Electrophysiological Evidence for Endogenous Control of Attention in Switching between Languages in Overt Picture Naming

Abstract

Abstract■ Language switching in bilingual speakers requires attentional control to select the appropriate language, for example, in picture naming. Previous language-switch studies used the color of pictures to indicate the required language thereby confounding endogenous and exogenous control. To investigate endogenous language control, our language cues preceded picture stimuli by 750 msec. Cue-locked event-related potentials (ERPs) were measured while Dutch-English bilingual speakers overtly named pictures. The response language on consecutive trials could be the same (repeat trials) or different (switch trials). Naming latencies were longer on switch than on repeat trials, independent of the response language. Cue-locked ERPs showed an early posterior negativity for switch compared to repeat trials for L2 but not for L1, and a late anterior negativity for switch compared to repeat trials for both languages. The early switch-repeat effect might reflect disengaging from the nontarget native language, whereas the late switch-repeat effect reflects engaging in the target language. Implications for models of bilingual word production are discussed. ■

Electrophysiology of cross-language interference and facilitation in picture naming

“…Also considering exclusion of error trials, the percentages of trials that were discarded from each condition were as follows: semantic 22.7%, unrelated 23.4%, translation 22.5%, and control 23.1%. These percentages were similar for the different distractor conditions, and they correspond to earlier studies (e.g., Blackford et al, 2012;Hirschfeld et al, 2008;Verhoef et al, 2009Verhoef et al, , 2010.…”

“…In contrast, evidence that bilingual speakers inhibit words in the other language comes from language switching experiments (e.g., De Bruin, Roelofs, Dijkstra, & FitzPatrick, 2014;Jackson, Swainson, Cunnington, & Jackson, 2001;Meuter & Allport, 1999;Verhoef et al, 2009) and studies in which participants used the other language earlier in the experiment to name the pictures (e.g., Guo, Liu, Misra, & Kroll, 2011). It is plausible to assume that when speakers have to switch regularly between languages or have already named the pictures in the other language, competition for selection often can no longer be restricted to the target language or competition occurs at the level of the language task sets (e.g., Verhoef et al, 2009Verhoef et al, , 2010. Furthermore, Costa and Santesteban (2004) and Costa, Santesteban, and Ivanova (2006) argued that whether competition is within or between languages depends on language proficiency.…”

“…The mean amplitudes for the four conditions We performed the quadrant analysis following related studies from our lab and in the literature (e.g., Blackford et al, 2012;Chauncey et al, 2009;Verhoef et al, 2009Verhoef et al, , 2010 to assess the distribution of the effects across the scalp. As outlined earlier (Section 1.3), we expected the N400 effects to be broadly distributed, and the quadrant analysis was performed to verify whether this was indeed the case.…”

A review of control processes and their locus in language switching

“…However, there have also been studies that found faster overall L1 than L2 naming and symmetrical switch costs (e.g., Declerck, Koch, & Philipp, 2012;see also de Bruin et al, 2014). Moreover, faster overall L2 than L1 naming has been observed with both symmetrical switch costs (e.g., Christoffels et al, 2007;Gollan & Ferreira, 2009;Verhoef et al, 2010) and asymmetrical switch costs (e.g., Costa & Santesteban, 2004, Experiment 1;Verhoef et al, 2009), and similar overall L1 and L2 naming with asymmetrical switch costs (e.g., Declerck et al, 2013, Experiment 3;Filippi, Karaminis, & Thomas, 2014) and symmetrical switch costs (Calabria et al, 2011;Fink & Goldrick, 2015).…”

“…Universality of asymmetrical switch costs A first concern is that several studies did not find asymmetrical switch costs (e.g., Christoffels et al, 2007;Verhoef et al, 2010; for reversed asymmetrical switch costs, see Declerck, Stephan, et al, 2015b), an observation that has also been found in task switching (for a review, see Koch, Gade, Schuch, & Philipp, 2010). This is especially marked in comprehension studies, where typically no asymmetrical switch costs are observed (e.g., Macizo et al, 2012;Thomas & Allport, 2000).…”