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Does language switching behavior rely on general executive functions?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 November 2020

Jussi Jylkkä Open the ORCID record for Jussi Jylkkä [Opens in a new window] ,
Matti Laine  and
Minna Lehtonen
Jussi Jylkkä*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Åbo Akademi University, Finland Department of Psychology and Speech-Language Pathology, University of Turku, Finland
Matti Laine
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Åbo Akademi University, Finland
Minna Lehtonen
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology and Speech-Language Pathology, University of Turku, Finland Center for Multilingualism in Society across the Lifespan, Department of Linguistics and Scandinavian Studies, University of Oslo, Norway
*
Address for correspondence: Jussi Jylkkä, E-mail: jjylkka@abo.fi
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Abstract

The assumption that everyday language switching trains bilinguals’ executive functions (EF) presupposes that language switching engages domain-general EF. This study examined associations between three types of tasks in a group of Finnish-English late bilinguals: everyday language switching frequency assessed with Ecological Momentary Assessment, language switching performance on a cued bilingual naming task, and EF as measured with Simon, Flanker, and Number-letter tasks. Cued switching performance showed mainly positive associations with EF performance, but the associations between everyday language switching and cued switching performance, and between everyday switching and the EF tasks were largely against our hypotheses. The findings indicate that participants with lower monitoring capacity make more everyday language switches. This speaks against the idea that everyday language switching would facilitate executive functioning. The results suggest that associations between language switching and general EF are more complex than current models assume.

Keywords

language switchingcued namingEcological Momentary Assessmentexecutive functionstask-specificitytask-generalityskill-learning
Type
Research Article
Information
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition , Volume 24 , Issue 3 , May 2021 , pp. 583 - 595
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

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