Cognitive control and word recognition speed influence the Stroop effect in bilinguals

Whether implicit attitudes exist is one question, and whether we can measure individual differences effectively is another

Questions about measurement of individual differences in implicit attitudes, which have been the focus so far in this exchange, should be distinguished from more general questions about whether implicit attitudes exist and operate in our minds. Theorists frequently move too quickly from pessimistic results regarding the first set of questions to pessimistic conclusions about the second. That is, they take evidence that indirect measures such as the implicit association test (IAT) disappoint as individual difference measures and use it to (mistakenly) suggest that people do not in fact have implicit attitudes directed at stigmatized groups. In this commentary, I dissect this mistake in detail, drawing key lessons from a parallel debate that has unfolded in cognitive science about “conflict tasks” such as the Stroop task. I argue that the evidence overall supports a nuanced conclusion: Indirect measures such as the IAT measure individual differences in implicit attitudes poorly, but they—via distinct lines of evidence—still support the view that implicit attitudes exist.

This article is categorized under:

Psychology > Theory and Methods

Neurocognitive Profiles Associated With Limited English Proficiency in Cognitively Intact Adults

OBJECTIVE

The objective of the present study was to examine the neurocognitive profiles associated with limited English proficiency (LEP).

METHOD

A brief neuropsychological battery including measures with high (HVM) and low verbal mediation (LVM) was administered to 80 university students: 40 native speakers of English (NSEs) and 40 with LEP.

RESULTS

Consistent with previous research, individuals with LEP performed more poorly on HVM measures and equivalent to NSEs on LVM measures-with some notable exceptions.

CONCLUSIONS

Low scores on HVM tests should not be interpreted as evidence of acquired cognitive impairment in individuals with LEP, because these measures may systematically underestimate cognitive ability in this population. These findings have important clinical and educational implications.

The modality switching costs of Chinese-English bilinguals in the processing of L1 and L2

Modality switching cost indicates that people's performance becomes worse when they judge sequential information that is related to different sensory modalities than judging information that is related to the same modality. In this study, we conducted three experiments on proficient and non-proficient bilingual individuals to investigate the modality switching costs in L1 and L2 processing separately. In Experiment 1, materials were L1 and L2 words that were either conceptually related to a visual modality (e.g., light) or related to an auditory modality (e.g., song). The modality switching costs were investigated in a lexical decision task in both L1 and L2. Experiment 2 further explored the modality switching costs while weakening the activation level of the perceptual modality by adding a set of fillers. Experiment 3 used a word-naming task to explore the modality switching effect in language production in L1 and L2. Results of these experiments showed that the modality switching costs appeared in both language comprehension and production in L1 and L2 conditions. The magnitude of the modality switching costs was conditionally modulated by the L2 proficiency level, such as in the L2 condition in Experiment 1 and in both L1 and L2 conditions in Experiment 3. These results suggest that sensorimotor simulation is involved in not only language comprehension but also language production. The sensorimotor simulation that is acquired in L1 can be transferred to L2.

How is musical activity associated with cognitive ability in later life?

Research has suggested that individuals who play a musical instrument throughout adulthood have better preserved executive function. However, mixed results have been found for associations between musical activity and visuo-spatial abilities, and less is known about associations with fluid intelligence. We explored differences between musicians (N = 30) and non-musicians (N = 30) aged 60-93 years old across a range of neuropsychological measures of cognitive function. Musicians performed significantly better than non-musicians on all domains, which remained after adjusting for age, gender, educational history, languages spoken and physical activity. As a cross-sectional comparison, the results should not be overstated; however, they are consistent with findings suggesting learning a musical instrument throughout the life course may be associated with cognitive benefits. Identifying potential lifestyle factors that have cognitive benefits in later life, such as musical experience, is an important step in developing intervention strategies for cognitive aging.

The influence of contextual faces on bilingual language control

How do faces with social-cultural identity affect bilingual language control? We approach this question by looking at the switch cost patterns and reversed language dominance effect, which are suggested to reflect bilingual language control mechanisms, in the absence (i.e., baseline context) or presence of faces with socio-cultural identity (Asian or Caucasian). In separate blocks, the face matched (i.e., congruent context) or mismatched (i.e., incongruent context) the language to be spoken. In addition, cue preparation time was manipulated to be long (Experiment 1) or short (Experiment 2). In both experiments, a unique asymmetric switch cost with larger costs for L2 was observed in the congruent context as compared with the baseline and incongruent contexts. Furthermore, the reversed language dominance effect was not modulated across contexts. These results suggest a critical role of contextual faces in modulating local but not global language control. Thus, bilingual language control changes flexibly within an environment that includes faces with socio-cultural identity.

The Effect of Cognates on Cognitive Control in Late Sequential Multilinguals: A Bilingual Advantage?

The present study investigated the influence of Dutch-German cognates resp. orthographic neighbors on controlled language processing (i.e., response inhibition). Two monolingual Stroop tasks (Dutch and German) were performed by Dutch-speaking participants who could and could not speak German, and by French-speaking participants who could speak German. The question is whether or not cognate language processing affects cognitive control, resulting in a possible bilingual advantage. In the German Stroop task, we found additional advantages in congruent, as well as incongruent, trials for the two Dutch-speaking groups, which postulates the existence of a cognate resp. orthographic neighbor facilitation effect, even when participants only know one of the two cognate languages. The findings are discussed in relation to two possible factors that can modulate the effect of bilingualism on cognitive control: cognateness and orthographic neighborhood. The results suggest the existence of a notification mechanism in the bilingual brain. This mechanism would notify the bilingual brain when dealing with cognates and orthographic neighbors.

Dissociating the neural substrates for inhibition and shifting in domain-general cognitive control

Inhibition and shifting are two key components of domain-general cognitive control. Numerous studies have investigated the neural substrates of both components, but it is still unclear whether the relevant brain regions are specifically involved in one specific component or commonly engaged in both components. Here, we addressed this question by using functional magnetic resonance imaging and a modified saccade paradigm that was effective to disentangle inhibition and shifting in one experiment. The results showed that both the middle frontal gyrus and left parietal lobe were involved in both components but the middle frontal gyrus was more active for the inhibition while the inferior parietal lobe was more active for the shifting processing. The outcome suggests that, although both regions are engaged in inhibition and shifting, each plays a dominant role in one component. These findings provide a further insight into the neural dissociation in inhibition and shifting, as well as a better explanation on the framework of unity and diversity from a neuropsychological viewpoint.

Cardiorespiratory Fitness Is Associated with Executive Control in Late-Middle-Aged Adults: An Event-Related (De) Synchronization (ERD/ERS) Study

The present study sought to determine whether cardiorespiratory fitness is associated with cognitive function in late-middle-aged adults from event-related desynchronization (ERD) and event-related synchronization (ERS) perspectives. Late-middle-aged adults were categorized into either the high-fitness group or the low-fitness group based on their estimated cardiorespiratory fitness values. The participants completed the Stroop Test, which is comprised of incongruent and neutral conditions, while the brain activities were recoded. The alpha ERD and ERS values based on the equation proposed by Pfurtscheller (1977) were further calculated. The results revealed that the adults with higher levels of cardiorespiratory fitness demonstrated superior Stroop performance, regardless of Stroop congruency. While these high-fitness adults had less positive upper alpha ERD values in the later epoch window compared to their lower-fitness counterparts, they had greater lower alpha ERD values in the early epoch window. Additionally, in the late epoch window, the high-fitness adults showed less positive lower alpha ERD values on neutral, but not incongruent condition, relative to their low-fitness counterparts. These findings suggest that cardiorespiratory fitness of the late-middle-aged adults is positively associated with cognitive functioning, especially the cognitive processes related to the inhibition of task-irrelevant information and those processes required the devotion of greater amounts of attentional resources to a given task.