Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dsjbd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T18:23:48.169Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Does language switching behavior rely on general executive functions?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 November 2020

Jussi Jylkkä Open the ORCID record for Jussi Jylkkä [Opens in a new window] ,
Matti Laine  and
Minna Lehtonen
Jussi Jylkkä*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Åbo Akademi University, Finland Department of Psychology and Speech-Language Pathology, University of Turku, Finland
Matti Laine
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Åbo Akademi University, Finland
Minna Lehtonen
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology and Speech-Language Pathology, University of Turku, Finland Center for Multilingualism in Society across the Lifespan, Department of Linguistics and Scandinavian Studies, University of Oslo, Norway
*
Address for correspondence: Jussi Jylkkä, E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The assumption that everyday language switching trains bilinguals’ executive functions (EF) presupposes that language switching engages domain-general EF. This study examined associations between three types of tasks in a group of Finnish-English late bilinguals: everyday language switching frequency assessed with Ecological Momentary Assessment, language switching performance on a cued bilingual naming task, and EF as measured with Simon, Flanker, and Number-letter tasks. Cued switching performance showed mainly positive associations with EF performance, but the associations between everyday language switching and cued switching performance, and between everyday switching and the EF tasks were largely against our hypotheses. The findings indicate that participants with lower monitoring capacity make more everyday language switches. This speaks against the idea that everyday language switching would facilitate executive functioning. The results suggest that associations between language switching and general EF are more complex than current models assume.

Keywords

language switchingcued namingEcological Momentary Assessmentexecutive functionstask-specificitytask-generalityskill-learning
Type
Research Article
Information
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition , Volume 24 , Issue 3 , May 2021 , pp. 583 - 595
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Baars, BJ (1988) A cognitive theory of consciousness, Cambridge: Cambridge UP.Google Scholar
Bialystok, E (2009) Bilingualism: The good, the bad, and the indifferent. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 12(1), 3–11. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1366728908003477CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Botvinick, MM, Braver, TS, Barch, DM, Carter, CS and Cohen, JD (2001) Conflict monitoring and cognitive control. Psychological Review 108(3), 624–652. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11488380 10.1037/0033-295X.108.3.624CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Calabria, M, Branzi, FM, Marne, P, Hernández, M and Costa, A (2015) Age-related effects over bilingual language control and executive control. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 18(1), 65–78. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1366728913000138CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Calabria, M, Hernández, M, Branzi, FM and Costa, A (2012) Qualitative differences between bilingual language control and executive control: Evidence from task-switching. Frontiers in Psychology 3(JAN), 399. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00399Google Scholar
Chein, JM and Schneider, W (2012) The Brain's Learning and Control Architecture. Current Directions in Psychological Science 21(2), 78–84. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721411434977CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Declerck, M, Grainger, J, Koch, I and Philipp, AM (2017) Is language control just a form of executive control? Evidence for overlapping processes in language switching and task switching. Journal of Memory and Language 95, 138–145. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jml.2017.03.005CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dehaene, S and Changeux, JP (2011) Experimental and theoretical approaches to conscious processing. Neuron 70(2), 200–227. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2011.03.018CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dick, AS, Garcia, NL, Pruden, SM, Thompson, WK, Hawes, SW, Sutherland, MT, Riedel, MC, Laird, AR and Gonzalez, R (2019) No evidence for a bilingual executive function advantage in the nationally representative ABCD study. Nature Human Behaviour 3(7), 692. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-019-0609-3CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Eriksen, BA and Eriksen, CW (1974) Effects of noise letters upon the identification of a target letter in a nonsearch task. Perception & Psychophysics 16(1), 143–149. https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03203267CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gathercole, SE, Dunning, DL, Holmes, J and Norris, D (2019) Working memory training involves learning new skills. Journal of Memory and Language 105, 19–42. