Interactional context mediates the consequences of bilingualism for language and cognition

Abstract

Proficient bilinguals use two languages actively, but the contexts in which they do so may differ dramatically. The present study asked what consequences the contexts of language use hold for the way in which cognitive resources modulate language abilities. Three groups of speakers were compared, all of whom were highly proficient Spanish-English bilinguals who differed with respect to the contexts in which they used the two languages in their everyday lives. They performed two lexical production tasks and the "AX" variant of the Continuous Performance Task (AX-CPT), a nonlinguistic measure of cognitive control. Results showed that lexical access in each language, and how it related to cognitive control ability, depended on whether bilinguals used their languages separately or interchangeably or whether they were immersed in their second language. These findings suggest that even highly proficient bilinguals who speak the same languages are not necessarily alike in the way in which they engage cognitive resources. Findings support recent proposals that being bilingual does not, in itself, identify a unique pattern of cognitive control. An important implication is that much of the controversy that currently surrounds the consequences of bilingualism may be understood, in part, as a failure to characterize the complexity associated with the context of language use. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Figure 1.

Participants’ self-reported exposure to Spanish and English across different social domains. Ratings were made on a 10-point scale ranging from 0 (no exposure) to 10 (high exposure). Error bars indicate standard error of the mean. See Table S2 in the online Supplementary Materials for mean values, standard deviations, confidence intervals, and valid N for each measure per group.

Figure 2.

Schematic representation of the procedure for the AX-CPT. AX are target trials that require a “yes” probe response (70% of trials). All other trial sequences (each occurring 10% of the time) require a “no” probe response. AY trials share the cue with target trials, which biases participants to anticipate the target probe. High error rates in these trials indicate failure to suppress an incorrect “yes” response due to high reliance on context. In BX trials, the cue signals a “no” response, but the probe prompts a target response. High error rates in these trials indicate failure to suppress a “yes” response due to minimal or no reliance on context. BY are control trials where the influence of context is reduced, since both the cue and probe differ from target trials.

Figure 3.

Predicted picture naming latencies displayed via a three-way interaction of context, language, and z-scored log word frequency. Negative values on the x-axis indicate lower frequency words. Shaded areas indicate standard errors of the means.

Figure 4.

Relation between picture naming accuracy and AY error rates (A), AY efficiency (B), and BX efficiency (C) in Spanish and in English for individuals in each context. More positive values on the x-axes indicate the following: higher AY error rates (A); slower AY responses relative to BY trials (B); slower BX responses relative to BY trials (C).

Figure 5.

Two-way interaction between language and AY efficiency (A), and a three-way interaction between language, frequency, and AY efficiency (B), for bilinguals in the varied context. Error bars represent standard error of the mean.

Figure 6.

Delta plots showing the condition difference as a function of quintile scores across bilinguals in each context. Delta plots show an effect size (i.e., the difference between AY and BY RTs) as a function of response speed across participants (i.e., the average AY and BY RT for any given participant). This is achieved by ordering and dividing RTs for each participant into quintiles. More positive values on the y-axis indicate slower AY responses relative to BY trials. More positive values on the x-axis indicate individuals with slower RTs across the two conditions. Response inhibition is typically assumed to require time to unfold (De Jong, Liang, & Lauber, 1994; Ridderinkhof, Scheres, Oosterlaan, & Segeant, 2005). In this case, reduced interference effects (i.e., high AY efficiency) should emerge for individuals with slower overall responses. This pattern is observed for bilinguals in the separated context, which is also consistent with the pattern reported by Morales and colleagues (2013), who also tested Spanish-English bilinguals from the same community in Spain. On the other hand, bilinguals in integrated and varied contexts showed the opposite trend (i.e., high AY efficiency emerged for individuals with faster overall responses), suggesting that, for these individuals, high AY efficiency is achieved via context monitoring procedures.