Dual mechanisms of cognitive control in bilinguals and monolinguals

Abstract

Growing evidence shows that executive functioning benefits from bilingual experience. However, the nature of the mechanisms underlying this advantage remains to be clarified. Whereas some have put forward single process accounts to explain the superior performance of bilinguals relative to monolinguals in executive control tasks, recent findings have been interpreted by considering the dynamic combination of monitoring and inhibitory processes to overcome interference from distractor information. In the present study we explored this idea by comparing monolinguals and highly proficient bilinguals in the AX-CPT. This task requires individuals to adjust proactive (monitoring) and reactive (inhibition) control to achieve efficient performance. We also examined the extent to which a well-known index of inhibitory capacity, the stop-signal reaction time, predicts accuracy in the AX-CPT. Results showed that bilinguals outperformed monolinguals in the experimental condition where higher requirement of proactive-reactive control adjustment was required. Interestingly, the inhibition index predicted errors in this condition only in the sample of bilinguals. These findings suggest that a better understanding of the cognitive benefits of bilingualism may require consideration of how bilinguals adjust different executive control mechanisms to cope with interference.