Inhibition in language switching: what is inhibited when switching between languages in naming tasks?

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.

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