Xie Zhilong
Foreign Languages College, Jiangxi Normal University, Nanchang, China.
Front Psychol. 2018 Mar 27;9:412. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00412. eCollection 2018.
The current study investigates the influence of L2 proficiency on cognitive control among three matched groups of unbalanced Chinese-English bilinguals. Flanker task was administered to measure conflict monitoring and inhibition, and Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) to measure mental set shifting. ANOVA analyses of the Flanker results showed no differences in inhibition across all groups and no interaction between group and condition. However, the Flanker results showed faster performance for the highest L2 proficiency group relative to the lowest L2 proficiency group in all conditions (incongruent, neutral, and congruent), which reflects better ability of conflict monitoring. Finally, ANOVA analyses of the WCST results showed no differences across all groups. These results altogether suggest that L2 proficiency has significant influence on cognitive control, but only in conflict monitoring, not in inhibition or mental set shifting.
本研究调查了三组匹配的汉英双语能力不均衡者中，第二语言（L2）熟练程度对认知控制的影响。采用侧翼任务来测量冲突监测和抑制能力，并使用威斯康星卡片分类测验（WCST）来测量思维定势转换能力。对侧翼任务结果的方差分析表明，所有组在抑制能力上没有差异，且组与条件之间没有交互作用。然而，侧翼任务结果显示，在所有条件下（不一致、中性和一致），第二语言熟练程度最高的组比最低的组表现得更快，这反映出更好的冲突监测能力。最后，对WCST结果的方差分析表明，所有组之间没有差异。这些结果共同表明，第二语言熟练程度对认知控制有显著影响，但仅体现在冲突监测方面，而在抑制或思维定势转换方面没有影响。
