title: Inhibition of non-target languages in multilingual word production: evidence from Uighur-Chinese-English trilinguals.
abstract: The present study examined the hypothesis whether non-target languages are inhibited during multilingual language production by examining the n-2 language repetition cost. In two experiments, Uighur-Chinese-English trilinguals named Arabic digits in one of their three languages according to a visually presented cue. Significant n-2 repetition costs were obtained in both experiments, which indicate that inhibition exists during multilingual word production. In addition, in Experiment 1, it was also found that the n-2 repetition cost was reduced when cues were highly compatible with the task, which means non-target languages are less inhibited. In Experiment 2, the n-2 repetition cost was increased at a shorter CSI. Taken together, these results indicate that inhibition of non-target languages occurs during multilingual language production, and that efficiency of establishing the target language task schema has an effect on the inhibitory control process.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning, Beijing Normal University, PR China. guotm@bnu.edu.cn
authors.forename: Taomei
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Guo
authors.forename: Fengqin
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Bingle
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Shengcao
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Li
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D003463:Cues; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007266:Inhibition, Psychological; D008297:Male; D019303:Multilingualism; D060865:Repetition Priming; D055815:Young Adult