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.JML.2018.10.003CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Green, DW (1998) Mental control of the bilingual lexico-semantic system. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 1(2), 67–81. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1366728998000133CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Green, DW and Abutalebi, J (2013) Language control in bilinguals: The adaptive control hypothesis. Journal of Cognitive Psychology 25(5), 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1080/20445911.2013.796377CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hartanto, A and Yang, H (2016) Disparate bilingual experiences modulate task-switching advantages: A diffusion-model analysis of the effects of interactional context on switch costs. Cognition 150, 10–19. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2016.01.016CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Johnson, HA, Sawi, O and Paap, KR (2015) Language switching frequency in bilinguals is inconsistently linked to executive functioning, In Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Neuroscience Society.Google Scholar
Jylkkä, J (2017) Bilingual Language Switching and Executive Functions, Åbo Akademi. Retrieved from http://www.doria.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/147587/jylkka_jussi.pdf?sequence=2Google Scholar
Jylkkä, J, Soveri, A, Wahlström, J, Lehtonen, M, Rodríguez-Fornells, A and Laine, M (2017) Relationship between language switching experience and executive functions in bilinguals: an Internet-based study. Journal of Cognitive Psychology 29(4), 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1080/20445911.2017.1282489CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jylkkä, J, Lehtonen, M, Kuusakoski, A, Lindholm, F, Hut, SCA and Laine, M (2018a) The role of general executive functions in receptive language switching and monitoring. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 21(4), 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1366728917000384Google Scholar
Jylkkä, J, Lehtonen, M, Lindholm, F, Kuusakoski, A and Laine, M (2018b) The relationship between general executive functions and bilingual switching and monitoring in language production. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 21(3). https://doi.org/10.1017/S1366728917000104Google Scholar
Jylkkä, J, Soveri, A, Laine, M and Lehtonen, M (2019) Assessing bilingual language switching behavior with ecological momentary assessment. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 23 (2). https://doi.org/10.1017/S1366728918001190Google Scholar
Koch, I, Prinz, W and Allport, A (2005) Involuntary retrieval in alphabet-arithmetic tasks: Task-mixing and task-switching costs. Psychological Research 69(4), 252–261. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-004-0180-yCrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lehtonen, M., Soveri, A., Laine, A., Järvenpää, J., de Bruin, A., & Antfolk, J. (2018) Is bilingualism associated with enhanced executive functioning in adults? A meta-analytic review. Psychological Bulletin 144(4), 394–425. https://doi.org/10.1037/bul0000142CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Linck, JA, Schwieter, JW and Sunderman, G (2012) Inhibitory control predicts language switching performance in trilingual speech production. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 15(03), 651–662. https://doi.org/doi:10.1017/S136672891100054XCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meuter, RFI and Allport, A (1999) Bilingual language switching in naming: Asymmetrical costs of language selection. Journal of Memory and Language 40(1), 25–40.10.1006/jmla.1998.2602CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miyake, A, Friedman, NP, Emerson, MJ, Witzki, AH, Howerter, A and Wager, TD (2000) The unity and diversity of executive functions and their contributions to complex Frontal Lobe tasks: a latent variable analysis. Cognitive Psychology 41(1), 49–100. https://doi.org/10.1006/cogp.1999.0734CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Paap, KR (2018) Bilingualism in Cognitive Science. In The Cambridge Handbook of Bilingualism (pp. 435–465). Cambridge: Cambridge UP.10.1017/9781316831922.023CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Paap, KR, Johnson, HA and Sawi, O (2015) Bilingual advantages in executive functioning either do not exist or are restricted to very specific and undetermined circumstances. Cortex 69, 265–278. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2015.04.014CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Paap, KR, Myuz, HA, Anders, RT, Bockelman, MF, Mikulinsky, R and Sawi, OM (2017) No compelling evidence for a bilingual advantage in switching or that frequent language switching reduces switch cost. Journal of Cognitive Psychology 29(2), 89–112. https://doi.org/10.1080/20445911.2016.1248436CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Paap, KR and Sawi, O (2014) Bilingual advantages in executive functioning: Problems in convergent validity, discriminant validity, and the identification of the theoretical constructs. Frontiers in Psychology 5(962), 1–15. