A relative bilingual advantage in switching with preparation: Nuanced explorations of the proposed association between bilingualism and task switching.

ABSTRACT: Bilingual language switching may increase general switching efficiency, but the evidence on this question is mixed. We hypothesized that group differences in switching might be stronger at a long cue-target interval (CTI), which may better tap general switching abilities (Yehene & Meiran, 2007). Eighty Spanish-English bilinguals and 80 monolinguals completed a color-shape switching task, and an analogous language-switching task, varying CTI (short vs. long) in both tasks. With longer preparation time (long CTI), bilinguals exhibited significantly smaller task-switching costs than monolinguals, but only in the first half of trials. Group differences diminished with practice, though practice benefitted RTs on short CTI trials more than long, and bilinguals committed fewer errors with practic

SUBMITTER: Stasenko A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5668152 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature