An Investigation Of The Loci Of Bilingual Switch Costs During Reading Comprehension

In the present study, we examined whether the comprehension of language switches can be accounted for exclusively by activation dynamics within the lexicon, or whether there is evidence that cognitive general control processes outside of the lexicon are also engaged. In Experiment 1 we compared the fixation durations made on words embedded in either language pure or language switched sentences. The critical words were either cognates or non-cognate controls and served as the switch point in the language switched versions of the sentences. An overall switch cost was observed, which did not interact with cognate status or direction of the switch. In Experiment 2, we found that the language switch cost was attenuated when a non-linguistic color cue was present. These findings are most consistent with a general task-switching mechanism that operates outside of the lexicon