Are language-cognition interactions bigger than a breadbox? Integrative modeling and design space thinking temper simplistic questions about causally dense phenomena.

We affirm the utility of integrative modeling, according to which it is advantageous to move beyond "one-at-a-time binary paradigms" through studies that position themselves within realistic multidimensional design spaces. We extend the integrative modeling approach to a target domain with which we are familiar, the consequences of bilingualism on mind and brain, often referred to as the "bilingual advantage." In doing so, we highlight work from our group consistent with integrative modeling.

Bilingual Language Experience and Its Effect on Conflict Adaptation in Reactive Inhibitory Control Tasks.

We used machine-learning techniques to assess interactions between language and cognitive systems related to inhibitory control and conflict adaptation in reactive control tasks. We built theoretically driven candidate models of Simon and Number Stroop task data (N = 777 adult bilinguals ages 18-43 years living in Montréal, Canada) that differed in whether bilingual experience interacted with inhibitory control, including two forms of conflict adaptation: shorter term sequential congruency effects and longer term trial order effects. Models with continuous aspects of bilingual experience provided signal in predicting new, unmodeled data. Specifically, mixed language usage predicted trial order adaptation to conflict. This effect was restricted to Number Stroop, which overtly involves linguistic or symbolic information and relatively higher language- and response-related uncertainty. These results suggest that bilingual experience adaptively tunes aspects of the control system and offers a novel integrative modeling approach that can be used to pursue other complex individual difference questions within the psychological sciences.

Scratching your tête over language-switched idioms: Evidence from eye-movement measures of reading.

Idioms are semantically non-compositional multiword units whose meanings often go beyond literal interpretations of their component words (e.g., break the ice, kick the bucket, spill the beans). According to hybrid models of idiom processing, idioms are subject to both direct retrieval from the lexicon in early stages of processing, and word-by-word compositional reanalysis in later stages of comprehension. However, a less clear aspect is how disrupting an idiom's canonical form, and thus its direct retrieval, impacts the time course of comprehension. In this eye-tracking reading study, healthy English-French bilingual adults with English as their dominant language read sentences containing English idioms in their canonical form (e.g., break the ice), or in a switched form where the phrase-final noun was translated into French (e.g., break the glace). Thus, within this manipulation, momentary language switches modified the canonical form of idioms, while at the same time minimally altering the semantics of their component words, thus nudging readers towards a compositional processing route. Analyses of eye-movement data revealed switching costs in longer reading times at early (but not late) processing stages for idioms compared to matched literal phrases. Interestingly, the cost of language switching was attenuated by the availability of a translationally equivalent idiom in the non-target language (French, e.g., briser la glace). Taken together, these results suggest that direct retrieval is the preferential route in the comprehension of idioms' canonical forms, which acts as an effective repair strategy by the language-processing system when recovering the underlying form of modified idioms.

Bridging interpersonal and ecological dynamics of cognition through a systems framework of bilingualism.

Human cognition occurs within social contexts, and nowhere is this more evident than language behavior. Regularly using multiple languages is a globally ubiquitous individual experience that is shaped by social environmental forces, ranging from interpersonal interactions to ambient language exposure. Here, we develop a Systems Framework of Bilingualism, where embedded layers of individual, interpersonal, and ecological sociolinguistic factors jointly predict people's language behavior. Of note, we quantify interpersonal and ecological language dynamics through the novel applications of language-tagged social network analysis and geospatial demographic analysis among 106 English-French bilingual adults in Montréal, Canada. Consistent with a Systems view, we found that people's individual language behavior, on a global level (i.e., overall language use), was jointly predicted by the language characteristics of their interpersonal social networks and the ambient linguistic patterns of their residential neighborhood environments, whereas more granular aspects of language behavior (i.e., word-level proficiency) was mainly driven by local, interpersonal social networks. Together, this work offers a novel theoretical framework, bolstered by innovative analytic techniques to quantify complex social information and empower more holistic assessments of multifaceted human behaviors and cognition, like language. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Bilingualism: A Neurocognitive Exercise in Managing Uncertainty.

Bilinguals have distinct linguistic experiences relative to monolinguals, stemming from interactions with the environment and the individuals therein. Theories of language control hypothesize that these experiences play a role in adapting the neurocognitive systems responsible for control. Here we posit a potential mechanism for these adaptations, namely that bilinguals face additional language-related uncertainties on top of other ambiguities that regularly occur in language, such as lexical and syntactic competition. When faced with uncertainty in the environment, people adapt internal representations to lessen these uncertainties, which can aid in executive control and decision-making. We overview a cognitive framework on uncertainty, which we extend to language and bilingualism. We then review two "case studies," assessing language-related uncertainty for bilingual contexts using language entropy and network scientific approaches. Overall, we find that there is substantial individual variability in the extent to which people experience language-related uncertainties in their environments, but also regularity across some contexts. This information, in turn, predicts cognitive adaptations associated with language fluency and engagement in proactive cognitive control strategies. These findings suggest that bilinguals adapt to the cumulative language-related uncertainties in the environment. We conclude by suggesting avenues for future research and links with other research domains. Ultimately, a focus on uncertainty will help bridge traditionally separate scientific domains, such as language processing, bilingualism, and decision-making.

