학술논문

Neural differences in the temporal cascade of reactive and proactive control for bilinguals and monolinguals.
Document Type
Article
Source
Psychophysiology. Jun2021, Vol. 58 Issue 6, p1-21. 21p. 4 Diagrams, 4 Charts, 1 Graph.
Subject
*BILINGUALISM
*RESPONSE inhibition
*ATTENTION control
*INTERFERENCE suppression
*CONTROL (Psychology)
*STROOP effect
Language
ISSN
0048-5772
Abstract
This study explored differences in sustained top‐down attentional control (i.e., proactive control) and spontaneous types of control (i.e., reactive control) in bilingual and monolingual speakers. We modified a Color‐Word Stroop task to varying levels of conflict and included switching trials in addition to more "traditional" inhibition Stroop conditions. The task was administered during scalp electroencephalography (EEG) to evaluate the temporal course of cognitive control during trials. The behavioral Stroop effect was observed across the whole sample; however, there were no differences in accuracy or response time between the bilingual and monolingual groups. Event‐related potentials (ERPs) were calculated for the N200, N450, and conflict Sustained Potential (SP). On the pure‐blocked incongruent trials, the bilingual group displayed reduced signal during interference suppression (N450) and increased later signal, as indexed by the conflict SP. On the mixed‐block incongruent trials, both the bilinguals and monolinguals displayed increased later signal at the conflict SP. This suggests that proactive control may be a default mode for bilinguals on tasks requiring inhibition. In the switching trials, that place high demands on the executive control component of shifting, the language groups did not differ. Overall, these results suggest processing differences between bilinguals and monolinguals extend beyond early response inhibition processes. Greater integration of proactive and reactive control may be needed to sort conflicting language environments for bilinguals, which may be transferring to domain‐general mechanisms. This ERP study advances the literature on bilingual and monolingual processing of conflicting stimuli by demonstrating that language group differences extend beyond initial response inhibition processes. Bilinguals defaulted to greater proactive control activity on the inhibition trials of a Stroop task, which facilitated reductions in interference suppression. A greater integration of proactive and reactive control may be needed to sort conflicting language environments for bilinguals, which may be transferring to domain‐general mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]