The effects of language-switching contexts on cognition of Polish-English bilinguals
Open Access
- Author:
- Badanova, Maria
- Area of Honors:
- Psychology
- Degree:
- Bachelor of Arts
- Document Type:
- Thesis
- Thesis Supervisors:
- Michele Diaz, Thesis Supervisor
Richard Alan Carlson, Thesis Honors Advisor - Keywords:
- bilingualism
language-switching
adaptive control hypothesis
map game task
cognitive demand - Abstract:
- Evidence suggests that bilingualism (speaking two or more languages) may be beneficial for executive cognitive functions. The adaptive control hypothesis proposes that different interactional contexts place different cognitive demands on bilinguals and being in these environments may influence both language and cognitive abilities. In the present study, we investigated whether the amount of language-switching is one factor that leads to increased cognitive demand. Twenty-four Polish-English bilinguals participated in the study; all were native Polish speakers (L1) with high English proficiency (L2). A within-subjects design included 3 sessions in counterbalanced order: L1, L2, or Switch (L1/L2). One session lasted approximately 2 hours and consisted of the participant playing an interactive map game with 2 confederates. This was an adapted task aiming to recreate a naturalistic bilingual experience in a laboratory setting through unscripted verbal communication. Performance on the map game task was also used as an indicator of cognitive demand. At the end of each session, the participant completed a self-report questionnaire of the perceived effort on the task. The results showed that the participants perceived the L1 condition as significantly less effortful than the L2 and Switch conditions. However, in terms of the task performance, there were no differences across conditions: the participants performed very well in every interactional context. This study contributes to the growing field of bilingualism research and explores a novel procedure designed to investigate interactional contexts.