TY - JOUR
T1 - Interactional Context Mediates the Consequences of Bilingualism for Language and Cognition
AU - Beatty-Martínez, Anne L.
AU - Navarro-Torres, Christian A.
AU - Dussias, Paola E.
AU - Bajo, María Teresa
AU - Tamargo, Rosa E.Guzzardo
AU - Kroll, Judith F.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 American Psychological Association
PY - 2020
Y1 - 2020
N2 - Proficient bilinguals use two languages actively, but the contexts in which they do so may differ dramatically. The present study asked what consequences the contexts of language use hold for the way in which cognitive resources modulate language abilities. Three groups of speakers were compared, all of whom were highly proficient Spanish–English bilinguals who differed with respect to the contexts in which they used the two languages in their everyday lives. They performed two lexical production tasks and the “AX” variant of the Continuous Performance Task (AX-CPT), a nonlinguistic measure of cognitive control. Results showed that lexical access in each language, and how it related to cognitive control ability, depended on whether bilinguals used their languages separately or interchangeably or whether they were immersed in their second language. These findings suggest that even highly proficient bilinguals who speak the same languages are not necessarily alike in the way in which they engage cognitive resources. Findings support recent proposals that being bilingual does not, in itself, identify a unique pattern of cognitive control. An important implication is that much of the controversy that currently surrounds the consequences of bilingualism may be understood, in part, as a failure to characterize the complexity associated with the context of language use.
AB - Proficient bilinguals use two languages actively, but the contexts in which they do so may differ dramatically. The present study asked what consequences the contexts of language use hold for the way in which cognitive resources modulate language abilities. Three groups of speakers were compared, all of whom were highly proficient Spanish–English bilinguals who differed with respect to the contexts in which they used the two languages in their everyday lives. They performed two lexical production tasks and the “AX” variant of the Continuous Performance Task (AX-CPT), a nonlinguistic measure of cognitive control. Results showed that lexical access in each language, and how it related to cognitive control ability, depended on whether bilinguals used their languages separately or interchangeably or whether they were immersed in their second language. These findings suggest that even highly proficient bilinguals who speak the same languages are not necessarily alike in the way in which they engage cognitive resources. Findings support recent proposals that being bilingual does not, in itself, identify a unique pattern of cognitive control. An important implication is that much of the controversy that currently surrounds the consequences of bilingualism may be understood, in part, as a failure to characterize the complexity associated with the context of language use.
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U2 - 10.1037/xlm0000770
DO - 10.1037/xlm0000770
M3 - Article
C2 - 31580119
AN - SCOPUS:85073105468
SN - 0278-7393
VL - 46
SP - 1022
EP - 1047
JO - Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning Memory and Cognition
JF - Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning Memory and Cognition
IS - 6
ER -