Cognitive Control Adaptation in Code-Switching

The resolution of temporary ambiguity in incremental sentence processing has been tentatively linked to the upregulation of domain general cognitive control. Real-time comprehension of intrasentential code-switching (CS) presents a compelling testbed for cognitive control in language processing as it may require that the bilingual parser engage in cross-linguistic conflict resolution. Previous work finds that CS detection induces an upregulation of cognitive control that spills over to succeeding nonlinguistic tasks (e.g., flanker task): the conflict effect, or the increased effort required to resolve conflicting information in incongruent flanker trials, was reduced after reading sentences with CS relative to unilingual sentences. This result suggests that cross-linguistic conflict resolution elicits cross-task adaptation of cognitive control. However, this adaptation has not been consistently replicated. Some behavioral studies observed either no effect of CS on the conflict effect, or a larger conflict effect after CS than after unilingual sentences. Such results may favor the predictions of the Control Processes Model (CPM), which posits that the open control requisite of some CS makes the computational system vulnerable to interference. This study disentangles upregulation and interference accounts by characterizing the neural signatures underlying CS cross-task paradigms.

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Funding Sources: This work is supported by NSF BCS-2017251.