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00962CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Prior, A and Gollan, TH (2011) Good language-switchers are good task-switchers: Evidence from Spanish–English and Mandarin–English bilinguals. Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society 17(4), 682–691. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1355617711000580CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Prior, A and MacWhinney, B (2010) A bilingual advantage in task switching. Bilingualism 13(2), 253–262. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1366728909990526CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rodriguez-Fornells, A, De Diego Balaguer, R and Münte, TF (2006) Executive control in bilingual language processing. Language Learning 56(s1), 133–190. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9922.2006.00359.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rodriguez-Fornells, A, Krämer, UM, Lorenzo-Seva, U, Festman, J and Münte, TF (2012) Self-assessment of individual differences in language switching Frontiers in Psychology 3(388), 1–15. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00388Google Scholar
Rogers, RD and Monsell, S (1995) Costs of a predictible switch between simple cognitive tasks. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 124(2), 207–231. https://doi.org/10.1037/0096-3445.124.2.207CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rubin, O and Meiran, N (2005) On the origins of the task mixing cost in the cuing task-switching paradigm, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning. Memory, and Cognition 31(6), 1477–1491. https://doi.org/10.1037/0278-7393.31.6.1477CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Salthouse, TA (2010) Is flanker-based inhibition related to age? Identifying specific influences of individual differences on neurocognitive variables. Brain and Cognition 73(1), 51–61. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bandc.2010.02.003CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Segal, D, Stasenko, A and Gollan, TH (2019) More evidence that a switch is not (always) a switch: Binning bilinguals reveals dissociations between task and language switching. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 148(3), 501–519. https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0000515CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Shilling, VM, Chetwynd, A and Rabbitt, PMA (2002) Individual inconsistency across measures of inhibition: an investigation of the construct validity of inhibition in older adults. Neuropsychologia 40(6), 605–619. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11792402CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Simon, JR and Rudell, AP (1967) Auditory S-R compatibility: The effect of an irrelevant cue on information processing. The Journal of Applied Psychology 51(3), 300–304. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6045637CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Soveri, A, Antfolk, J, Karlsson, L, Salo, B and Laine, M (2017) Working memory training revisited: A multi-level meta-analysis of n-back training studies. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-016-1217-0CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Soveri, A, Rodriguez-Fornells, A and Laine, M (2011) Is there a relationship between language switching and executive functions in bilingualism? Introducing a within-group analysis approach. Frontiers in Psychology 2(183), 1–8. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00183CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stasenko, A, Matt, GE and Gollan, TH (2017) A relative bilingual advantage in switching with preparation: Nuanced explorations of the proposed association between bilingualism and task switching. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 146(11), 1527–1550. https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0000340CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Struys, E., Woumans, E., Nour, S., Kepinska, O. and Van Den Noort, M (2019) A domain-general monitoring account of language switching in recognition tasks: Evidence for adaptive control. Bilingualism 22(3), 606–623. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1366728918000342CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taatgen, NA (2013) The nature and transfer of cognitive skills. Psychological Review 120(3), 439–471. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0033138CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Timmer, K, Calabria, M and Costa, A (2019) Non-linguistic effects of language switching training. Cognition 182, 14–24. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2018.09.001CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Verreyt, N, Woumans, E, Vandelanotte, D, Szmalec, A and Duyck, W (2016) The influence of language-switching experience on the bilingual executive control advantage. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 19(1), 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1366728914000352CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yim, O and Bialystok, E (2012) Degree of conversational code-switching enhances verbal task switching in Cantonese–English bilinguals. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 15(04), 873–883. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1366728912000478CrossRefGoogle Scholar