Switch Costs Occur at Lemma Stage When Bilinguals Name Digits: Evidence from Language-Switching and Event-Related Potentials

Abstract

Switch costs are generally found in language switching tasks. However, the locus where switch costs occur during bilingual language production remains unclear. Several studies that used a cued language-switching paradigm have attempted to investigate this question in bilingual language production, but researchers have not reached a consensus. Moreover, we are interested in where switch costs occur when language selection occurs after lemma activation. Previous studies have not investigated this question because most previous studies presented language cues before or along with the stimuli. Therefore, we used a modified cued language-switching paradigm with a combined event-related potentials (ERPs) technique to explore the locus of switch costs during bilingual language production. The cue and stimulus were separated and presented in two different presentation sequences in which Indonesian–Chinese bilingual speakers were instructed to name digits in their L1 or L2 according to the color of the cue. The ERPs related to the cue and stimulus for two presentation sequences were measured. In the stimulus-cue sequence, the analysis that was time-locked to cues revealed a reversed switch cost as early as 220 ms after the cue onset; furthermore, a switch cost was shown in L1 with a late stage post-cue onset. The results suggested that when language selection occurred after lemma activation, the switch costs mainly occurred at the lemma selection stage. In the cue-stimulus sequence, the analysis that was time-locked to cues did not reveal significant main effects of switching, whereas the analysis that was time-locked to digits yielded a switch cost, again indicating that switch costs mainly occurred at the lemma selection stage rather than at the language task schema competition stage. Overall, our results indicated that when bilinguals spoke digits aloud in the language switching task, switch costs mainly occurred at the lemma selection stage.

Domain-general inhibition ability predicts the intensity of inhibition on non-target language in bilingual word production: An ERP study

“…A typical n-back task requires participants to make a judgment about whether the current stimulus is the same or at the same location as the one in the n-back trial. To complete the task, participants need to update the information in working memory and keep track of the updating information in the latest n trials (Chatham, Herd, Brant, Hazy, Miyake, O'Reilly & Friedman, 2011). In the present study, we used two composite indices from the Signal Detection Theory, the d L (discrimination index) and C L (bias index), to reflect participants' working memory sensitivity and response strategy (Haatveit, Sundet, Hugdahl, Ueland, Melle & Andreassen, 2010;Kane, Conway, Miura & Colflesh, 2007;Meule, 2017).…”

“…Given that the fronto-central N2 has been considered to reflect general cognitive control (for a review, see Folstein & Van Petten, 2008), the N2 switch effect in the language switching task suggests that cognitive control plays a role in bilingual word production. Furthermore, by presenting the cue ahead of the stimulus to separate the language task schema competition phase and the lexical selection phase, Kang, Ma and Guo (2018) found a robust N2 switch effect in stimulus-locked ERPs, indicating that inhibitory control is exercised in the lexical selection phase (see also Chang, Xie, Li, Wang & Liu, 2016; Guo, Ma & Liu, 2013; but see Verhoef et al, 2009, 2010).…”

Effects of Naming Language and Switch Predictability on Switch Costs in Bilingual Language Production

“…These results suggest that there was no effect of naming language or switch predictability on switch costs during the lemma activation phase. We speculate that switch costs did not occur at the lemma activation phase ( Green, 1998 ; Chang et al, 2016 ), since no switch signal had yet appeared after a digit’s onset. This is consistent with the findings of Chang et al (2016) , which did not reveal any differences among the naming conditions for the digit-locked ERP data in the stimulus-cue sequence.…”

“…This finding was similar to the N2 component reported in previous ERP studies on bilingual language production ( Jackson et al, 2001 ; Christoffels et al, 2007 ; Guo et al, 2013 ). And the negative-going ERP that peaked approximately 420 ms after the cue onset may be N400, which reflected the lemma retrieval process ( Moreno et al, 2008 ; Chang et al, 2016 ). According to the IC model, lemma selection happens after task schema competition in bilingual language production.…”

“…This modified language switching paradigm has been used in several previous studies (e.g., Chang et al, 2016 ; Ma et al, 2016 ; Khateb et al, 2017 ). In order to explore the locus of switch costs during bilingual language production, Chang et al (2016) employed the ERPs technique and presented the cue and stimulus in two different presentation sequences (i.e., the stimulus-cue sequence and the cue-stimulus sequence). Particularly, in the stimulus-cue sequence, they found reversed switch costs as early as 220 ms after the cue onset, whereas switch costs in L1 occurred after 350–500 ms post-cue onset, suggesting that switch costs mainly occurred at the lemma selection stage.…”