Abstract
Switch costs are defined as the phenomenon that bilinguals have worse performance in switch trials relative to non-switch trials. Bilinguals’ naming language and switch predictability have been found to influence the magnitude of switch costs. However, how these two factors modulate switch costs in different phases (i.e., lemma activation and language selection) during language production remains unclear. Most previous studies using the language switching paradigm did not dissociate lemma activation from language selection, because the language cue was either presented simultaneously with or prior to a stimulus. Therefore, here we modified the language switching paradigm by presenting a digit stimulus prior to a visual cue. This allowed us to dissociate lemma activation from language selection, and thus we were able to investigate the mechanisms underlying the effects of naming language and switch predictability on switch costs during the two different phases in language production. Unbalanced Indonesian-Chinese bilinguals were required to name digits in either their L1 (Indonesian) or L2 (Chinese), and their reaction times and electrophysiological responses were recorded. The behavioral results showed the effects of switch predictability on switch costs, with responses in switch trials being slower than those in non-switch trials in the low switch predictability condition, while there was no significant difference in response times between switch trials and non-switch trials in the high switch predictability condition. The event-related potential results showed that neither naming language nor switch predictability affected switch costs during the lemma activation phase, but both did so during the language selection phase, particularly at the language task schema competition stage. The results imply that naming language and switch predictability affect switch costs mainly during the language task schema competition stage.
Highlights
Bilinguals have two language systems and face two options when they speak
According to the bilingual interactive-activation (BIA) model, switch costs can arise from bottom-up activation of a given language node driven by presentation of a word in that language, which implies that the familiarity of L1 words has an important effect on switch costs, since L1 lexical representations have higher resting level activations than L2 words (Grainger et al, 2010)
In the lemma activation phase, the digit-locked analysis revealed neither significant main effects nor interactions in the time windows for 180–280 ms and 350–500 ms post-digit onset. These results suggest that there was no effect of naming language or switch predictability on switch costs during the lemma activation phase
Summary
Bilinguals have two language systems and face two options when they speak They show remarkable flexibility and efficiency in switching from one language to another according to different interlocutors and varied scenarios during natural language production. According to the inhibitory control (IC) model, switch costs are caused by the inhibition of the non-target language (Green, 1998). As bilinguals have established two corresponding language task schemas to avoid confusion, they need to inhibit the non-target language to select the correct lemma; but when they switch to the formerly inhibited language, extra time is required to counter the inhibition and reactivate the language, leading to the switch costs (Green, 1998; Allport and Wylie, 2000). According to the bilingual interactive-activation (BIA) model, switch costs can arise from bottom-up activation of a given language node driven by presentation of a word in that language, which implies that the familiarity of L1 words has an important effect on switch costs, since L1 lexical representations have higher resting level activations than L2 words (Grainger et al, 2010)
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