Bilingual 8-year-olds show no switching cost between blocked and mixed trial blocks, unlike monolinguals¶
Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · associationalr1·q3
Currency · newest study 2009 · checked against its sources 2026-10-20 (automated, 1 of 1 entry) · not reviewed by a person
Subclaims¶
Reading the evidence codes
q is the design tier, i the impact, n the sample, and the kind with its r
the rigour judged within that kind: what each code means.
This claim: no standardized effect is recorded in observations/ for it yet, so no benchmark reading is possible.
q3 i? Switching costs (mixed minus blocked RT) were greater for monolinguals than for either bilingual group, and the bilinguals' blocked and mixed RTs did not differ significantly. → Bialystok Ellen 2009
Evidence¶
Bialystok Ellen 2009¶
Bialystok Ellen, Viswanathan Mythili. (2009). Components of Executive Control with Advantages for Bilingual Children in Two Cultures. Cognition. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2009.06.014
q3 · i? · associational · r1
Cost analysis of the faces task in ninety 8-year-olds across three language groups. The article adds that "the bilinguals showed no cost of switching, with RT in blocked and mixed trials not significantly different, Fs < 1."
"Switching costs, calculated as the RT difference between blocked and mixed presentations (comparing Figures 2a and 3a with Figures 2b and 3b), led to a significant effect of language group, F (2, 87) = 102.55, p < .0001, again because of greater costs for the monolinguals"
Discussion¶
Related Claims¶
- Bilingual children in Canada and India perform equivalently, supporting bilingualism rather than culture or immigration as the advantage's source — related
- Bilingual 8-year-olds show smaller inhibitory-control costs than monolinguals on the faces task — related
- Bilingual and monolingual 8-year-olds do not differ in response suppression costs — related
- Bilingual children show no reaction time cost for their dual-task accuracy advantage — related
- Bilingual children show a general advantage in reading acquisition, especially when learning two alphabetic languages — related
- Switch costs and mixing costs are common empirical observations across language switching paradigms, except voluntary switching under certain circumstances
- Bilingually educated high-school students show smaller switching costs (greater cognitive flexibility) than regularly educated peers — related
- Target-alone RT is approximately 30 msec faster in blocked no-noise trials than in trials intermixed with noise conditions, indicating a preparatory inhibitory set — reports the opposite
Page metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
type |
claim |
id |
bilingual-children-no-switching-cost-faces-task |
title |
Bilingual 8-year-olds show no switching cost between blocked and mixed trial blocks, unlike monolinguals |
description |
Bilingual 8-year-olds show no switching cost between blocked and mixed trial blocks, unlike monolinguals |
status |
review |
evidence_strength |
moderate |
newest_evidence |
2009 |
source_checked |
2026-10-20 |
generated |
by process:wiki-ingest on 2026-10-17 |
trust |
unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content |
sources |
1 — bialystok-ellen-2009 |
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