Calabria Marco, Hernández Mireia, Branzi Francesca M, Costa Albert
Department of Technology, Universitat Pompeu Fabra Barcelona, Spain.
Front Psychol. 2012 Jan 13;2:399. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00399. eCollection 2011.
Previous research has shown that highly proficient bilinguals have comparable switch costs in both directions when they switch between languages (L1 and L2), the so-called "symmetrical switch cost" effect. Interestingly, the same symmetry is also present when they switch between L1 and a much weaker L3. These findings suggest that highly proficient bilinguals develop a language control system that seems to be insensitive to language proficiency. In the present study, we explore whether the pattern of symmetrical switch costs in language switching tasks generalizes to a non-linguistic switching task in the same group of highly proficient bilinguals. The end goal of this is to assess whether bilingual language control (bLC) can be considered as subsidiary to domain-general executive control (EC). We tested highly proficient Catalan-Spanish bilinguals both in a linguistic switching task and in a non-linguistic switching task. In the linguistic task, participants named pictures in L1 and L2 (Experiment 1) or L3 (Experiment 2) depending on a cue presented with the picture (a flag). In the non-linguistic task, the same participants had to switch between two card sorting rule-sets (color and shape). Overall, participants showed symmetrical switch costs in the linguistic switching task, but not in the non-linguistic switching task. In a further analysis, we observed that in the linguistic switching task the asymmetry of the switch costs changed across blocks, while in the non-linguistic switching task an asymmetrical switch cost was observed throughout the task. The observation of different patterns of switch costs in the linguistic and the non-linguistic switching tasks suggest that the bLC system is not completely subsidiary to the domain-general EC system.
先前的研究表明，高度熟练的双语者在两种语言（第一语言和第二语言）之间切换时，双向的切换成本相当，即所谓的“对称切换成本”效应。有趣的是，当他们在第一语言和熟练程度低得多的第三语言之间切换时，同样的对称性也存在。这些发现表明，高度熟练的双语者发展出一种语言控制系统，该系统似乎对语言熟练程度不敏感。在本研究中，我们探讨了语言切换任务中对称切换成本的模式是否适用于同一组高度熟练的双语者的非语言切换任务。这样做的最终目的是评估双语语言控制（bLC）是否可以被视为领域通用执行控制（EC）的附属物。我们在语言切换任务和非语言切换任务中对高度熟练的加泰罗尼亚语 - 西班牙语双语者进行了测试。在语言任务中，参与者根据与图片一起呈现的提示（一面旗帜），用第一语言和第二语言（实验1）或第三语言（实验2）命名图片。在非语言任务中，相同的参与者必须在两种卡片分类规则集（颜色和形状）之间切换。总体而言，参与者在语言切换任务中表现出对称的切换成本，但在非语言切换任务中则没有。在进一步的分析中，我们观察到在语言切换任务中，切换成本的不对称性在不同块之间发生变化，而在非语言切换任务中，在整个任务中都观察到了不对称的切换成本。在语言和非语言切换任务中观察到不同模式的切换成本表明，双语语言控制系统并不完全是领域通用执行控制系统的附属物。
