Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-xbtfd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T10:58:36.116Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The effects of first- and second-language proficiency on conflict resolution and goal maintenance in bilinguals: Evidence from reaction time distributional analyses in a Stroop task*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 March 2012

CHI-SHING TSE  and
JEANETTE ALTARRIBA
CHI-SHING TSE*
Affiliation:
The Chinese University of Hong Kong
JEANETTE ALTARRIBA
Affiliation:
University at Albany, State University of New York
*
Address for correspondence: Chi-Shing Tse, Department of Educational Psychology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, New Territories, Hong Kong, Chinacstse@cuhk.edu.hk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

By administering a Stroop task to college-student bilinguals varied in self-rated first- (L1) and second-language (L2) proficiency, the current study examined the effects of L1 and L2 proficiencies on selective attention performance. We conducted ex-Gaussian analyses to capture the modal and positive-tail components of participants' reaction time distributions. Both L1 and L2 proficiencies were associated with a shift of reaction time distributions in incongruent trials, relative to congruent trials, and the tail size of reaction time distributions regardless of trial types. This suggests that bilinguals' L1 and L2 proficiencies could affect their Stroop performance via modulating their conflict resolution and goal maintenance abilities.

Keywords

attentional controlbilingualismconflict resolutiongoal maintenanceresponse time distribution
Type
Research Notes
Information
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition , Volume 15 , Issue 3 , July 2012 , pp. 663 - 676
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

The work described in this paper was substantially supported by a grant from the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China (Project no. CUHK455010). We thank David Green and Gigi Luk for their comments on earlier versions of this manuscript and Rita German, Jacalynn Romeyn, and Dana Schiffman for their help with data collection.

