Schedule of Events | Symposia

The source of costs in language switching: evidence from ERP and behavioral measures

Poster Session E - Monday, March 31, 2025, 2:30 – 4:30 pm EDT, Back Bay Ballroom/Republic Ballroom

Kalinka Timmer¹ (k.timmer@uw.edu.pl), Agata Wolna², Hanna Cwynar¹, Zofia Wodniecka³; ¹University of Warsaw (Poland), ²Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), ³Jagiellonian University (Poland)

Bilinguals incur a cost when switching between languages in the traditional language switching paradigm. However, bilinguals effortlessly switch languages during everyday conversations. To investigate the source of language-switch costs, in Experiment-1, 69 Polish-English bilinguals named pictures in their L1 and L2 based on auditory arbitrary (low vs. high tones) and question cues (‘Co?’ vs. ‘What?’). The switch cost (language switch − repeat trials) was reduced in question (52ms) compared to arbitrary cues (91ms). ERPs revealed the source of easier switching following questions: reduced selective attention to cue-processing (N1: tone > L2 > L1 cues), no cue-updating for language-switch costs that is present for tone cues (N2: repeat > switch), and earlier reconfiguration of the cue-to-language-reponse mapping (LPC: question < tones). Thus, question cues show more efficient cue-processing (N1) and language-switching (N2 and LPC). Next, we investigated (1) to what extent the switch cost reflects cue-switch costs (cue-switch-but-language-repeat − full repeat trials) and (2) whether question cues trigger both the language to use and the communicative goal. In Experiment-2 and Experiment-3, bilinguals (67 and 52) named pictures based on auditory question cues (‘What’s this?’/‘And this?’ in Polish vs. English) and auditory arbitrary cues (Experiment-2: low/high tones played by piano vs. violin; Experiment-3: ‘Tuesday’/‘Thursday’ in Polish vs. English). Cue-switch costs were smallest for question cues (Exp-2: 31ms; Exp-3: 31ms) than language cues (72ms) than tone cues (188ms). Thus, language-switch costs may partially reflect cue-processing, with question (vs. tone) cues activating the corresponding language and (vs. language) cues activating the goal of speaking.

Topic Area: LANGUAGE: Other