Abstract Most models of word production converge on the assumption that selecting a specific word to name is a competitive process. Monolingual speakers experience lexical competition in their spoken language (i.e., within-language competition), but bilingual speakers who constantly juggle two sets of lexical items face within- and between-language competition. It has been argued that one of the reasons bilingual speakers perform poorly in linguistic tasks compared to monolinguals is the interference from the non-target language. However, this constant juggling of two languages has also been proposed to lead to better executive control abilities in bilinguals. The aim of this research was to determine the relationship between increased lexical competition as induced by semantic context manipulation in the blocked-cyclic picture naming paradigm, and executive control processes in bilingual and monolingual speakers. We implemented the blocked-cyclic picture naming paradigm to induce increased lexical competition and employed independent executive control tasks to understand its role in reducing increased lexical competition. We also computed delta plots – size of interference effects as a function of naming latencies – to investigate the type of inhibition involved in the blocked-cyclic picture naming paradigm. In this paradigm, objects to be named were presented in close succession, either from the same semantic categories (homogeneous: elephant, lion, deer, tiger, and cat) or different ones (heterogeneous: pear, shoes, lips, saw, and deer). Naming latencies are longer in the homogeneous context due to the heightened activation of competitors, and the difference in latencies between the homogeneous and heterogeneous contexts is referred to as semantic context effect. The participants were 25 young, healthy Bengali-English bilinguals and 25 healthy, age-, gender- and education-matched English monolinguals. All participants performed a blocked-cyclic naming task in English as well as three independent executive control tasks, tapping into their inhibitory control (Stroop task), mental-set shifting (colour-shape switch task), and working memory (backward digit span task). The key group differences were as follows: bilinguals showed less semantic context effect and more semantic facilitation on the first presentation cycle, applied more selective inhibition in both blocked-cyclic picture naming and Stroop tasks as measured by delta plots, showed better inhibitory control (Stroop task) and shifting abilities, but showed comparable working memory span. The correlation findings for both groups were as follows: slope of the slowest delta segment correlated with the magnitude of the semantic context effect in the blocked-cyclic naming task, no correlation between the slope and interference effect in the Stroop task, no correlation between slope of the two tasks, and no correlations between the semantic context effect with any of the measures derived from the independent executive control tasks. This is the first study to establish that bilinguals are less affected by semantic context manipulation and show a reduced interference effect for the longest naming latencies, compared to monolinguals. It also illustrates that even in a challenging linguistic task that heightens lexical competition, bilinguals performed better than monolinguals. This challenges the notion that bilinguals are disadvantaged compared to monolinguals in linguistic tasks, and we conclude that this study provides evidence for the advantage of bilingualism in linguistic tasks where executive control demands are higher.

中文翻译：

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单语者和双语者的语义语境效应

摘要 大多数单词生成模型都假设选择一个特定的单词来命名是一个竞争过程。单语者在他们的口语中经历词汇竞争（即语言内竞争），但双语者经常兼顾两组词汇项目面临语言内和语言之间的竞争。有人认为，与单​​语者相比，双语者在语言任务中表现不佳的原因之一是非目标语言的干扰。然而，这种对两种语言的不断处理也被认为可以提高双语者的执行控制能力。本研究的目的是确定在块循环图片命名范式中由语义上下文操作引起的词汇竞争增加之间的关系，双语和单语者的执行控制过程。我们实施了块循环图片命名范式以诱导增加的词汇竞争，并采用独立的执行控制任务来了解其在减少词汇竞争中的作用。我们还计算了 delta 图——作为命名延迟函数的干扰效应的大小——以研究阻塞循环图片命名范式中涉及的抑制类型。在这个范式中，要命名的对象是连续出现的，或者来自相同的语义类别（同质：大象、狮子、鹿、老虎和猫）或不同的（异质：梨、鞋、嘴唇、锯和鹿） ）。由于竞争者的高度激活，命名延迟在同质上下文中更长，同质语境和异质语境之间的延迟差异称为语义语境效应。参与者是 25 名年轻、健康的孟加拉语-英语双语者和 25 名健康、年龄、性别和教育相匹配的英语单语者。所有参与者都用英语执行了一个阻塞循环命名任务以及三个独立的执行控制任务，利用他们的抑制控制（Stroop 任务）、思维定势转换（颜色形状转换任务）和工作记忆（向后数字跨度任务） ）。关键组差异如下：双语者在第一个呈现周期中表现出较少的语义上下文效应和更多的语义促进，在块循环图片命名和 Stroop 任务中应用更多的选择性抑制，如通过 delta 图测量，表现出更好的抑制控制（Stroop 任务）和转移能力，但表现出相当的工作记忆跨度。两组的相关性结果如下：最慢的 delta 段的斜率与阻塞循环命名任务中语义上下文效应的大小相关，Stroop 任务中斜率和干扰效应之间没有相关性，斜率与干扰效应之间没有相关性两个任务之间的关系，并且语义上下文效果与从独立执行控制任务派生的任何度量之间没有相关性。这是第一项确定双语者受语义上下文操作影响较小的研究，并且与单语者相比，对最长命名延迟的干扰影响较小。它还说明，即使在一项加剧词汇竞争的具有挑战性的语言任务中，双语者的表现也优于单语者。这挑战了双语者在语言任务中与单语者相比处于劣势的观点，我们得出的结论是，这项研究为双语者在执行控制要求更高的语言任务中的优势提供了证据。