Differences in Inhibitory Control Ability among Monolinguals and Bilinguals

This study investigates the differences in inhibitory control ability between monolinguals and bilinguals and tests the interactional exchange through the Flanker effect. The results suggest that monolinguals have better inhibitory control ability compared to bilinguals.

Cognitive Psychology
(PSYC20007)
1

ABSTRACT
The study is investigates about the test differences between thein inhibitory control ability and
among language groups such as monolinguals (single language context), bilinguals (dual
language context) users. The hypothesis of study is to test interactional exchange of both users
through Flanker effect. This The flanker iseffect is based on the trial procedure to
comparcomparison between Bilingualse with and monolinguals. Given prior studies that mainly
generated inconsistent result or outcome. Accordingly, in which intense use of different language
in similar situation without mixing other language.
The study is all about the single language speaker and dual language speaker, identifying
the significant impacts on the psychological behaviour. When conducting test trials for
calculating the Mean and Standard deviation in flanker effect and no-go accuracy task in three
language context group conditions.
While considering the research method and 594 undergraduate psychology students as
participants to perform flanker trials and also calculate the accurate result or outcome.
Afterwards, investigator will focus on the difference between monolingual and bilingual so that
they can identify the inhibitory control ability in context of numerical values.
The results suggested that inhibitory control hypothesis is likely to predict the result on
the basis of assumption. At similar time, the study is has been identifiedmeasuring the response
of inhibition control and comparison between single languages (monolinguals) as well as dual
language users (bilinguals). The flanker effectThe hypothesis test of inhibitory control
hypothesis that requires cognitive psychology, that assesses language control in wide range of
different tasks within similar individual.
Keywords: inhibitory control process, monolinguals, bilinguals.
2

Table of Contents
ABSTRACT....................................................................................................................................2
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................4
LITERATURE REVIEW................................................................................................................4
AIMS AND HYOTHESIS..............................................................................................................6
METHOD........................................................................................................................................6
RESULTS........................................................................................................................................6
DISCUSSION..................................................................................................................................8
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................10
3

INTRODUCTION
Bilingual language refers to having two and Latin word lingua means tongue. So, it means
that speaking of two languages. There are many people who speaks 2 languages. However, it is
found that there is difference in inhibitory control within language. The inhibition means ability
to control impulsive response and create another one to gain attention. Basically, cognitive
ability is response obtained from environment. Monolingual is person who speak only one
language, another way, bilingual is person who speak one or more language. .
Main purpose of research is focused on single language speakers (Monolinguals) and dual
language speakers (Bilingual), comparison between them on the basis of inhibitory control
ability.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Single language speakers (Monolingual) has more inhibitory control ability then dual language
speakers (Bilingual) Theme: 1 the concept of Bilingual language
As per Bialystok, Craik & Gollan (2009) the majority of individuals in world speak at
least more than one language. Many cities have become highly multilingual that may encounter
several foreign language at workplace. In global world, the development of internet technology
as result of increasing the demand of more than language. The Single language speaker
(Monolingual) has become more inhibitory control ability than dual language speakers
(bilingual). Single language speakers have a proper coordination with particular language. In
order to understand that how the act of speaking is different for bilinguals. It is an essential for
acknowledge single language and already stored memories that constitute the vocabulary of
speaker. It is becoming less rich and has applicability that established interconnected in
monolinguals compared with bilinguals. A possible explanation is that when Bilinguals do not
use each of language as monolinguals manner.
The lexical processing of bilinguals users contain different or additional complexity but
associated with other performance on the inhibition tasks. In this way, it can be identified that
bilingual user’s mind to use inhibitory control to supress unnecessary memories but monolingual
mind has to better inhibitory control. They have focused on the single language to use correct
sentence at higher vocabulary. Monolinguals as compare with Bilinguals that has better
4

inhibitory control, which seems to be assessing the task and inhibits interfering the appropriate
information.
Diamond (2013) Monolinguals speaker can use Inhibitory control for predicting the
assumption, there would be becoming ubiquitous competition between one or more language that
must resolved by conflict resolution. In this way, it is important for understanding the differences
in the monolinguals and bilinguals on the basis of inhibitory control. Moreover, it can be
demonstrated in contest of subtle difference in particular test situations. (Kroll, Bobb & Hoshino,
2014) language processing involves activation of more than two languages and requires an
ability to control these language. Sometimes, dual language speaker (bilinguals) switch from one
language to other in context of appropriate manner. Therefore, it is becoming limited inhibitory
control. When bilinguals user can hear a word in one language while presented with entire
picture between two languages. It can overlap phonologically across languages. As a
consequence of bilinguals users may face consistently high level of linguistic competition to
monolinguals.
Furthermore, comparison between bilinguals and monolinguals speakers have focused on
the inhibitory control but Monolinguals (single language users) have a better control ability to
pay attention. In order to follow the instruction and take positive action. Sometimes, it is useful
for influencing the better environment or culture that impact on the development of inhibitory
control during tasks. Single language speaker (Monolinguals) as ability to supress or
countermand thoughts, feeling and actions compare with dual language speaker (Bilinguals).
5

