How do highly proficient bilinguals control their lexicalization process? Inhibitory and language-specific selection...

Area of Science:

• Psycholinguistics
• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Second Language Acquisition

Background:

• Bilingual language switching involves cognitive control mechanisms.
• Proficiency and language similarity may influence switching costs.
• Understanding these dynamics is crucial for models of bilingual language processing.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate language-switching performance in highly proficient bilinguals across various language combinations.
• To examine the effects of language similarity and age of acquisition on switching costs.
• To explore how proficiency levels impact the symmetry of switching costs.

Main Methods:

• Four experiments were conducted using a picture-naming task.
• Participants were highly proficient bilinguals with varying language proficiencies.
• Switching costs were measured across different language pairs (L1/L2, L2/L3, L3/L4, L1/new language).

Main Results:

• Symmetrical switching costs were observed between proficiently known languages (L1, L2, L3).
• Asymmetrical switching costs emerged when a less proficient language (L4 or newly acquired) was involved.
• Age of acquisition and language similarity did not affect switching costs between proficient languages.

Conclusions:

• Bilinguals demonstrate efficient control over well-established languages.
• Language proficiency is a key factor in the asymmetry of switching costs.
• Findings support theories of attentional mechanisms in bilingual lexical access.