The impact of cues on language switching: do spoken questions reduce the need for bilingual language control?

Abstract

The classical language switching paradigm using arbitrary cues to indicate the language to speak in has revealed switching between languages comes at a cost (i.e., switch cost) and makes one slower in the first than in the second language (i.e., reversed language dominance). However, arbitrary cues can create artificial requirements not present during everyday language interactions. Therefore, we investigated whether simulating elements of real-life conversations with question cues (‘Co?’ versus ‘What?’) facilitates language switching in comparison to the classical paradigm (Experiment 1: red versus blue outline; Experiments 2 and 3: low versus high tone). We revealed a dissociation between the two indices of language control: (1) question cues, compared to arbitrary cues, reduced switch costs but (2) did not modulate (in Experiment 1) or increase the reversed language dominance (Experiments 2 and 3). We propose that this conversational switching paradigm could be used as a conceptually more ‘true’ measure of language control.