title: Inhibition in language switching: what is inhibited when switching between languages in naming tasks?
abstract: When people switch between languages, inhibition of currently irrelevant languages is assumed to occur. The authors examined inhibition of irrelevant languages with a cued language-switching paradigm. A cue indicated in which of 3 languages (German, English, or French) a visual stimulus was to be named. In 2 experiments, the authors found that naming latencies were increased in n-2 language repetitions (e.g., German/English/German) compared with in n-2 language nonrepetitions (e.g., French/English/German). This difference (n-2 repetition costs) indicates persisting inhibition of abandoned languages. It is important to note that n-2 language-repetition costs also occurred in conditions in which the language but not the cue (Experiment 1) or the stimulus/response set (Experiment 2) repeated from trial n-2 to trial n. These data demonstrate that inhibition is not restricted to a specific cue or stimulus/response set. Rather, the data suggest more global inhibitory processes that affect the mental representation of competing languages.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Psychology, RWTH Aachen University, Jägerstrasse 17-19, D-52066 Aachen, Germany. philipp@psych.rwth-aachen.de
authors.forename: Andrea M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Philipp
authors.forename: Iring
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Koch
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D003463:Cues; D004193:Discrimination Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007266:Inhibition, Psychological; D007802:Language; D008297:Male; D019303:Multilingualism; D009275:Names; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D013997:Time Factors; D055815:Young Adult