Froitzheim, S. , Braun, B. & Kabak, B.
University of Konstanz
There is a growing body of evidence on the positive impact of bilingualism on cognitive processes although the precise origins of this effect remain unclear. Recently bilinguals have been shown to be overall faster than monolinguals exclusively in experimental blocks that mix trials of different types (Costa et al. 2009). Accordingly, the bilingual effect is not merely due to more efficient conflict resolution processes by bilinguals than monolinguals. Rather, it stems from bilinguals’ need to continuously monitor the appropriate language in bilingual settings. However, we hypothesize that the monitoring process may still be modulated by the magnitude of selective activation of the non-target language. Lexical and grammatical similarity requires better separation so that bilinguals with similar languages should exhibit both conflict effects and more efficient monitoring than those with distinct languages. We tested 3 groups of participants, 10 bilinguals with two closely related languages (SwissGerman-German), 10 bilinguals with two distinct languages (Turkish-German) – controlled for age of acquisition, age, gender and education) – and a German monolingual group. Using a version of the flanker task with high monitoring demands, we asked participants to indicate whether a central arrow in a row of 5 arrows points to the right or left (2 blocks with 67% congruent trials, 2 blocks with 33% incongruent trials, counterbalanced). Results showed a significantly larger conflict effect (difference in RT between incongruent and congruent trials) for SwissGerman-German bilinguals than for Turkish-German bilinguals or German controls (78ms vs. 61 and 62ms respectively, p < 0.05). We suggest that linguistic similarities between the languages of a bilingual are more likely to maximize the recruitment of monitoring processes than linguistic differences. Hence, the bilingual advantage stems not only from selecting the right language-schema, but by the extent to which the two systems can be separately activated.