The Source Of Switching Costs In Chinese-English Bilingual Language Switching

In daily life and interpersonal communication,bilinguals can freely switch between their mastered two or more languages,but studies has found that although the bilinguals can freely switch between their mastered languages,but compared with monolinguals,the language switching in bilinguals often accompanied by a language switching cost,namely a long reaction time and an increased error rate.For the sources of bilinguals' language switching cost,different theories have different explanations.For example,“the unspecific language selection hypothesis” thinks inhibitory control plays an important role in bilinguals' language switching,while“the specific language selection hypothesis” confirms that language proficiency influences the bilinguals' language switching.This study selects bilinguals with different level of language proficiency and bilinguals with different level of inhibitory control ability as the participant,to explore the source of bilinguals' language switching cost.This study includes three experiments,all of them using picture naming or lexical decision paradigm.Experiment 1 explored the role of inhibitory control and language proficiency in bilinguals' language switching cost in the process of bilinguals' language production and language comprehension,and the results showed that inhibitory control influenced bilinguals' language switching cost,while language proficiency only had some effect on language meaning processing.Experiment 2 examined the language switching cost of low proficiency bilinguals with different inhibitory control ability and the results showed that the bilinguals with high inhibitory control ability had a good performance and a small language switching cost than the others with low inhibitory control ability.The experiment 3 examines the influence of inhibitory control ability training on low proficiency bilinguals' language switching cost,and the results showed that the ability can transfer into language switching and play an important role.All the research results show that inhibitory control plays an important role in bilinguals' language switching,while language proficiency just influences bilinguals' language processing,with a small influence on bilinguals' language switching cost.