The influence of contextual faces on bilingual language control

Abstract

How do faces with social-cultural identity affect bilingual language control? We approach this question by looking at the switch cost patterns and reversed language dominance effect, which are suggested to reflect bilingual language control mechanisms, in the absence (i.e., baseline context) or presence of faces with socio-cultural identity (Asian or Caucasian). In separate blocks, the face matched (i.e., congruent context) or mismatched (i.e., incongruent context) the language to be spoken. In addition, cue preparation time was manipulated to be long (Experiment 1) or short (Experiment 2). In both experiments, a unique asymmetric switch cost with larger costs for L2 was observed in the congruent context as compared with the baseline and incongruent contexts. Furthermore, the reversed language dominance effect was not modulated across contexts. These results suggest a critical role of contextual faces in modulating local but not global language control. Thus, bilingual language control changes flexibly within an environment that includes faces with socio-cultural identity.

The Interplay Between Language Form and Concept During Language Switching: A Behavioral Investigation

“…The present results also showed reversed language dominance: faster responses when naming in L2 than in L1 in mixedlanguage blocks. The reversed language dominance has been reported in studies examining unbalanced bilinguals (e.g., Costa and Santesteban, 2004;Christoffels et al, 2007;Gollan and Ferreira, 2009;Verhoef et al, 2009;Peeters et al, 2014;Kleinman and Gollan, 2016;Peeters and Dijkstra, 2018;Wu et al, 2018;Liu et al, 2019;Peeters, 2020). The present study showed a global slowdown of the L1 across semantic conditions in switch trials.…”

Language selection contributes to intrusion errors in speaking: Evidence from picture naming

“…Nevertheless, the prolonged RTs may reflect the difficulty in selection which resulted from additional activation of the competitive language. Our results are coherent with the idea that language context, such as faces associated with a certain social-cultural identity, affects language production (e.g., Blanco-Elorrieta & Pylkkänen, 2017;Hartsuiker, 2015;Li, Yang, Scherf & Li, 2013;Liu, Timmer, Jiao, Yuan & Wang, 2019).…”

Bilingual switching between languages and listeners: Insights from immersive virtual reality

“…Results obtained with the cued language-switching paradigm should be particularly relevant in explaining the mechanisms involved in such naturally occurring situations. Research has shown that bilinguals may benefit from using the language associated with an interlocutor or their apparent cultural identity as a cue to use one language and not another (Blanco-Elorrieta & Pylkkänen, 2015;Hartsuiker, 2015;Li, Yang, Scherf, & Li, 2013;Liu, Timmer, Jiao, Yuan, & Wang, 2019;Martin, Molnar, & Carreiras, 2016;Woumans et al, 2015). At the neurophysiological level, interlocutor identity has indeed been found to be represented in a sustained fashion during the planning stages that precede speech onset (Blanco-Elorrieta & Pylkkänen, 2017).…”

“…Another theoretically interesting finding, revealed by the cued language-switching paradigm, is that unbalanced bilinguals are under certain circumstances capable of naming pictures faster in their weaker L2 than in their stronger, native L1 (e.g., Christoffels, Firk, & Schiller, 2007;Costa & Santesteban, 2004;Costa, Santesteban, & Ivanova, 2006;Gollan & Ferreira, 2009;Kleinman & Gollan, 2016;Liu, Timmer, Jiao, Yuan, & Wang, 2019;Peeters et al, 2014;Peeters & Dijkstra, 2018;Verhoef, Roelofs, & Chwilla, 2009;Verhoef, Roelofs, & Chwilla, 2010). This counter-intuitive reversed language dominance is commonly interpreted as evidence for sustained inhibition of the first language (e.g., Baus, Branzi, & Costa, 2015;Bobb & Wodniecka, 2013;Costa & Santesteban, 2004;Peeters & Dijkstra, 2018).…”