The Effect of Executive Control Training on Language Control of Chinese-English Bilinguals with Different Working Memory Updating Ability

Li Ying; Li Lin; Pan Jiabing; Lu Xiaoxiao; Wang Yue

doi:10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20240507

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Journal of Psychological Science ›› 2024, Vol. 47 ›› Issue (5) : 1088-1095. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20240507

The Effect of Executive Control Training on Language Control of Chinese-English Bilinguals with Different Working Memory Updating Ability

Li Ying^1,2, Li Lin^3,4, Pan Jiabing⁵, Lu Xiaoxiao⁶, Wang Yue¹

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Abstract

An increasing number of researches have shown that bilinguals have certain advantages in executive control function, which is due to the multilingual language control process to avoid the interference from unexpected languages. However, it is controversial that what cognitive processing is shared between the processes of language control and executive control.
To further investigate whether the ability of domain-general executive control can also affect language control of bilinguals and whether individual differences of working memory updating is an important factor of the relationship between bilinguals' language control and their executive control function, the present study focused on the effect of executive control function training on the language control of Chinese-English bilinguals with different working memory updating abilities. Participants were divided into two different experimental groups according to the scores of their working memory updating test. Then, both experimental groups were trained on their executive control function using the Simon task. The executive control function training task was conducted two times with one week apart. A pre-test of language switching task was conducted before training, and a post-test of language switching task was conducted immediately and four months later after the training. Some other homogeneous participants were selected as the control group, which were conducted the same pre-test and post-test of language switching tasks only without the executive control function training.
The results showed that: (1)Compared with the control group, there was a significant difference in participants' language switch costs of experimental group between the pre-test and post-test of language switching tasks. After the executive control training, their language switching costs were decreased both in the immediate and in the long-term post-tests. (2) Compared with the participants with high working memory updating ability and control group, those with low working memory updating ability showed a more obvious reduction of language switching costs after executive control function training. However, there was no significant difference on the mixed costs among three groups both in the pre-test and post-test of language switching tasks. (3) Before and after executive control training, switching from L1to L2 was always faster than that from L2 to L1, showing the unbalanced effect of language shift in Chinese-English bilinguals.
The whole results indicated that executive control function training has an instant and also a long-term effect of promoting the language control of Chinese-English bilinguals, especially for those with low working memory updating ability. That is, working memory updating ability can mediate the facilitation of executive control function training on bilinguals' language control. Further, there was still the unbalanced effect of language switching after executive control training, suggesting that the transfer effect from executive control function to bilingual language control cannot fully compensate for the role of second language experience to Chinese-English bilinguals. The proficiency of second language directly affected the language switching efficiency. Therefore, bilingual's language control and executive control function have some certain connection or overlap in cognitive mechanism, but the former still has its own cognitive mechanism which is specific to executive control function.

Key words

executive control training / working memory updating / bilingual language control / switching costs

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Li Ying, Li Lin, Pan Jiabing, Lu Xiaoxiao, Wang Yue. The Effect of Executive Control Training on Language Control of Chinese-English Bilinguals with Different Working Memory Updating Ability[J]. Journal of Psychological Science. 2024, 47(5): 1088-1095 https://doi.org/10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20240507

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