The "weaker links" hypothesis proposes that bilinguals are disadvantaged relative to monolinguals on speaking tasks because they divide frequency-of-use between two languages. To test this proposal we contrasted the effects of increased word use associated with monolingualism, language dominance, and increased age on picture naming times. In two experiments, younger and older bilinguals and monolinguals named pictures with high- or low-frequency names in English and (if bilingual) also in Spanish. In Experiment 1, slowing related to bilingualism and language dominance was greater for producing low- than high-frequency names. In Experiment 2, slowing related to aging was greater for producing low-frequency names in the dominant language, but when speaking the nondominant language, increased age attenuated frequency effects and age-related slowing was limited exclusively to high-frequency names. These results challenge competition based accounts of bilingual disadvantages in language production, and illustrate how between-group processing differences may emerge from cognitive mechanisms general to all speakers.

中文翻译：

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更多的使用几乎总是意味着更小的频率效应：老龄化、双语和薄弱环节假设☆


“较弱的联系”假设提出，双语者在口语任务上相对于单语者处于不利地位，因为他们将两种语言的使用频率分开。为了测试这个提议，我们对比了与单语、语言主导和年龄增长相关的单词使用增加对图片命名时间的影响。在两项实验中，年轻和年长的双语者和单语者用英语和（如果双语）也用西班牙语命名具有高频或低频名称的图片。在实验 1 中，与双语和语言主导相关的减速对于生成低频名称比高频名称更大。在实验 2 中，对于以主导语言产生低频名称而言，与年龄相关的减慢程度更大，但当讲非主导语言时，年龄增加会减弱频率效应，并且与年龄相关的减慢仅限于高频名称。这些结果挑战了基于竞争的关于语言产生中双语劣势的解释，并说明了群体间处理差异如何从所有说话者通用的认知机制中出现。