Fast Modulation of Executive Function by Language Context in Bilinguals

Wu, Yan Jing; Thierry, Guillaume

doi:10.1523/jneurosci.4760-12.2013

Cited by 108 publications

(195 citation statements)

References 42 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

155

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Few of the recent reports on consequences of bilingualism have identified specific aspects of language use that may be associated with the consequences that have been claimed for cognitive control mechanisms and for the neural circuitry that supports them. The few that have been suggested are focused primarily on lexical processes (e.g., Blumenfeld & Marian, 2011; Wu & Thierry, 2013). The significance of the present results is thus in identifying a specific instance of the tuning of the language comprehension system to a set of naturally occurring features in the output from the language production system, and in suggesting that such tuning may be a critical aspect of enabling fluent performance.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Phonetic variation in bilingual speech: A lens for studying the production–comprehension link

Fricke

Kroll

Dussias

2016

Journal of Memory and Language

101

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We exploit the unique phonetic properties of bilingual speech to ask how processes occurring during planning affect speech articulation, and whether listeners can use the phonetic modulations that occur in anticipation of a codeswitch to help restrict their lexical search to the appropriate language. An analysis of spontaneous bilingual codeswitching in the Bangor Miami Corpus (Deuchar et al., 2014) reveals that in anticipation of switching languages, Spanish-English bilinguals produce slowed speech rate and cross-language phonological influence on consonant voice onset time. A study of speech comprehension using the visual world paradigm demonstrates that bilingual listeners can indeed exploit these low-level phonetic cues to anticipate that a codeswitch is coming and to suppress activation of the non-target language. We discuss the implications of these results for current theories of bilingual language regulation, and situate them in terms of recent proposals relating the coupling of the production and comprehension systems more generally.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Phonetic variation in bilingual speech: A lens for studying the production–comprehension link

Fricke

Kroll

Dussias

2016

Journal of Memory and Language

101

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Competitive control requires a narrowing of attention that is arguably enhanced when participants must use one rather than another language in a dual language context. An ingenious experiment by Wu and Thierry (2013) found that during a dual language context, bilinguals were indeed more effective at resisting non-verbal interference as tested in a non-verbal flanker task (see also (Hommel et al 2011) for evidence of benefits on a convergent thinking task). Cooperative control, by contrast, is predicted to increase the breadth of attention.…”

Section: Language Control Statesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Language Control and Code-switching

Green

2018

Languages

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Analyses of corpus-based indices of conversational code-switching in bilingual speakers predict the occurrence of intra-sentential code-switches consistent with the joint activation of both languages. Yet most utterances contain no code-switches despite good evidence for the joint activation of both languages even in single language utterances. Varying language activation levels is an insufficient mechanism to explain the variety of language use. We need a model of code-switching, consistent with the joint activation of both languages, which permits the range of language use in bilingual speakers. I treat overt speech as the outcome of a number of competitive processes governed by a set of control processes external to the language networks. In a conversation, the speech of the other person may "trigger" code-switches consistent with bottom-up control. By contrast, the intentions of the speaker may act top-down to set the constraints on language use. Given this dual control perspective, the paper extends the control process model (Green and Wei 2014) to cover a plausible neurocomputational basis for the construction and execution of utterance plans in code-switching. Distinct control states mediate different types of language use with switching frequency as a key parameter in determining the control state for code-switches. The paper considers the nature of these states and their transitions.

show abstract

“…Furthermore, the majority of research in this field involves comparisons between monolinguals and bilinguals and studies examining within-bilingual comparisons are scarce (but see Wu & Thierry, 2013). As such, some researchers remain critical of these group comparisons given that extraneous variables may have confounded results (e.g., socioeconomic status, culture) (Morton & Harper, 2007).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effects of bilingual growth on toddlers’ executive function

Crivello

Kuzyk

Rodrigues

et al. 2016

Journal of Experimental Child Psychology

102

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The mastery of two languages provides bilingual speakers with cognitive benefits over monolinguals, particularly on cognitive flexibility and selective attention. However, extant research is limited to comparisons between monolinguals and bilinguals at a single point in time. This study investigated whether growth in bilingual proficiency, as shown by an increased number of translation equivalents (TEs) over a 7-month period, improves executive function. We hypothesized that bilingual toddlers with a larger increase of TEs would have more practice in switching across lexical systems, boosting executive function abilities. Expressive vocabulary and TEs were assessed at 24 and 31 months of age. A battery of tasks, including conflict, delay, and working memory tasks, was administered at 31 months. As expected, we observed a task-specific advantage in inhibitory control in bilinguals. More important, within the bilingual group, larger increases in the number of TEs predicted better performance on conflict tasks but not on delay tasks. This unique longitudinal design confirms the relation between executive function and early bilingualism.

show abstract

Fast Modulation of Executive Function by Language Context in Bilinguals

Cited by 108 publications

References 42 publications

Phonetic variation in bilingual speech: A lens for studying the production–comprehension link

Phonetic variation in bilingual speech: A lens for studying the production–comprehension link

Language Control and Code-switching

The effects of bilingual growth on toddlers’ executive function

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About