According to Rivlina (2019) Bilingualism is based on the ability to
communicate in two different languages. Bilingual education is primarily
used into different way in classroom instruction. Generally, it is similar to
the monolingual and bilingual children, although some experts view in
bilingualism as specialised the development of language. Learner need to
proceed through similar patterns of language as well as speech
development. Usually, children’s are spoken at about one year of age and
afterwards, it start to use two different together within single sentence.
Even if two different language do not shared same type of pronunciation,
eventually a person become master in both language.
Hamann, Rinke & Genevska-Hanke (2019) said that there are two
different pattern of bilingual language development which mainly
occurred before age of three. When a person learn both language at same
time. in this way, it has simultaneously developed the bilingual language.
It may be occurred when person knows a word in one language but not is
other. Apart from that sequential bilingualism occurs when people can use
their own knowledge and experience with first language to rapidly require
second language. The first one always influence the way in which they can
learn or use second language.
6

Theme: 2 differentiate between the concept of inhibitory control ability and
monolingual or bilinguals
According to Desjardins, Bangert & Gomez (2020) Inhibitory control can
be defined the conceptualised as ability to supress or countermand
thoughts, feeling and actions. Through this, investigation about the
inhibitory control using designed task such as stop-signal, go task. This
will help for measuring the individual’s ability to identify their response.
The inhibitory control and performance is basically monitoring the
executive functions that mainly representing decrease efficiency during
normal aging.
Chan, Yow & Oei (2020) Inhibitory control merely supports to predict the
specific assumption, there is becoming ubiquitous competition between one or
more language that must resolved by conflict resolution. Furthermore,
inhibitory control is mainly representing more consistent bilingual benefit,
advantage in older adults compare to young. It is always support for
controlling the impulsive response and create another one to gain attention.
Rad & Ahmadi (2020) argue that The Bilingual refer to purported
better performance over monolinguals in term of control tasks. Although,
bilinguals can outperform monolinguals in different tasks, which tapping into
the non-linguistic control abilities and capabilities. The particularly,
Bilinguals can be compared with monolinguals which seems to show better
perform in assessing the task and inhibits interfering the appropriate
information. Monolingual are considered as individual person who have
spoken only one language but important to compare with Bilingual in context
of similar language.
AIMS AND HYOTHESIS
7

Aim- To test differences in inhibitory control ability across language groups; we will leave out
dense code-switching context, we will test for differences in flanker effect (interference
suppression) and no-go accuracy (selective response inhibition) between monolinguals, the
single language context, and the dual-language context.
Research question- can we find evidence for a bilingual advantage when factoring in
interactional context?
METHOD
Participants
A total of 594 undergraduate psychology students at The University of Melbourne
participated as part of a class activity.
Materials and Measures
Participants first completed a combined go/no-go arrow flanker task adapted from Fan et
al. (2002). On the flanker trials, participants saw a line of five arrows and were instructed to
make a left or right button press response according to the direction in which the central arrow
was pointing and to ignore the arrows on either side of the central arrow, which were pointing in
either the same (congruent) or the opposite direction (incongruent) to the target. The arrows
remained on-screen until a response was made, and the time from stimulus presentation until
response was recorded. On the no-go trials, the arrows surrounding the central arrow were
replaced by crosses and participants were instructed to withhold their response. To ensure that
prepotent motor activity was elicited prior to the no-go trials that would have to be inhibited, the
no-go trials occurred in a 1:4 ratio to the flanker trials. Each trial was preceded by a fixation
cross which appeared for 500 ms. In the event of an incorrect response, the word “WRONG” was
presented for 800 ms before the next trial began; no feedback was given for correct responses.
The time-out for no-go trials was 1500 ms. The inter-trial interval was 1000 ms. There were 160
trials in total (64 congruent, 64 incongruent, and 32 no-go), divided across four blocks of 40
trials each, with accuracy displayed at the end of each block. The trial order was randomized for
each participant.
Participants then completed a questionnaire about their language background and usage.
They were asked to list the languages they spoke, and to rate their proficiency in and frequency
of use of each language from one to ten (Kroll, Bobb & Hoshino, 2014). Then, they were given a
list of seven common situations and were asked to rate their agreement from one to seven with
8

