| The current study investigated processing speed for monolingual and bilingual speakers on linguistic and nonlinguistic n-back tasks. Between and within group comparisons were made on measures of verbal fluency, working memory and processing speed as measured by COWAT, Digit Span and speed and accuracy on n-back linguistic and nonlinguistic tasks. Direct comparisons revealed significant differences between monolinguals and bilinguals on the speed of processing of the English Only Condition, with bilinguals significantly slower. In addition on the non-linguistic switch task no significant differences were found as measured by the inter-trial stimulus response means. Analysis of related samples revealed no significant differences for bilingual speakers on English only and Spanish Only Processing Tasks or for bilingual speakers between linguistic switch and nonlinguistic switch tasks. However for Bilinguals, the linguistic switch was significantly slower than the English only and Spanish only tasks, supporting the effects of inhibition of L1 during switch tasks. Post hoc analysis revealed significant differences between bilingual simultaneous language learners and bilingual sequential language learners on the English-only processing task with simultaneous learners looking like monolinguals suggesting the age of initial exposure to the second language may affect the speed of processing for linguistic tasks in L1 and L2. |