Engaging proactive control: Influences of diverse language experiences using insights from machine learning.

We used insights from machine learning to address an important but contentious question: Is bilingual language experience associated with executive control abilities? Specifically, we assess proactive executive control for over 400 young adult bilinguals via reaction time (RT) on an AX continuous performance task (AX-CPT). We measured bilingual experience as a continuous, multidimensional spectrum (i.e., age of acquisition, language entropy, and sheer second language exposure). Linear mixed effects regression analyses indicated significant associations between bilingual language experience and proactive control, consistent with previous work. Information criteria (e.g., AIC) and cross-validation further suggested that these models are robust in predicting data from novel, unmodeled participants. These results were bolstered by cross-validated LASSO regression, a form of penalized regression. However, the results of both cross-validation procedures also indicated that similar predictive performance could be achieved through simpler models that only included information about the AX-CPT (i.e., trial type). Collectively, these results suggest that the effects of bilingual experience on proactive control, to the extent that they exist in younger adults, are likely small. Thus, future studies will require even larger or qualitatively different samples (e.g., older adults or children) in combination with valid, granular quantifications of language experience to reveal predictive effects on novel participants. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

The impact of a momentary language switch on bilingual reading: Intense at the switch but merciful downstream for L2 but not L1 readers.

We investigated whether cross-language activation is sensitive to shifting language demands and language experience during first and second language (i.e., L1, L2) reading. Experiment 1 consisted of L1 French-L2 English bilinguals reading in the L2, and Experiment 2 consisted of L1 English-L2 French bilinguals reading in the L1. Both groups read English sentences with target words serving as indices of cross-language activation: cross-language homographs, cognates, and matched language-unique control words. Critically, we manipulated whether English sentences contained a momentary language switch into French before downstream target words. This allowed us to assess the consequences of shifting language demands, both in the moment, and residually following a switch as a function of language experience. Switches into French were associated with a reading cost at the switch site for both L2 and L1 readers. However, downstream cross-language activation was larger following a switch only for L1 readers. These results suggest that cross-language activation is jointly sensitive to momentary shifts in language demands and language experience, likely reflecting different control demands faced by L2 versus L1 readers, consistent with models of bilingual processing that ascribe a primary role for language control. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Bilingual experience and resting-state brain connectivity: Impacts of L2 age of acquisition and social diversity of language use on control networks.

We investigated the independent contributions of second language (L2) age of acquisition (AoA) and social diversity of language use on intrinsic brain organization using seed-based resting-state functional connectivity among highly proficient French-English bilinguals. There were two key findings. First, earlier L2 AoA related to greater interhemispheric functional connectivity between homologous frontal brain regions, and to decreased reliance on proactive executive control in an AX-Continuous Performance Task completed outside the scanner. Second, greater diversity in social language use in daily life related to greater connectivity between the anterior cingulate cortex and the putamen bilaterally, and to increased reliance on proactive control in the same task. These findings suggest that early vs. late L2 AoA links to a specialized neural framework for processing two languages that may engage a specific type of executive control (e.g., reactive control). In contrast, higher vs. lower degrees of diversity in social language use link to a broadly distributed set of brain networks implicated in proactive control and context monitoring.

When Language Switching has No Apparent Cost: Lexical Access in Sentence Context.

We report two experiments that investigate the effects of sentence context on bilingual lexical access in Spanish and English. Highly proficient Spanish-English bilinguals read sentences in Spanish and English that included a marked word to be named. The word was either a cognate with similar orthography and/or phonology in the two languages, or a matched non-cognate control. Sentences appeared in one language alone (i.e., Spanish or English) and target words were not predictable on the basis of the preceding semantic context. In Experiment 1, we mixed the language of the sentence within a block such that sentences appeared in an alternating run in Spanish or in English. These conditions partly resemble normally occurring inter-sentential code-switching. In these mixed-language sequences, cognates were named faster than non-cognates in both languages. There were no effects of switching the language of the sentence. In Experiment 2, with Spanish-English bilinguals matched closely to those who participated in the first experiment, we blocked the language of the sentences to encourage language-specific processes. The results were virtually identical to those of the mixed-language experiment. In both cases, target cognates were named faster than non-cognates, and the magnitude of the effect did not change according to the broader context. Taken together, the results support the predictions of the Bilingual Interactive Activation + Model (Dijkstra and van Heuven, 2002) in demonstrating that bilingual lexical access is language non-selective even under conditions in which language-specific cues should enable selective processing. They also demonstrate that, in contrast to lexical switching from one language to the other, inter-sentential code-switching of the sort in which bilinguals frequently engage, imposes no significant costs to lexical processing.