three items for each situation: “I tend to speak to some people in one language, and other people
in a different language”, “I tend to only speak in one language”, and “I tend to use more than one
language within one sentence”. These items reflected the dual-language, single-language, and
dense-code switching interactional context, respectively. The scores for each situation were
weighted according to the percentage of time participants estimated themselves to spend in each
situation in a given week, and then scores for each item were summed across all situations to
produce a total score for each of the three items. Data Processing
Participants who achieved below 80% accuracy on the flanker trials were excluded from
analyses, resulting in the loss of 5 participants. Of those remaining, response times (RTs) faster
than 200 ms or slower than 1000 ms were excluded from the analyses, which resulted in 2.08%
of trials lost. A flanker effect was calculated for each participant by computing the average RT
for correct responses on the flanker congruent and flanker incongruent trials and then subtracting
the average for congruent trials from the average for incongruent trials. No-go accuracy was
computed as the percentage of no-go trials on which a response was correctly withheld.
For the language questionnaire, participants were classified as monolingual if they
reported speaking only one language or if they reported speaking more than one language but
rated their proficiency or frequency of use in their additional languages as two or less. The
remaining participants were classified into the dual-language, single-language, or dense code-
switching context based on the corresponding item on which they scored the highest. Participants
who fell into the dense code-switching group were then excluded from the analyses. To ensure a
balanced design, a subset of participants was randomly selected from each of the two larger
groups to match the size of the smallest group, giving 122 participants in each group.
In this study, investigator has chosen total 549 under graduate psychology student at
university of Melbourne, participating the student within class activities. Each participants are
completed the procedure to combine with go/no-go arrow flanker and adapted the tasks. During
flanker trails, different participants was shown the line of five arrows and instructed to make left
or right button press response on the basis of direction (Simonis Van der Linden & Szmalec,
2019). Afterwards, it has been representing as central arrow which may pointing or ignore either
side of central arrow. This is based on the flanker trial activities that performed by participants.
9

By using qualitative method, participants has been completed the questionnaires related the
language background and usage. Through this method, it can be gathered or recorded the
response of each respondent (Grunden, Piazza & Calabria, 2020). On the basis of their response,
it also identifying the rate of proficiency, frequency of each language.
The participants who have achieved below 80% accuracy on the flanker trials that were
excluded from analysis. As a result, loss of 5 different participants. The remaining response time
is become faster like 200ms and slower than 1000ms. In additional, it can be measured 2.08% of
trials become lost.
RESULTS
TABLE 1.
Mean and Standard deviation for flanker effect and no-go accuracy task in three language
context group conditions
Language
condition
Flanker effect No-go
M SD M SD
Dlc 100.517 37.283 0.858 0.159
Mono 110.468 31.278 0.883 0.094
Slc 105.290 34.463 0.874 0.119
Note. Dlc = Dual language context; Mono = Monolingual; Slc = Single language context.
Interpretation – It is can analysed that mean of dual language in flanker effect is 100.5 and in
no go is .858. However, mean of mono in flanker is 110.4 and in no go is .88. Furthermore, in
single language it is 105.2 and no go is 0.119.
Table 2
Results of Post-Hoc Tests for flanker effect and no-go accuracy task With Bonferroni
Correction for Multiple
Language
comparison
Flanker effect No-go accuracy
Mean p Mean p
10

Difference Difference
Dlc Mono -9.951 0.074 -0.025 0.382
Dlc Slc -4.773 0.839 -0.017 0.920
Mono Slc 5.178 0.723 0.008 1.000
Interpretation- from table it is evaluated that P value obtained is 0.074 which is less than 0.05
so there is no relationship in dual and monologist language in flanker effect. However, in dual
and single language P value is 0.8 which is more than P=0.05.
On the basis interpretation, it has been calculated the result of Post-Hoc Tests for flanker
effect and no-go accuracy task With Bonferroni Correction for Multiple. In this way, it can easily
identified the impact of So there is impact flanker trial activities. in additional, effect on it. At
last P value is 0.7 that is more than 0.05 in monologist and single language.
DISCUSSION
From above analysis, As per analysis, it has concluded the single language context in which
one language is used in particular environment and other dual language speaker context in which
more than one language. In order to identify the inhibitory control ability, which has become
higher than monolingual as compare with bilinguals (green abutalebi, 2013). it hasThe report has
described about the summarised about the inhibitory control ability across language different
groups, performing hypothesis test with help of flanker effects.. Thus, hypothesis In this way, it
can test the effectcan represent the impacts on the (interference suppression) and no-go accuracy
(selective response inhibition) between monolinguals, the single language context, and the dual-
language context.
On the basis of lab report, it can be identified the difference between difference among
monolinguals and Bilingual in inhibitory control ability, bilingual user’s mind to use inhibitory
control to supress unnecessary memories but monolingual mind has to better inhibitory control
(Kroll, Bobb & Hoshino, 2014). by using flanker’s trial method (Kuzyk & et.al., 2020). In this
study,Through study, it has proposed the inhibitory control hypothesis, identifying interaction
cost as factor that drives control processes between one or more language. The speakers in single
language seeks to maintain their own language aspects and avoid the cross language intrusions.
11

