Working memory demand of a task modulates bilingual advantage in executive functions

Aims: The present study aimed to investigate the effect of task demand in working memory on bilingual cognitive advantage (interference suppression and response inhibition) in young bilinguals. Methodology: Experiment 1 was performed with the flanker, Go/No-go, and modified flanker tasks, in which the first two tasks were involved in lower storage demand of working memory and the last task was involved in higher storage demand of working memory. Experiment 2 was performed with the Conditional-Go/No-go task, with a higher processing demand of working memory. Data and analysis: Reaction time and accuracy data were analyzed using a repeated measures analysis of variance. Findings/Conclusions: In Experiment 1, results showed that compared to monolinguals, the bilingual advantage in interference suppression occurred in the task with high storage demand (i.e., modified flanker task) and not in the low demand task (i.e., flanker task); however, this advantage effect was not observed in response inhibition. In Experiment 2, with the increasing working memory processing demand of tasks, the bilingual advantage in response inhibition was observed. Originality: The current study firstly examined the effect of task working memory demand on the bilingual advantage and provided some restrictive conditions for the advantage. Significance/Implications: Our results provide new evidence to support the effect of bilingual cognitive advantage.

The aesthetic paradox in processing conventional and non-conventional metaphors

This study focuses on the relationship between cognitive effort and aesthetic-emotional evaluation in the processing of conventional and non-conventional metaphors. We postulate that an increased cognitive load — which is normally perceived as stressful — is evaluated positively when processing non-conventional metaphors. We have called this contradictory suspense ‘aesthetic paradox’. The aesthetic paradox was tested in two studies that differed in degree of processing demand. In study 1 (low processing demand) participants (N = 40) read (non-)conventional metaphors, judged the adequacy of two metaphor paraphrases and assessed their own interpretation process. In study 2 (high processing demand) the same procedure was applied with the exception that participants (N = 40) evaluated the appropriateness of one metaphor paraphrase. The results of both experiments confirm that non-conventional metaphors require longer reading and longer processing times than conventional metaphors, and they confirm the postulated paradoxical effect: the increase of cognitive effort in processing non-conventional metaphors is evaluated positively, provided that a satisfactory interpretation is found.