The influenced factors of bilinguals' language switching costs

2017 ◽  
Vol 25 (9) ◽  
pp. 1469
Author(s):  
Xin CHANG ◽  
He BAI ◽  
Pei WANG
2011 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 682-691 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anat Prior ◽  
Tamar H. Gollan

AbstractBilingual advantages in executive control tasks are well documented, but it is not yet clear what degree or type of bilingualism leads to these advantages. To investigate this issue, we compared the performance of two bilingual groups and monolingual speakers in task-switching and language-switching paradigms. Spanish–English bilinguals, who reported switching between languages frequently in daily life, exhibited smaller task-switching costs than monolinguals after controlling for between-group differences in speed and parent education level. By contrast, Mandarin–English bilinguals, who reported switching languages less frequently than Spanish–English bilinguals, did not exhibit a task-switching advantage relative to monolinguals. Comparing the two bilingual groups in language-switching, Spanish–English bilinguals exhibited smaller costs than Mandarin–English bilinguals, even after matching for fluency in the non-dominant language. These results demonstrate an explicit link between language-switching and bilingual advantages in task-switching, while also illustrating some limitations on bilingual advantages. (JINS, 2011, 17, 682–691)


2015 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 415-424 ◽  
Author(s):  
MICHELA MOSCA ◽  
HARALD CLAHSEN

Much research on language control in bilinguals has relied on the interpretation of the costs of switching between two languages. Of the two types of costs that are linked to language control, switching costs are assumed to be transient in nature and modulated by trial-specific manipulations (e.g., by preparation time), while mixing costs are supposed to be more stable and less affected by trial-specific manipulations. The present study investigated the effect of preparation time on switching and mixing costs, revealing that both types of costs can be influenced by trial-specific manipulations.


2020 ◽  
Vol 23 (5) ◽  
pp. 992-1007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isabel Deibel

AbstractMany language pairs chosen in language switching studies differ randomly on multiple linguistic levels, thus obscuring the nature of switching costs. Contact-induced languages, i.e., creoles (e.g., Spanish-based Palenquero) and mixed languages (e.g., Media Lengua), having arisen in intense language contact scenarios, relate systematically to their source languages by displaying high proportions of cognates or shared grammar. This configuration can speak to the relative contribution of lexicon and grammar to switching costs. Results from a production and comprehension task show that switching costs are systematically tied to a language pair's grammatical distance. This suggests that switching costs may result from the re-generation of the morphosyntactic frame on switch trials. Emphasizing the value of testing psycholinguistic theories outside of the usual Western populations, the current study provides insight into the degree of shared mental representations between contact-induced languages and their source languages.


2017 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-57
Author(s):  
CHRISTIAN G. K. HAHN ◽  
HENRIK SAALBACH ◽  
ROLAND H. GRABNER

Previous studies revealed language-switching costs (LSC) in bilingual learning settings, consisting of performance decreases when problems are solved in a language different from that of instruction. Strong costs have been found for arithmetic fact knowledge. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether LSC in arithmetic also emerge in an auditory learning task and in pure fact learning. Furthermore, we tested whether LSC are influenced by the direction of language-switching. Thirty-three university students learned arithmetic facts of three different operations (i.e., multiplication, subtraction, artificial facts) over a period of four days. The training was either in German or English. On day five, participants solved problems in both languages. Results revealed LSC in response latencies for all three types of problems, independent of the direction of language-switching. These findings suggest that LSC are modality-unspecific and occur independent of the type of arithmetic fact knowledge.


2015 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 725-756 ◽  
Author(s):  
DANIEL J. OLSON

ABSTRACTPrevious research on bilingual language switching costs has demonstrated asymmetrical switch costs, driven primarily by language dominance, such that switches into a more dominant language incur significantly greater reaction time delays than switches into a less dominant language. While such studies have generally relied on a fixed ratio of switch to nonswitch tokens, it is clear that bilinguals operate not in a fixed ratio, but along a naturally occurring bilingual continuum of modes or contexts. Bridging the concepts of language switching and language context, the current study examines language switching costs through a cued picture-naming study with variable contexts or modes. The results demonstrate that switch costs are dependent upon both language dominance and language context, with asymmetrical costs found in more monolingual modes and symmetrical costs found in bilingual modes. Implications are discussed with respect to language mode and gradient inhibitory mechanisms of language selection.


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