Abstract
The relationship between bilingual language control and domain-general cognitive control has been a hot topic in the research field of bilingualism. Previous studies mostly examined the correlation between performances of bilinguals in language control tasks and that in domain-general cognitive control tasks and came to the conclusions that they overlap, partially overlap, or are qualitatively different. These contradictory conclusions are possibly due to the neglect of the moderating effect of second language (L2) proficiency, that is, the relationship between bilingual language control and domain-general cognitive control might vary with the L2 proficiency of bilinguals. To examine this hypothesis, we recruited 36 unbalanced Chinese-English bilinguals to perform the Simon task (to assess domain-general cognitive control), Oxford Placement Test (to assess L2 proficiency), and picture naming tasks in single-and dual-language contexts (to evoke local and global language control). We find that Simon scores positively predicted switching costs in bilinguals with low L2 proficiency, but not in bilinguals with high L2 proficiency. Furthermore, Simon scores positively predicted mixing costs in bilinguals with high L2 proficiency, but not in bilinguals with low L2 proficiency. These results verify the moderating effect of L2 proficiency on the relationship between bilingual language control and domain-general cognitive control, that is, bilinguals with more proficient L2 rely on domain-general cognitive control less for local language control and more for global language control. This may imply a shift from local to global for the dependency of bilingual language control on domain-general cognitive control during the L2 development of bilinguals.
Highlights
Language is the most essential and effective tool of communication and thinking for human beings
To intuitively present the divergence of predicting switching or mixing costs by Simon scores in bilinguals with various L2 proficiency, we categorized participants into high-and low-proficiency groups based on the median of Oxford Placement Test (OPT) scores and separately re-fitted and analyzed the linear mixed-effects models (LMEMs) in each group
The current study was designed to test the hypothesis that L2 proficiency modulates the relationship between cognitive control and language control
Summary
Language is the most essential and effective tool of communication and thinking for human beings. Learning and using two or more languages is increasingly common in modern society. More than half of the population is bilingual, across all age groups, all social classes, and most countries (Grosjean, 2013). Bilinguals seem effortless to juggle two languages in their minds. Highly efficient mechanisms of bilingual language control (hereafter, referred to as language control) are needed for bilinguals according to the prevailing theories [Green, 1998; Adaptive Control Hypothesis or (ACH); Green and Abutalebi, 2013]. In the field of bilingualism, one of the important and unsettled issues is the relationship between language control and domain-general cognitive control (hereafter, referred to as cognitive control), which is the ability to regulate their behaviors by internal goals (Miller, 2000; Braver, 2012)
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