Relationship between language switching experience and executive functions in bilinguals: an Internet-based study

: Jylkkä J, Soveri A, Wahlström J, Lehtonen M, Rodríguez-Fornells A, Laine M

Publisher: ROUTLEDGE JOURNALS, TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD

: 2017

: Journal of Cognitive Psychology

: JOURNAL OF COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY

: J COGN PSYCHOL

: 29

: 4

: 404

: 419

: 16

: 2044-5911

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/20445911.2017.1282489

We examined the relationship between self-reported everyday language switching experience and the performance of early bilinguals in tasks measuring different executive functions. Our participants were Finnish-Swedish early bilinguals, aged 16-41 years (N=66, Experiment 1) and 18-69 years (N=111, Experiment 2). An earlier study using a sample from a similar population discovered a negative relationship between self-reported language switching and a mixing cost in error rates in a number-letter task. This finding was not replicated. Instead, we found that a higher rate of reported contextual language switching predicted larger switching cost reaction times in the number-letter task, and that a higher rate of reported unintended language switches predicted larger error rates in a spatial n-back task. We conclude that these results likely reflect individual differences in executive skills, and do not provide evidence for the hypothesis that language switching trains executive functions.