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Time course differences between bilinguals and monolinguals in the Simon task

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posted on 2023-05-22, 16:54 authored by Narra, M, Heathcote, A, Finkbeiner, M
In the Simon task, individuals need to indicate the colour of the target stimulus while ignoring its spatial location. The Simon Effect refers to the finding that participants respond more quickly when the target stimulus and response effector are spatially compatible compared to when they are not. Thus, to optimize performance in the Simon task, individuals need to ignore the task-irrelevant (spatial) information and attend to the task-relevant (colour) information. Interestingly, it has been reported that bilinguals are faster than monolinguals in the Simon task and that they exhibit a smaller Simon effect. The present study investigates whether this so-called bilingual advantage is due to bilinguals being better at ignoring task-irrelevant information, or better at activating task-relevant information, or both. In a button-press version of the task, we do not observe a bilingual advantage, but in a reach-to-touch paradigm, we find that bilinguals suppress task-irrelevant information for longer and activate task-relevant information sooner

History

Publication title

Cognitive Control and Consequences of Multilingualism

Editors

JB Schweiter

Pagination

397–425

ISBN

9789027243720

Department/School

School of Psychological Sciences

Publisher

John Benjamins Publishing Company

Place of publication

Amsterdam

Extent

17

Rights statement

Copyright 2016 John Benjamins Publishing Company

Repository Status

  • Restricted

Socio-economic Objectives

Expanding knowledge in psychology

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