Abstract
One approach used to gain insight into the processes underlying bilingual language comprehension and production examines the costs that arise from switching languages. For unbalanced bilinguals, asymmetric switch costs are reported in speech production, where the switch cost for L1 is larger than the switch cost for L2, whereas, symmetric switch costs are reported in language comprehension tasks, where the cost of switching is the same for L1 and L2. Presently, it is unclear why asymmetric switch costs are observed in speech production, but not in language comprehension. Three experiments are reported that simultaneously examine methodological explanations of task related differences in the switch cost asymmetry and the predictions of three accounts of the switch cost asymmetry in speech production. The results of these experiments suggest that (1) the type of language task (comprehension vs. production) determines whether an asymmetric switch cost is observed and (2) at least some of the switch cost asymmetry arises within the language system.
Highlights
The asymmetry is reduced after extended practice (Meuter and Allport, 1999) and when languages are balanced in strength such that larger differences in relative proficiency are required in order to observe asymmetric switch costs when individuals are exceptionally proficient in two languages, to the point where highly proficient bilinguals will not show a switch cost asymmetry for unbalanced languages (Costa and Santesteban, 2004; Costa et al, 2006; Martin et al, 2013)
If the relative strength of the language task schema depends on experience with the configuration of the language system required for task performance and stimulus response mapping, for unbalanced bilinguals this should result in more experience with the configuration of the language system required for speech production in L1 than L2
Experiment 3 demonstrated that the effects of stimulus valence affects switch costs and the asymmetric switch cost during speech production, despite numerous demonstrations that this is not the case in lexical decision (Thomas and Allport, 2000; Orfanidou and Sumner, 2005)
Summary
One approach used to investigate this issue examines the costs that arise when bilinguals switch between languages (e.g., Von Studnitz and Green, 1997; Meuter and Allport, 1999; Thomas and Allport, 2000; Costa and Santesteban, 2004; Orfanidou and Sumner, 2005; Peeters et al, 2014) This approach utilizes the methods and reasoning developed in the task switching literature in order to gain insight into the processes underlying control over the bilingual language system (e.g., Allport et al, 1994; Rogers and Monsell, 1995; see Kiesel et al, 2010; Vandierendonck et al, 2010, for recent reviews). The asymmetry is reduced after extended practice (Meuter and Allport, 1999) and when languages are balanced in strength such that larger differences in relative proficiency are required in order to observe asymmetric switch costs when individuals are exceptionally proficient in two languages, to the point where highly proficient bilinguals will not show a switch cost asymmetry for unbalanced languages (Costa and Santesteban, 2004; Costa et al, 2006; Martin et al, 2013)
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