Dimensions of bilingualism promoting cognitive control
Impacts of language context and onset age of active bilingualism on mixing and switching costs
The study investigated the capacity of language experiences to predict cognitive performance of bilingual adults,
with a special focus on participants’ proactive (mixing costs) and reactive (switching costs) control processes. Using a Language
and Social Background Questionnaire, demographic and language data were collected from a linguistically diverse group of 60
bilingual adults residing in Australia. The participants were then tested on a non-verbal switching task. The results of multiple
regressions revealed that two of the language variables being examined accounted for the variance in the mixing and switching
costs. In particular, reduced mixing costs were related to the use of two languages in a dual-language context and earlier onset
age of active bilingualism; reduced switching costs were linked to a dual-language context only. These findings reveal that
bilingual experiences contribute to shaping proactive and reactive control processes across cognitive domains.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Present study
- 2.1Procedure
- 2.2Participants
- 2.3Experimental task
- 3.Results
- 4.Discussion
- Notes
-
References
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