Switching-back versus switching-out: Language context reveals a novel aging deficit in proactive bilingual language control.

ABSTRACT: The present study examined how bilinguals switch languages under conditions of varying contextual support for each language. Bilinguals were cued to name pictures in two contextually biased blocks, one biasing the dominant-language by cuing its use on 88 % of trials, another biasing the nondominant-language, and a third no-bias block (in which each language was used 50 % of the time). Experiment 1 tested 70 young Spanish-English bilinguals, while Experiment 2 compared a proficiency-matched subset of the young bilinguals to 40 older bilinguals tested on the same tasks. In the no-bias block, young but not older bilinguals exhibited reversed language dominance, replicating a previously reported aging deficit in global inhibition of the dominant language. In biased-language contexts, young, bu

SUBMITTER: Garcia DL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12860449 | biostudies-literature | 2026 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature