Does language similarity affect mental control and language skills?

What is the hypothesized mechanism behind the bilingual executive function (EF) advantage?

The increased attentional control required to manage and select between two active languages is thought to provide lifelong training, enhancing general executive control.

Source: Bidialectalism and Bilingualism: Exploring the Role of Language Similarity as a Link Between Linguistic Ability and Executive Control · DOI · quote verified

What is the primary linguistic disadvantage proposed to affect bilinguals compared to monolinguals?

Bilinguals face disadvantages in lexical access due to the need to maintain more than one lexicon, leading to poorer performance on tasks like picture naming and verbal fluency.

Source: Bidialectalism and Bilingualism: Exploring the Role of Language Similarity as a Link Between Linguistic Ability and Executive Control · DOI · quote verified

According to the BIA+ model, why do bilinguals experience parallel activation of both languages?

The model suggests bilinguals have a shared mental lexicon, meaning word recognition automatically activates similar orthographic, phonological, or semantic representations from both languages.

Source: Bidialectalism and Bilingualism: Exploring the Role of Language Similarity as a Link Between Linguistic Ability and Executive Control · DOI · quote verified

What are the two opposing hypotheses regarding how language similarity affects executive control demands?

Similar languages could cause stronger cross-language interference requiring more executive control, or they could facilitate adaptation and lexical access, reducing executive control demands.

Source: Bidialectalism and Bilingualism: Exploring the Role of Language Similarity as a Link Between Linguistic Ability and Executive Control · DOI · quote verified

How does the paper define bidialectalism?

Bidialectalism is defined as speaking a dialect in addition to a standard language.

Source: Bidialectalism and Bilingualism: Exploring the Role of Language Similarity as a Link Between Linguistic Ability and Executive Control · DOI · quote verified

Why does the study advocate for using multiple tasks to measure the same executive function ability?

Using multiple tasks helps to prevent task-specific variance from being confounded with the actual underlying ability-level effects.

Source: Bidialectalism and Bilingualism: Exploring the Role of Language Similarity as a Link Between Linguistic Ability and Executive Control · DOI · quote verified

How did the researchers operationalize language similarity in this study?

They classified language similarity based on language families, assuming languages within the same family (e.g., Indo-European) share more overlapping properties than those from different families.

Source: Bidialectalism and Bilingualism: Exploring the Role of Language Similarity as a Link Between Linguistic Ability and Executive Control · DOI · quote verified

What four language groups were compared in this study?

Monolinguals, bidialectals, similar bilinguals, and dissimilar bilinguals.

Source: Bidialectalism and Bilingualism: Exploring the Role of Language Similarity as a Link Between Linguistic Ability and Executive Control · DOI · quote verified

What were the linguistic characteristics of the monolingual group in this study?

They were native speakers of only Standard German and had limited knowledge of the Swiss German dialect.

Source: Bidialectalism and Bilingualism: Exploring the Role of Language Similarity as a Link Between Linguistic Ability and Executive Control · DOI · quote verified

What were the linguistic characteristics of the bidialectal group in this study?

They were highly proficient, native speakers of both Standard German and the Swiss German dialect.

Source: Bidialectalism and Bilingualism: Exploring the Role of Language Similarity as a Link Between Linguistic Ability and Executive Control · DOI · quote verified

What were the specific inclusion criteria for a participant to qualify as bilingual in this study?

They must have learned an L2 before age seven (prior to formal schooling) and still actively use that L2.

Source: Bidialectalism and Bilingualism: Exploring the Role of Language Similarity as a Link Between Linguistic Ability and Executive Control · DOI · quote verified

How were similar and dissimilar bilinguals differentiated?

Similar bilinguals learned an L2 from the Indo-European family, while dissimilar bilinguals learned an L2 from a non-Indo-European family.

Source: Bidialectalism and Bilingualism: Exploring the Role of Language Similarity as a Link Between Linguistic Ability and Executive Control · DOI · quote verified

What assumption did the researchers make regarding the combination of speaking a dialect and speaking an additional language?

They assumed that speaking both a dialect and another language would have an additive effect on language control.

Source: Bidialectalism and Bilingualism: Exploring the Role of Language Similarity as a Link Between Linguistic Ability and Executive Control · DOI · quote verified

Which three tasks were used to assess linguistic ability in this study?

A verbal fluency task, a lexical decision task, and a word recognition task testing the concreteness effect.

Source: Bidialectalism and Bilingualism: Exploring the Role of Language Similarity as a Link Between Linguistic Ability and Executive Control · DOI · quote verified

How was linguistic performance measured in the verbal fluency task?

It was measured as the total number of unique words generated across several semantic categories within a 2-minute limit per category.

Source: Bidialectalism and Bilingualism: Exploring the Role of Language Similarity as a Link Between Linguistic Ability and Executive Control · DOI · quote verified

How were speed and accuracy measured in the lexical decision task?

Speed was assessed using mean log-transformed reaction times, while accuracy was computed using d-prime (d') detection performance.

Source: Bidialectalism and Bilingualism: Exploring the Role of Language Similarity as a Link Between Linguistic Ability and Executive Control · DOI

How were speed and accuracy assessed in the word recognition task?

They were measured via the performance difference (concreteness benefit) in reaction times and d-prime (d') when responding to abstract versus concrete words.

Source: Bidialectalism and Bilingualism: Exploring the Role of Language Similarity as a Link Between Linguistic Ability and Executive Control · DOI · quote verified

Which two tasks were selected to measure inhibitory control?

A flanker task and a Simon task.

Source: Bidialectalism and Bilingualism: Exploring the Role of Language Similarity as a Link Between Linguistic Ability and Executive Control · DOI · quote verified

What task paradigm was used to evaluate task switching and mixing?

Color-shape (figural) and parity-magnitude (numerical) switching tasks consisting of single-task blocks and mixed-task blocks.

Source: Bidialectalism and Bilingualism: Exploring the Role of Language Similarity as a Link Between Linguistic Ability and Executive Control · DOI · quote verified

How were switch costs calculated in the shifting tasks?

By subtracting the average reaction times of repeat trials from the average reaction times of switch trials within the mixed-task block.

Source: Bidialectalism and Bilingualism: Exploring the Role of Language Similarity as a Link Between Linguistic Ability and Executive Control · DOI · quote verified

How were mixing costs calculated in the shifting tasks?

By subtracting the average reaction times in single-task blocks from the average reaction times of repeat trials in the mixed-task block.

Source: Bidialectalism and Bilingualism: Exploring the Role of Language Similarity as a Link Between Linguistic Ability and Executive Control · DOI · quote verified

How was cognitive monitoring assessed in this study?

Participants completed a squares task and a digits task, requiring them to monitor changing objects and react when a specific spatial or numerical relation appeared.

Source: Bidialectalism and Bilingualism: Exploring the Role of Language Similarity as a Link Between Linguistic Ability and Executive Control · DOI · quote verified

What paradigm was used to assess Working Memory (WM)?

A figural and numerical version of the list-switching paradigm, requiring participants to hold two separate memory lists in mind for processing.

Source: Bidialectalism and Bilingualism: Exploring the Role of Language Similarity as a Link Between Linguistic Ability and Executive Control · DOI · quote verified

What test was used to ensure that the four groups were matched on non-verbal fluid intelligence?

A short computerized version of Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices (RAPM).

Source: Bidialectalism and Bilingualism: Exploring the Role of Language Similarity as a Link Between Linguistic Ability and Executive Control · DOI · quote verified

How were reaction time (RT) outliers defined and removed during data preprocessing?

Outliers were defined as reaction times that were more than three median absolute deviations away from the overall median.

Source: Bidialectalism and Bilingualism: Exploring the Role of Language Similarity as a Link Between Linguistic Ability and Executive Control · DOI · quote verified

Why did the researchers use Bayesian statistics instead of frequentist analyses?

Bayesian statistics allow the researchers to assess the strength of the evidence supporting both the alternative and the null hypotheses, rather than just rejecting the null.

Source: Bidialectalism and Bilingualism: Exploring the Role of Language Similarity as a Link Between Linguistic Ability and Executive Control · DOI · quote verified

What did the linear contrast analysis assume about language similarity across the groups?

It assumed that language similarity decreases monotonically across the four groups (from monolingual to bidialectal, similar bilingual, and dissimilar bilingual).

Source: Bidialectalism and Bilingualism: Exploring the Role of Language Similarity as a Link Between Linguistic Ability and Executive Control · DOI · quote verified

What was the main finding regarding the relationship between language similarity and linguistic performance?

Linguistic accuracy and speed decreased as language similarity decreased, although this linear trend was only statistically credible for accuracy.

Source: Bidialectalism and Bilingualism: Exploring the Role of Language Similarity as a Link Between Linguistic Ability and Executive Control · DOI · quote verified

What did pairwise comparisons reveal about linguistic accuracy differences between monolinguals and other groups?

There was substantial evidence for a bilingual cost in linguistic accuracy for dissimilar bilinguals, but the evidence was null for bidialectals and similar bilinguals.

Source: Bidialectalism and Bilingualism: Exploring the Role of Language Similarity as a Link Between Linguistic Ability and Executive Control · DOI · quote verified

What were the results of pairwise group comparisons for linguistic speed?

Comparisons between adjacent groups showed substantial evidence against any group differences in linguistic speed.

Source: Bidialectalism and Bilingualism: Exploring the Role of Language Similarity as a Link Between Linguistic Ability and Executive Control · DOI

Did the study find substantial evidence for a linear effect of language similarity on Executive Functions (EF)?

No, the evidence was weak and mostly supported the null hypothesis of no linear effect of language similarity on EF performance.

Source: Bidialectalism and Bilingualism: Exploring the Role of Language Similarity as a Link Between Linguistic Ability and Executive Control · DOI · quote verified

What specific EF benefit was found for bidialectals in the group comparisons?

Bidialectals outperformed monolinguals in Working Memory (WM) performance.

Source: Bidialectalism and Bilingualism: Exploring the Role of Language Similarity as a Link Between Linguistic Ability and Executive Control · DOI

Which continuous language experience predictors were strongly associated with lower linguistic accuracy?

A younger age of L2 acquisition, higher L2 proficiency, and a higher proportion of daily non-native language usage were all associated with lower linguistic accuracy.

Source: Bidialectalism and Bilingualism: Exploring the Role of Language Similarity as a Link Between Linguistic Ability and Executive Control · DOI · quote verified

What effects did native language (German) proficiency and age of acquisition have on EF measures?

A younger age of acquiring German predicted poorer monitoring, and higher German proficiency predicted poorer mixing, indicating a relative monolingual disadvantage in these areas.

Source: Bidialectalism and Bilingualism: Exploring the Role of Language Similarity as a Link Between Linguistic Ability and Executive Control · DOI · quote verified

What was a notable limitation of the monolingual control group in this study?

Monolinguals were not completely unexposed to other languages; on average, they had learned at least three languages later in life, and some used them frequently.

Source: Bidialectalism and Bilingualism: Exploring the Role of Language Similarity as a Link Between Linguistic Ability and Executive Control · DOI