Exploring the functional locus of language switching: Evidence from a PRP paradigm

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Perfor

Koch

Duñabeitia

et al. 2019

Self Cite

In the current study, we set out to investigate language control, which is the process that minimizes cross-language interference, during bilingual language comprehension. According to current theories of bilingual language comprehension, language-switch costs, which are a marker for reactive language control, should be observed. However, a closer look at the literature shows that this is not always the case. Furthermore, little to no evidence for language-mixing costs, which are a marker for proactive language control, has been observed in the bilingual language comprehension literature. This is in line with current theories of bilingual language comprehension, as they do not explicitly account for proactive language control. In the current study, we further investigated these two markers of language control and found no evidence for comprehension-based language-switch costs in six experiments, even though other types of switch costs were observed with the exact same setup (i.e., task-switch costs, stimulus modality-switch costs, and production-based language-switch costs). Furthermore, only one out of three experiments showed comprehension-based language-mixing costs, providing the first tentative evidence for proactive language control during bilingual language comprehension. The implications of the absence and occurrence of these costs are discussed in terms of processing speed and parallel language activation.

Section: Methodssupporting

confidence: 80%

What absent switch costs and mixing costs during bilingual language comprehension can tell us about language control.

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Perfor

Koch

Duñabeitia

et al. 2019

Self Cite

“…Proactive language control during bilingual language production versus comprehension for proactive language control during bilingual language comprehension, on the other hand, is almost absent. More specifically, no reversed language dominance effect (e.g., Hirsch et al, 2015;Macizo et al, 2012) or blocked language-order effect (Declerck et al, 2019) has been observed in a comprehension study. With respect to language-mixing costs, so far only one experiment has shown this effect in a comprehension study (Exp.…”

Section: Blocked Language Ordermentioning

confidence: 88%

“…Finally, the literature also indicates that the reversed language dominance effect does not occur in bilingual language comprehension studies, during which L1 and L2 written words have to be categorized in a mixed language block (e.g., Hirsch, Declerck, & Koch, 2015;Macizo, Bajo, & Paolieri, 2012;Orfanidou & Sumner, 2005;Thomas & Allport, 2000;Von Studnitz & Green, 1997). Due to the pervasive absence of the reversed language dominance effect during bilingual language comprehension, it might be claimed that no comprehension-based proactive language control is used in mixed language blocks.…”

Section: Markers Of Proactive Language Controlmentioning

confidence: 99%

What about proactive language control?

2019

Psychon Bull Rev

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While several reviews provide an in-depth discussion on reactive language control, which is the language control process that is initiated when the non-target language disrupts the selection of target language words, few have touched on proactive language control, which is the language control process implemented as an anticipation of any non-target language interference disrupting the selection of target language words. In the current review, three prominent markers of proactive language control are discussed (i.e., the reversed language dominance effect, language-mixing costs, and the blocked language-order effect). Based on these three markers, it appears that proactive language control can be implemented to mainly restrict interference from the first language during bilingual language production, but is typically absent during bilingual language comprehension. The literature also implies that proactive language control might be partly domain general. With respect to the underlying mechanism of proactive language control, there are some indications that proactive language control relies on inhibition, but no unequivocal evidence has been provided so far.

“…The PRP effect is calculated in dual-task blocks as T2 performance difference across short and long SOAs (Pashler, 1994). Since in dual-task studies T1 usually differs from T2 (see, e.g., Hirsch, Declerck, & Koch, 2015;Lien, Schweickert, & Proctor, 2003, for exceptions), the monitoring of information to update task sets in line with T2, as well as the disengagement and engagement of task sets in order to switch from T1 to T2, should be required regardless of the SOA. It thus remains unclear which specific component of cognitive control is isolated when comparing T2 performance across SOAs.…”

Section: Dual-taskingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Common Cognitive Control Processes Underlying Performance in Task-Switching and Dual-Task Contexts

Hirsch

Nolden

et al. 2018

ACP

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cognitive control, task switching, dual tasks, PrP effectin the present study, participants performed highly comparable task-switching and dual-task paradigms, and the paradigm-specific performance costs were analysed in the context of the commonly postulated core components of cognitive control (i.e., working memory updating, inhibition, and shifting). in the task-switching paradigm, we found switch costs (i.e., switch trials vs. repetition trials) and mixing costs (i.e., repetition trials in mixed-task blocks vs. single-task trials). in the dual-task paradigm, we observed a psychological refractory period (PrP) effect (i.e., task 2 [t2] performance after short stimulus-onset asynchrony [soA] vs. long soA), dual-task costs (i.e., t2 dual-task performance with a long soA in trials with a task repetition between task 1 [t1] and t2 vs. single-task performance), and switch costs in t2 (i.e., dual-task performance in trials with a switch between t1 and t2 vs. dual-task performance in trials with a repetition between t1 and t2). A within-subjects comparison of the performance costs showed a correlation between mixing costs and dual-task costs, possibly indicating shared underlying cognitive control processes in terms of working memory updating. surprisingly, there was also a correlation between switch costs and the PrP effect, presumably suggesting that cognitive control, as opposed to passive queuing of response selection processes, contributes to the PrP effect. corresponding author: Patricia hirsch, cognitive and experimental Psychology, institute AbstrAct Keywords