English language and linguistics research seminar: Alessandra Avversari, Lancaster University: Bilingual Language Use and Cognitive Control: Why Individual Differences Matter More Than Context.

Although links between cognitive processes involved in bilingual language control (bLC, the ability to manage two or more languages in the brain, according to the interactional context) and domain-general executive control (EC, it includes the cognitive abilities we engage with in everyday tasks) have been widely theorized upon and empirically explored (Branzi et al., 2016), findings remain inconsistent. Some of the inconsistency is likely due to inadequate assessments of bilingual experience/engagement (DeLuca et al., 2019). During this talk, I will present the results from the first two papers of my PhD thesis, where I have jointly examined the role of the Interactional Context and Individual Differences (IDs, e.g., L2 Social Use, L2 Home Use) across bilingual experiences and tested how these can (interact to) predict the overlap between bLC and domain-general EC.

98 participants (Italian (L1) - English (L2) bilinguals) took part in the study, from two interactional contexts: 48 in Italy (non-L2-immersion) and 50 in immersion in the UK. Participants completed the Triad Matching Task (Gray & Kiran, 2019), in a linguistic and non-linguistic version, designed to be comparable in cognitive load and to assess Inhibitory Control processes involved in bLC and domain-general EC. Participants also completed the Language and Social Background Questionnaire (LSBQ; Anderson et al., 2017). Results show a pattern of shared Inhibitory Control mechanism in the two versions of the task (e.g., showing a switching and congruency effect, as well as an interaction, in both tasks). Interestingly, the analysis shows an interaction between Interference Suppression and dual language use (e.g., L2 Social Use). This indicates that the relationship between bLC and domain-general EC can be better captured by fine-grained IDs in dual language usage rather than by looking at interactional context alone. 

References

Anderson, J. A. E., Mak, L., Keyvani Chahi, A., & Bialystok, E. (2017). The language and social background questionnaire: Assessing degree of bilingualism in a diverse population. Behavior Research Methods, 50(1), 250–263. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-017-0867-9

Branzi, F. M., Della Rosa, P. A., Canini, M., Costa, A., & Abutalebi, J. (2016). Language Control in Bilinguals: Monitoring and Response Selection. Cerebral Cortex, 26(6), 2367–2380. https://doi.org/10.1093/cercor/bhv052

Calabria, M., Branzi, F. M., Marne, P., Hernández, M., & Costa, A. (2013). Age-related effects over bilingual language control and executive control. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 18(1), 65–78. https://doi.org/10.1017/s1366728913000138

DeLuca, V., Rothman, J., Bialystok, E., & Pliatsikas, C. (2019). Redefining bilingualism as a spectrum of experiences that differentially affects brain structure and function. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116(15), 7565–7574. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1811513116

Gray, T., & Kiran, S. (2018). The effect of task complexity on linguistic and non-linguistic control mechanisms in bilingual aphasia. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 22(2), 266–284. https://doi.org/10.1017/s1366728917000712