in a block where congruent and incongruent trials are mixed, sometimes RT on the congruent trials, or RT on both the congruent and incongruent trials Costa et al, 2009;Paap and Greenberg, 2013). In the current study, we use the RTs on each condition as the indicator of conflict monitoring (as in Dong and Xie, 2014;Xie and Dong, 2017). In the current flanker task, there were three conditions: congruent, incongruent, and neutral.…”

“…The flanker task, adapted from previous studies (Luk et al, 2010;Xie and Dong, 2017), was computerized via E-prime 2.0. The task was composed of a practice block with feedback (smiling face for correct, frowning face for incorrect) and a formal experimental block without feedback.…”

“…For example, bilinguals who have more practice of switching languages may be superior in mental set shifting compared to monolinguals or bilinguals who do not have such practice (Prior and Gollan, 2011;Yudes et al, 2011). Bilinguals with higher L2 proficiency or more practice of L2 speaking training may have better ability in conflict monitoring (Xie and Dong, 2017;Xie and Pisano, 2019). Bilinguals may also show better conflict monitoring in high demanding version of the flanker task (Costa et al, 2009).…”

More similitudes than differences between bilinguals and monolinguals on speeded and demand-varying executive tasks

“…As it can be also consulted in Table 1, monolinguals were younger than bilinguals, and, presumably because of this (r Age, Years of Education = .778, p < .0001), the monolingual group reported a lower number of years of University education. However, it has been argued that age should not be considered important at these developmental periods (early twenties) because both groups are at their executive control prime (Xie & Dong, 2017).…”