Through analysis, it is mainly targeting the effective suppression of non-target language
with left overall inferior regions. Usually, monopolism individual in a dense code switching
contest of opportunistically way to use appropriate joint language (Kroll& Bialystok, 2013).
Therefore, it also creating an effective novel mixed language. Moreover, Inhibitory control
merely supports to predict the specific assumption, there is becoming ubiquitous competition
between one or more language. It helps for resolving the conflicts among individual people
regarding bilingual language development.
The limitation of research study is all about the flexibility and reliability of data. In this
study, large amount of data should be collected for purpose of analysis (Kroll, Bobb & Hoshino,
2014). it has been increased the problem for unarranged the data or information in proper
manner. That’s why, it may increase complication of researcher to handle in step by step manner.
FUTURE DIRECTION
The future direction of research study is to consider the conversation in both single language
context and dual language context. In order to do so they can establish and stabilize a particular
control state. For instance, any competing the linguistic representation from both bilinguals
(Dual language speakers) and monolinguals (single language speakers).
CONCLUSION
In above report, it concluded that about difference in inhibitory control abilities among
single language speakers and dual language speakers, including the impact of same on the
behavior of individual speakers. In this study, it has summarized about the inhibitory control
ability which becoming more monolingual (Single language speaker) than bilingual (dual
language speakers). The study has performed the flanker trial hypothesis to test the inhibitory
control approach, continue to examine behavioural as well as functional performance. The
attempt of this research study on the cognitive psychology in term of bilingualism as well as
Monolinguals. According to analysis, it has identified that interactional exchange is consider
asuse for both important for leading bilingual and monolingual speakers, where they can adapt
the actual inhibitory control processes, that mainly adapting their cognitive control processes.
The streport has considered flanker trial hypothesis to test the inhibitory control approach,
continue to examine behavioural as well as functional performance. Accordingly to which
individual persondual language speaker use of different language in the similar situation within
mixing dual language. inIn order to engage with the response inhibition in the bilingual speakers.
12

This attempt to conduct the research on the cognitive psychology in term of bilingualism while
testing the large number of participants. Furthermorein additional, investigator the study is
based on the has been considered the questionnaire technique to gather or collect response of
different participants, who have participated into different class activities.
REFERENCES
Books and journals
13

Bialystok, E., Craik, F. I., Green, D. W., & Gollan, T. H. (2009). Bilingual minds. Psychological
Science in the Public Interest. 10(3). 89-129.
Diamond A (2013). Executive functions.
green and abutalebi 2013, Language control in bilinguals, the adaptive control hypothesis.
Kroll, J. F., & Bialystok, E. (2013). Understanding the consequences of bilingualism for
language processing and cognition. Journal of Cognitive Psychology. 25(5). 497-514.
Kroll, J. F., Bobb, S. C., & Hoshino, N. (2014). Two languages in mind: Bilingualism as a tool to
investigate language, cognition, and the brain. Current Directions in Psychological
Science. 23(3). 159-163.
Chan, C.G., Yow, W.Q. & Oei, A. (2020). Active Bilingualism in Aging: Balanced Bilingualism
Usage and Less Frequent Language Switching Relate to Better Conflict Monitoring and
Goal Maintenance Ability. The Journals of Gerontology: Series B.
Desjardins, J.L., Bangert, A. & Gomez, N. (2020). What Does Language Have to Do With It?
The Impact of Age and Bilingual Experience on Inhibitory Control in an Auditory
Dichotic Listening Task. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research. 63(5).
pp.1581-159
Grunden, N., Piazza, G. & Calabria, M. (2020). Voluntary Language Switching in the Context of
Bilingual Aphasia. Behavioral Sciences. 10(9). p.141.
Hamann, C., Rinke, E. & Genevska-Hanke, D. (2019). Bilingual Language Development: The
Role of Dominance. Frontiers in Psychology.10. p.1064.
Kuzyk, O. & et.al. (2020). Are there cognitive benefits of code-switching in bilingual children?
A longitudinal study. Bilingual. Lang. Cognit. 23. pp.542-533.
Rad, F.G. & Ahmadi, E. (2020). Comparison of Social Cognition and Executive Functions of
Motivation, Inhibitory Control, and Empathy in Bilingual and Monolingual
Individuals. International Journal of Psychology. 14(1).
Rivlina, A.A., 2019. Bilingual language play and World Englishes. The Handbook of World
Englishes. pp.407-429.
Simonis, M., Van der Linden, L.& Szmalec, A. (2019). Executive control performance and
foreign-language proficiency associated with immersion education in French-speaking
Belgium. Bilingualism: Language and cognition. pp.1-16.
14