References

Abutalebi, J., & Green, D. W. (2007). Bilingual language production: The neurocognition of language representation and control. Journal of Neurolinguistics, 20, 242–275.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Balota, D. A., & Faust, M. E. (2001). Attention in dementia of the Alzheimer's type. In Boller, F., & Cappa, S. (eds.), The handbook of neuropsychology: Aging and dementia (2nd edn.), pp. 51–80. New York: Elsevier.Google Scholar
Balota, D. A., & Yap, M. J. (2011). Moving beyond the mean in studies of mental chronometry: The power of response time distributional analyses. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 20, 160–166.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Balota, D. A., Yap, M. J., Cortese, M. I., & Watson, J. M. (2008). Beyond mean response latency: Response time distributional analyses of semantic priming. Journal of Memory and Language, 59, 495–523.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bialystok, E. (2009). Bilingualism: The good, the bad and the indifferent. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 12, 3–11.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bialystok, E. (2010). Global–local and trail-making tasks by monolingual and bilingual children: Beyond inhibition. Developmental Psychology, 46, 93–105.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bialystok, E., & Barac, R. (2012). Emerging bilingualism: Dissociating advantages for metalinguistic awareness and executive control. Cognition, 122, 67–73.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bialystok, E., Craik, F. I. M., & Luk, G. (2008). Cognitive control and lexical access in younger and older bilinguals. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, 34, 859–873.Google ScholarPubMed
Bialystok, E., Craik, F. I. M., & Ryan, J. (2006). Executive control in a modified antisaccade task: Effects of aging and bilingualism. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, 32, 1341–1354.Google Scholar
Bialystok, E., & Feng, X. (2009). Language proficiency and executive control in proactive interference: Evidence from monolingual and bilingual children and adults. Brain and Language, 109, 93–100.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Calabria, M., Hernández, M., Martin, C. D., & Costa, A. (2011). When the tail counts: The advantage of bilingualism through the ex-Gaussian distribution analysis. Frontiers in Psychology, 2 (250), 8 pages. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00250.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Carlson, S. M., & Meltzoff, A. N. (2008). Bilingual experience and executive functioning in young children. Developmental Science, 11, 282–298.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Costa, A., Hernández, M., Costa-Faidella, J., & Sebastián-Gallés, N. (2009). On the bilingual advantage in conflict processing: Now you see it, now you don't. Cognition, 113, 135–149.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Costa, A., Hernández, M., & Sebastián-Gallés, N. (2008). Bilingualism aids conflict resolution: Evidence from the ANT task. Cognition, 106, 59–86.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Costa, A., La Heij, W., & Navarrete, E. (2006). The dynamics of bilingual lexical access. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 9, 137–152.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cousineau, D., Brown, S., & Heathcote, A. (2004). Fitting distributions using maximum likelihood: Methods and packages. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, & Computers, 36, 742–756.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
de Jong, R. D., Berendsen, E., & Cools, R. (1999). Goal neglect and inhibitory limitations: Dissociable causes of interference effects in conflict situations. Acta Psychologica, 101, 379–394.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gollan, T. H., Montoya, R. I., Cera, C., & Sandoval, T. C. (2008). More use almost always means a smaller frequency effect: Aging, bilingualism, and the weaker links hypothesis. Journal of Memory and Language, 58, 787–814.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Green, D. W. (1998). Mental control of the bilingual lexico-semantic system. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 1, 67–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heathcote, A., Popiel, S. J., & Mewhort, D. J. K. (1991). Analysis of response time distributions: An example using the Stroop task. Psychological Bulletin, 109, 340–347.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kane, M. J., & Engle, R. W. (2003). Working memory capacity and the control of attention: The contributions of goal neglect, response competition, and task set to Stroop interference. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 132, 47–70.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Leth-Steensen, C., King Elbaz, Z., & Douglas, V. I. (2000). Mean response time, variability, and skew in the responding of ADHD children: A response time distributional approach. Acta Psychologica, 104, 167–190.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Luk, G., de Sa, E., & Bialystok, E. (2011). Is there a relation between onset age of bilingualism and enhancement of cognitive control? Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 14, 588–595.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Luo, L., Luk, G., & Bialystok, E. (2010). Effect of language proficiency and executive control on verbal fluency performance in bilinguals. Cognition, 114, 29–41.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
MacLeod, C. M. (1992). The Stroop task: The “gold standard” of attentional measures. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 121, 12–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Martin-Rhee, M. M., & Bialystok, E. (2008). The development of two types of inhibitory control in monolingual and bilingual children. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 11, 1–13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McAuley, T., Yap, M. J., Christ, S. E., & White, D. A. (2006). Revisiting inhibitory control across the life span: Insights from the ex-Gaussian distribution. Developmental Neuropsychology, 29, 447–458.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Morton, J. B., & Harper, S. N. (2007). What did Simon say? Revisiting the bilingual advantage. Developmental Science, 10, 719–726.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Piai, V., Roelofs, A. P. A., & Schriefers, H. J. (2011). Semantic interference in immediate and delayed naming and reading: Attention and task decisions. Journal of Memory and Language, 64, 404–423.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schmiedek, F., Oberauer, K., Wilhelm, O., Süß, H.-M., & Wittmann, W. W. (2007). Individual differences in components of reaction time distributions and their relations to working memory and intelligence. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 136, 414–429.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Shipley, W. C. (1940). A self-administering scale for measuring intellectual impairment and deterioration. Journal of Psychology, 9, 371–377.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spieler, D. H., Balota, D. A., & Faust, M. E. (1996). Stroop performance in healthy younger and older adults in individuals with dementia of the Alzheimer's type. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 22, 461–479.Google ScholarPubMed
Spieler, D. H., Balota, D. A., & Faust, M. E. (2000). Levels of selective attention revealed through analyses of response time distributions. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 26, 506–526.Google ScholarPubMed
Tao, L., Marzecova, A., Taft, M., Asanowicz, D., & Wodniecka, Z. (2011). The efficiency of attentional networks in early and late bilinguals: The role of age of acquisition. Frontiers in Psychology, 2, 123.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tse, C.-S., Balota, D. A., Yap, M. J., Duchek, J. M., & McCabe, D. P. (2010). Effects of healthy aging and early-stage dementia of the Alzheimer's type on components of response time distributions in three attention tasks. Neuropsychology, 24, 300–315.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Unsworth, N., Spillers, G. J., Brewer, G. A., & McMillan, B. (2011). Attentional control and the antisaccade task: A response time distribution analysis. Acta Psychologica, 137, 90–100.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Van Zandt, T. (2002). Analysis of response time distributions. In Wixted, J. T. (ed.), Stevens’ handbook of experimental psychology (vol. 4): Methodology in experimental psychology (3rd edn.), pp. 461–516. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
West, R., Murphy, K. J., Armilio, M. L., Craik, F. I. M., & Stuss, D. T. (2002). Lapses of intention and performance variability reveal age-related increases in fluctuations of executive control. Brain and Cognition, 49, 402–419.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Yap, M. J., Tse, C.-S., & Balota, D. A. (2009). Individual differences in the joint effects of semantic priming and word frequency: The role of lexical integrity. Journal of Memory and Language, 63, 303–325.CrossRefGoogle Scholar