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Bilingualism

Do bilinguals' brains handle Stroop conflict differently?

Heidlmayr K, Hemforth B, Moutier S, et al. · Frontiers in psychology · 2015

Open access · cc by · source: Europe PMC

Bilinguals and monolinguals performed identically on a Stroop colour task, but bilinguals showed smaller conflict-related brain responses in later processing stages, hinting at more efficient conflict handling that behaviour did not reveal.

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Study at a glance

Design
Cross-sectional — Between-group comparison (bilinguals vs matched monolinguals) on a within-subject Stroop and negative-priming colour task with 64-channel EEG and dipole source analysis
N
N=44 · 44 right-handed adults: 22 late, non-balanced French-German bilinguals and 22 French monolinguals
Population
Young adults living in France, tested at Paris Descartes University; bilinguals began German at secondary school around age 10
Outcome
Reaction times and errors; Stroop and negative-priming effects on the N200, N400 and late sustained negativity; source activity in anterior cingulate and prefrontal cortex

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Key findings

Both groups showed the usual slowing on incongruent and negative-priming trials, and there was no group difference in speed or errors. In the Stroop comparison, monolinguals showed an N400 effect and a late sustained negativity at central sites that bilinguals did not, which the authors read as a bilingual advantage in suppressing interference and resolving conflict. No group difference appeared for negative priming, although bilinguals who used their second language more often had a smaller negative-priming N400 effect. Source analysis suggested the ACC was active early and the left PFC later, a sequence driven mainly by the bilingual group.

Methodology

The researchers recorded EEG from 22 French-German bilinguals who learned German at school and 22 French monolinguals while they pressed keys to report the ink colour of words. Trials were congruent (word and ink match), incongruent (they clash), neutral (non-colour words), or negative priming (the ink colour was the word they had just had to ignore on the previous trial). They compared ERP effects in three time windows (N200, N400 and a late sustained negativity), estimated when the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and prefrontal cortex (PFC) became active, and correlated effects with bilinguals' language-use measures.

Limitations

The 'advantage' appears only in brain measures, with no behavioural difference, and depends on effects at a few central electrodes found partly through follow-up analyses, so it may not replicate. Groups were not randomly assigned, so differences could reflect other traits of people who become bilingual, even though some factors like music and gaming were checked. The absence of any bilingual benefit on the harder negative-priming task went against the authors' prediction and was explained after the fact. Source localisation from scalp EEG with a fixed dipole model gives only rough spatial information, and the sample of 22 per group is modest for a group-by-condition interaction.

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