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. 2023 May 25:14:1173486.
doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1173486. eCollection 2023.

The impact of bilingualism in within-language conflict resolution: an ERP study

Filip Andras  1   2 , María Ángeles Ramos  3 , Pedro Macizo  1   2
Affiliations

The impact of bilingualism in within-language conflict resolution: an ERP study

Filip Andras et al. Front Psychol. .

Abstract

We compared Spanish (L1)-English (L2) bilinguals and Spanish monolinguals in a semantic judgment relationship task in L1 that produced within-language conflict due to the coactivation of the two meanings of a Spanish homophone (e.g., "hola" and "ola" meaning "hello" and "a wave" in English). In this task, participants indicated if pairs of words were related or not ("agua-hola," "water-hello"). Conflict arose because a word ("agua," "water") not related to the orthographic form of a homophone ("hola," "hello") was related to the alternative orthographic form ("ola," "wave"). Compared to a control condition with unrelated word pairs ("peluche-hola," "teddy-hello"), the behavioral results revealed greater behavioral interference in monolinguals compared to bilinguals. In addition, electrophysiological results revealed N400 differences between monolinguals and bilinguals. These results are discussed around the impact of bilingualism on conflict resolution.

Keywords: bilingualism; cognitive control; conflict resolution; inhibition; within-language conflict.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Mean response times per group and condition. The error bars display a 95% confidence interval.
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Mean error rates per group and condition. The error bars display a 95% confidence interval.
FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3
ERPs obtained in the homophone task. Event related potentials (ERPs) obtained in the related and unrelated condition when bilinguals and monolinguals performed the within-language conflict task. Vertical boxes indicate time windows in which the relatedness effect was significant in frontal, central and parietal scalp distributions.
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