Switch costs and mixing costs are common empirical observations across language switching paradigms, except voluntary switching under certain circumstances¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study (2 entries) · review r3 · q2
Currency · newest study 2015 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person · overdue for a recheck since 2020: baselines and conditions change

Subclaims¶

q2 i? Switch trials consistently show worse performance than repetition trials across many studies (switch costs). → Mathieu Declerck & Andrea M. Philipp 2015 q2 i? Performance is worse in mixed language blocks than in pure language blocks (mixing costs), a marker of sustained control processes. → Mathieu Declerck & Andrea M. Philipp 2015 (2)

Evidence¶

Mathieu Declerck & Andrea M. Philipp 2015¶

Mathieu Declerck & Andrea M. Philipp. (2015). A review of control processes and their locus in language switching. Psychon Bull Rev. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-015-0836-1

q2 · i? · review · r3

The review reports, citing multiple behavioral studies (e.g., Meuter and Allport; Costa and Santesteban), that "worse performance in switch trials relative to performance in repetition trials"—the switch cost—is a robust finding in cued language switching production tasks. No effect sizes are printed.

"an abundance of studies have observed worse performance in switch trials relative to performance in repetition trials"

Mathieu Declerck & Andrea M. Philipp 2015 (2)¶

Mathieu Declerck & Andrea M. Philipp. (2015). A review of control processes and their locus in language switching. Psychon Bull Rev. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-015-0836-1

q2 · i? · review · r3

The review reports, citing numerous studies, that "performance is worse in mixed language blocks than in pure language blocks"—the mixing cost—interpreted as a marker of sustained, relatively global control processes reflecting between-language interference. No effect sizes are printed.

"A multitude of studies have shown that performance is worse in mixed language blocks than in pure language blocks"

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• Language proficiency moderates switch cost asymmetry, but highly proficient bilinguals still show n-2 language repetition costs consistent with inhibition
• Asymmetrical switch costs are not an unambiguous marker of inhibition: they depend on task type and bilingual profile, and admit non-inhibitory explanations
• Concept preparation reduces L1 switch costs, indicating language control can initiate at the concept level
• N-2 language repetition costs are a less ambiguous marker of inhibition in language switching, though their pattern across languages is inconsistent
• Orthographic specificity moderates comprehension-based switching costs: language-specific orthography can abolish or alter mixing and switch costs
• Phonological processing is affected by and affects language control in switching, though effects are not uniform across studies
• Sentence-level (lemma) processing affects language switching: switch costs occur between sentences and depend on syntactic structure
• Bilingually educated high-school students show smaller switching costs (greater cognitive flexibility) than regularly educated peers
• Bilingual 8-year-olds show no switching cost between blocked and mixed trial blocks, unlike monolinguals