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Multilingual Experience and Cognitive Flexibility: Behavioral and Neural Correlates of Task Switching
Poster Session E, Friday, October 2, 11:00 am - 1:00 pm, Wangari Maathai
This poster is part of the Sandbox Series.
Alexandra Schreiber1,2, Rahel Wombacher1,2, Amelie Haugg1, Iliana I. Karipidis1,2,3, Raphael Berthele4, Narly Golestani5,6,7, Silvia Brem1,2,3,8; 1Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University Hospital of Psychiatry Zurich, University of Zurich, Switzerland, 2Neuroscience Center Zurich, University of Zurich and ETH Zurich, Switzerland, 3Competence Center for Language and Medicine, University of Zurich, 4Institute of Multilingualism, University of Fribourg, Switzerland, 5Faculty of Psychology and Education Science, Department of Psychology, University of Geneva, Switzerland, 6Vienna Cognitive Science Hub, University of Vienna, Austria, 7Faculty of Life Sciences, Department of Behavioural and Cognitive Biology, University of Vienna, Austria, 8University Research Priority Program (URPP), Adaptive Brain Circuits in Development and Learning (AdaBD), University of Zurich, Switzerland
Cognitive flexibility, the ability to adapt thoughts and behavior in response to changing demands, is a core component of executive functioning and plays a critical role in communication, learning, and problem-solving. Multilingualism has been proposed to influence cognitive flexibility, as managing multiple languages may strengthen attentional control and mental switching processes (Bialystok, 2017). However, findings regarding multilingual advantages remain mixed, particularly in adults (Nichols et al., 2020). The present study investigates the behavioral and neural correlates of cognitive flexibility and explores how multilingual language experience may relate to task-switching performance and associated neural activation patterns. Cognitive flexibility was assessed using a novel audiovisual rule-switching task during fMRI. Each trial began with a cue indicating the relevant modality (visual or auditory), followed by simultaneous but incongruent auditory and visual stimuli. Participants categorized the cued stimulus as “food” or “toy” while ignoring the competing modality. The task contained 49 trials: one unclassified initial trial, followed by 24 switch and 24 nonswitch trials. Trials were classified as switch when the cued modality differed from the previous trial and nonswitch when it remained the same. Data was collected from 52 adults growing up primarily monolingual (19.03-33.94 years; M = 25.52 ± 3.60; 40 female), with recruitment of approximately 20 multilingual participants ongoing. Behavioral analyses focused on accuracy and reaction times (RTs) to quantify switch costs by comparing switch and nonswitch trials. Preprocessing and statistical analyses of the fMRI were conducted in SPM12. First-level GLMs modeled switch and nonswitch conditions, and whole-brain analyses examined switch > nonswitch contrasts (pCDT < .001, pFWEc < .05). Participants additionally completed the Language Experience and Proficiency Questionnaire (LEAP-Q), from which language entropy measures will be derived to assess multilingual language use (Gullifer & Titone, 2020). Ongoing analyses will investigate the relationship between language entropy, behavioral switch costs, and neural activation patterns associated with cognitive flexibility. Participants showed significant switch costs, with slower RTs and lower accuracy on switch relative to nonswitch trials (RT: t(51) = 6.78, p < .001; accuracy: t(51) = -4.02, p < .001), although accuracy remained near ceiling overall (nonswitch: M = 0.98 ± 0.03; switch: M = 0.97 ± 0.05). At the neural level, switch trials elicited greater activation within frontoparietal cognitive control regions, including dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, anterior cingulate cortex, pre-supplementary motor area, superior and inferior parietal lobules. Preliminary findings indicate reliable behavioral and neural correlates of cognitive flexibility during task switching, reflected in significant switch costs and increased activation within frontoparietal cognitive control regions. Ongoing recruitment of multilingual participants and planned analyses incorporating LEAP-Q-derived language entropy measures will allow us to test whether greater multilingual language experience is associated with reduced behavioral switch costs and more efficient neural recruitment during cognitive flexibility tasks. Specifically, we hypothesize that individuals with higher multilingualism indices may show faster switching performance and reduced reliance on domain-general cognitive control regions, reflecting more efficient attentional control processes. Future work will extend this paradigm to kindergarten-aged children to investigate how multilingual experience may shape the development of cognitive flexibility.
Topic Areas: Multilingualism, Control, Selection, and Executive Processes