Individual differences in inhibitory control relate to bilingual spoken word processing

Abstract

We investigated whether individual differences in inhibitory control relate to bilingual spoken word recognition. While their eye movements were monitored, native English and native French English–French bilinguals listened to English words (e.g., field) and looked at pictures corresponding to the target, a within-language competitor (feet), a French cross-language competitor (fille “girl”), or both, and unrelated filler pictures. We derived cognitive and oculomotor inhibitory control measures from a battery of inhibitory control tasks. Increased cognitive inhibitory control was linked to less within-language competition for all bilinguals, and less cross-language competition for native French low-English-exposure bilinguals. Increased oculomotor inhibitory control was linked to less within-language competition for all native French bilinguals, and less cross-language competition for native French low-English-exposure bilinguals. The results extend previous findings (Blumenfeld & Marian, 2011), and suggest that individual differences in inhibitory control relate to bilingual spoken word processing.