The influence of language switching experience on the bilingual executive control advantage.

In an ongoing debate, bilingual research currently discusses whether bilingualism enhances non-linguistic executive control. The goal of this study was to investigate the influence of language switching experience, rather than language proficiency, on this bilingual executive control advantage. We compared the performance of unbalanced bilinguals, balanced non-switching, and balanced switching bilinguals on two executive control tasks, i.e. a flanker and a Simon task. We found that the balanced switching bilinguals outperformed both other groups in terms of executive control performance, whereas the unbalanced and balanced non-switching bilinguals did not differ. These findings indicate that language switching experience, rather than high second-language proficiency, is the key determinant of the bilingual advantage in cognitive control processes related to interference resolution.

Verreyt, N., Woumans, E., Vandelanotte, D., Szmalec, A., & Duyck, W. (in press). The influence of language switching experience on the bilingual executive control advantage. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition. Impact Factor: 1.714. Ranking Q1 (top 10%) PDF available here.