Abstract Bilingual language control refers to a bilingual’s ability to speak exclusively in one language without the unintended language intruding. It has been debated in the literature whether bilinguals need an inhibitory mechanism to control language output or whether a non-inhibitory mechanism can be used. This paper presents mathematical models instantiating the two accounts. The models explain how participants’ reaction times in language production (naming) are impacted by across-trial semantic relatedness and consistency of language (same or different language across trials). The models’ predictions were compared to data from an experiment in which participants named semantically-related and -unrelated pictures in their first and second language. Results indicate that within-language facilitation effects are abolished after a language switch, supporting the predictions of the Inhibitory Model. However, within-language facilitation was observed over the course of ‘stay’ trials in which no language switch was required, contrary to the predictions of both models. A second experiment was conducted to determine the origin of this unexpected facilitation, by separating spreading activation effects from incremental learning effects. The results suggest the facilitation observed in Experiment 1 was due to spreading activation. Together, the modeling and data suggest that language switching abolishes spreading activation effects, but cumulative semantic interference (created by incremental learning) is unaffected by language switching. This suggests that (1) within-language control is non-competitive, (2) between-language language control is competitive and (3) incremental learning plays a role in bilingual language speech production.

中文翻译：

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使用计算模型评估双语语言控制理论

摘要 双语语言控制是指双语者只用一种语言说话而不受非故意语言干扰的能力。文献中一直在争论双语者是否需要抑制机制来控制语言输出，或者是否可以使用非抑制机制。本文介绍了实例化这两个帐户的数学模型。这些模型解释了参与者在语言产生（命名）中的反应时间如何受到跨试验语义相关性和语言一致性（跨试验相同或不同语言）的影响。将模型的预测与实验中的数据进行比较，在该实验中，参与者用他们的第一语言和第二语言命名语义相关和不相关的图片。结果表明语言转换后语言内的促进效应被消除，支持抑制模型的预测。然而，在不需要语言转换的“停留”试验过程中观察到语言内促进，这与两种模型的预测相反。通过将传播激活效应与增量学习效应分开，进行了第二个实验，以确定这种意外促进的起源。结果表明，在实验 1 中观察到的促进是由于扩散激活。总之，建模和数据表明语言切换消除了传播激活效应，但累积语义干扰（由增量学习产生）不受语言切换的影响。