Language Switching Frequency in Bilinguals is Inconsistently Linked to Executive Functioning Hunter Johnson 1, Oliver Sawi 1,2, Kenneth Paap 1 ; 1 San Francisco State University, 2 University of Connecticut Frequency of Language Switching as a Continuous Variable Language switching may recruit EFs associated with general inhibitory control and task switching. If true, then bilinguals accrue massive amounts of practice that should generalize across cognitive domains and make bilinguals less vulnerable to interference in nonlinguistic tasks and better task switchers. Language switching may rely on language-specific mechanisms. If true, then language switching should not enhance general inhibitory control or the ability to switch tasks. The modular assumption is consistent with research showing that language- switching performance does not correlate with performance on nonverbal switching tasks and that general switching can be impaired while language switching is not (Calabria et al, 2015). H1: Language Switching Tunes Executive Functioning (EF) Verreyt et al. drew a rather strong conclusion stating that switching frequency the “key determinant” in potentiating a bilingual advantage in EF. The evidence supporting that conclusion was based on their report that high- switch bilinguals had smaller Simon and flanker effects compared to low-switch bilinguals. However, no significant differences on nonverbal measures of inhibitory control were obtained either by Yim and Bialystok (2012) or in the analyses of our composite database. Thus, the evidence for a high-switch advantage in inhibitory control is currently weak at best. I usually switch from one language to the other: Rated Proficiency * 1. a couple of times a month  low switch 2. a couple of times a week  low switch L1=6.25 L2= a couple of times a day  low switch 4. several times a day  high switch L1=6.25 L2= dozens of times a day  high switch monolingual L1=6.61 * 6 =as fluent as a native Verreyt et al., (2014) compared balanced Dutch- French bilinguals who rarely switched to balanced bilinguals who switched frequently. The frequent switchers showed smaller flanker and Simon interference effects but no differences in global RT. The small n’s (20 and 17) warrant further investigation. Also, Verreyt et al. did not include a group of monolingual participants. If frequent switching between languages hones EF then the high-switch bilinguals should show advantages compared to monolinguals as well as to the low- switch groups. H2: Language Switching is Independent of EF Prior & MacWhinney (2010) yes Prior & Gollan (2011) in 1 of 2 groups with covariate Prior & Gollan (2013) no Paap & Greenberg (2013) Study 1: no Study 2: no Study 3: no Hernández et al., (2013) Exp. 1: no Exp. 2: no Exp. 3: no Paap & Sawi (2014) no Mor et al. (2014): no Moradzadah, et al. (2014): no Paap et al. (2015): no for 3 different tasks A composite database from Paap & Greenberg, Study 3 (2013) and Paap & Sawi (2014) enabled selection of: 40 highly proficient bilinguals who switch frequently, 56 highly proficient bilinguals who switch infrequently, and 66 monolinguals with little or no exposure to an L2. Who We Tested Results for Several Measures of EF Our Final Thoughts Are there bilingual advantages in switching costs? In a final attempt to uncover any association between frequency of switching and EF we computed Spearman’s rho for each of the EF measures on the set of bilinguals with L2 proficiencies ranging from 4 to 7. All of the correlations were nonsignificant with p’s ranging from.309 to.954 and with five negative correlations and three positive. Do higher rates of language switching boost EF? Accuracy and RT were compared for a Simon task, flanker task, and color-shape switching task. Results showed no advantages for high-switch bilinguals over low-switch bilinguals or for any bilingual group over monolinguals. Results for Global RT Calabria, M., Branzi, F. M., Marne, P., Herńandez, M., & Costa, A. (2015). Age-related effects over bilingual language control and executive conrol. Bilingualism: Language & Cognition, 18(1), Paap, K. R. & Greenberg, Z. I. (2013). There is no coherent evidence for a bilingual advantage in executive processing. Cognitive Psychology, 66, Paap, K. R., & Sawi, O. (2014). Bilingual advantages in executive function: problems in convergent validity, discriminant validity, and identification of the theoretical constructs. Frontiers in Psychology, 5:962, Verreyt, N., Woumans, E., Vandelanotte, D., Szmalec, A., & Duyck, W. (2015). The influence of language switching experience on the bilingual executive control advantage. Bilingualism: Language & Cognition. References