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

Abstract

We tested the presence and nature of bilingual advantage in early bilinguals, as compared to a sample of monolinguals with a similar social and cultural background. Participants performed three non-linguistic flanker tasks with increasing demands (simple < no-go < n-back), each designed to tap into specific executive control components. Results showed that Catalan-Spanish bilinguals were more accurate overall, independent of task demands. However, we did not find evidence of better general performance regarding reaction times in bilinguals (BEPA hypothesis) nor a better interference suppression (BICA hypothesis), response inhibition or updating of information regardless of task demands. Besides, the current data revealed that task demands modulated the magnitude of the interference effect in both reaction times and accuracy. Moreover, Spanish monolinguals showed a reduced interference effect in terms of response times in the no-go task. Results are discussed in relation to distinct group response strategies and differential allocation of executive resources.