TY - JOUR
T1 - The relationship between cognitive control and second language proficiency
AU - Luque, Alicia
AU - Morgan-Short, Kara
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by a doctoral dissertation improvement grant from the United States National Science Foundation NSF-DDIG- 1823898 awarded to Alicia Luque and Kara Morgan-Short and by the Audrey Lumsden-Kouvel Dissertation Fellowship from the University of Illinois at Chicago awarded to Alicia Luque. We would like to thank Ana Hernández, Helena Sullivan, and Bianca Trigo for their assistance with testing. Also, we thank Alicia Luque's dissertation committee members, Jennifer Cabrelli, Luis López, Judith F. Kroll, and Guillaume Thierry, as well as Julia Morales, for their advice and inestimable support throughout the project. Finally, we would like to express or gratitude to the editors and three anonymous reviewers for their careful reading of our manuscript and their many insightful comments and suggestions.
Funding Information:
Overall, the results of this study also support the hypothesis posited by the IC (Green, 1998) and BIA+ (Dijkstra & Van Heuven, 2002) models that propose that the amount of control that needs to be exerted for bilingual language control to occur is of a reactive nature. In addition, our results also support the hypothesis posited by Green and Abutalebi (2013) in their Adaptive Control Hypothesis (ACH) model, at least indirectly. The ACH situates reactive cognitive control as one of the underlying mechanisms that may allow the human mind and brain to accommodate the presence of two languages. In addition, the ACH argues that bilingual, language control may also involve the ability to coordinate different cognitive control processes to achieve proficient bilingual performance. Indeed, the results from our study suggest a role for reactive control in emerging bilinguals when reactive control is assessed with a complex cognitive control task. However, we did not find additional evidence for the ACH model as our results did not show a specific role for proactive cognitive control. In line with previous research, we interpret these findings as evidence that L2 proficiency and experience may modulate the type of cognitive control abilities that need to be utilized for efficient L2 selection and use to take place (e.g., Grant et al., 2015; Gullifer et al., 2018). Nonetheless, these null results should be interpreted carefully as this is the first study, to our knowledge, to specifically look at these dimensions of cognitive control with adult L2 learners at the intermediate level, and the null hypothesis can only be interpreted as a lack of evidence for a significant relationship. Finally, we note that our results also suggested a tentative role for speed of processing, given that there was a significant correlation between BY trials and L2 proficiency, although this predictor was not statistically significant in the regression.This work was supported by a doctoral dissertation improvement grant from the United States National Science Foundation NSF-DDIG- 1823898 awarded to Alicia Luque and Kara Morgan-Short and by the Audrey Lumsden-Kouvel Dissertation Fellowship from the University of Illinois at Chicago awarded to Alicia Luque. We would like to thank Ana Hern?ndez, Helena Sullivan, and Bianca Trigo for their assistance with testing. Also, we thank Alicia Luque's dissertation committee members, Jennifer Cabrelli, Luis L?pez, Judith F. Kroll, and Guillaume Thierry, as well as Julia Morales, for their advice and inestimable support throughout the project. Finally, we would like to express or gratitude to the editors and three anonymous reviewers for their careful reading of our manuscript and their many insightful comments and suggestions.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 The Author(s)
PY - 2021/2
Y1 - 2021/2
N2 - In the past 20 years, the field of bilingualism has made a substantial effort to better understand the set of cognitive mechanisms that allow bilinguals to functionally manage and use their languages. Among the mechanisms that have been identified, cognitive control has been posited to be key for proficient bilingual language processing and use. However, the role of cognitive control in developing bilingualism, i.e., among adult learners learning a second language (L2), is still unclear with some studies indicating a relationship between cognitive control and adult L2 development/developing bilingualism and other studies finding the opposite pattern. This set of contradictory findings merits further investigation in order to deepen our understanding of the role that cognitive control plays during the process of becoming bilingual. In the present study, we aimed to address this open question by examining the role of cognitive control among adult L2 learners of Spanish at the intermediate level using multiple behavioral measures as a way to provide a multidimensional perspective on the role of cognitive control and developing bilingualism. Our results indicate a significant relationship between cognitive control abilities, specific to reactive control, and overall L2 proficiency. We also found a significant relationship between speed of processing and overall L2 proficiency. The results of this study contribute to the existing body of knowledge on cognitive factors related to developing bilingualism and provide critical new insight into the underlying cognitive mechanisms that may contribute to adult L2 learners becoming bilingual.
AB - In the past 20 years, the field of bilingualism has made a substantial effort to better understand the set of cognitive mechanisms that allow bilinguals to functionally manage and use their languages. Among the mechanisms that have been identified, cognitive control has been posited to be key for proficient bilingual language processing and use. However, the role of cognitive control in developing bilingualism, i.e., among adult learners learning a second language (L2), is still unclear with some studies indicating a relationship between cognitive control and adult L2 development/developing bilingualism and other studies finding the opposite pattern. This set of contradictory findings merits further investigation in order to deepen our understanding of the role that cognitive control plays during the process of becoming bilingual. In the present study, we aimed to address this open question by examining the role of cognitive control among adult L2 learners of Spanish at the intermediate level using multiple behavioral measures as a way to provide a multidimensional perspective on the role of cognitive control and developing bilingualism. Our results indicate a significant relationship between cognitive control abilities, specific to reactive control, and overall L2 proficiency. We also found a significant relationship between speed of processing and overall L2 proficiency. The results of this study contribute to the existing body of knowledge on cognitive factors related to developing bilingualism and provide critical new insight into the underlying cognitive mechanisms that may contribute to adult L2 learners becoming bilingual.
KW - Bilingualism
KW - Cognitive control
KW - Individual differences
KW - Second language development
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85092932800&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.jneuroling.2020.100956
DO - 10.1016/j.jneuroling.2020.100956
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85092932800
SN - 0911-6044
VL - 57
JO - Journal of Neurolinguistics
JF - Journal of Neurolinguistics
M1 - 100956
ER -