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When Meaning Shifts and Language Switches: Investigating the Role of Domain-General Inhibitory Control in Bilingual Prediction Errors
Poster Session B, Friday, September 12, 4:30 - 6:00 pm, Field House
This poster is part of the Sandbox Series.
Yifei Gong1, Zachary Maher1, Janet van Hell1; 1The Pennsylvania State University
During language processing, the human brain continuously generates predictions to facilitate efficient comprehension. When incoming input violates these predictions, the brain must rapidly adapt. For bilingual individuals, this process is further complicated by the co-activation of multiple language systems, making prediction errors—such as those triggered by an unexpected twist in meaning or a sudden switch in language—particularly challenging to resolve. While domain-general inhibitory (motor) control has been implicated in resolving semantic violations in monolinguals, its role in reconciling prediction errors during bilingual comprehension remains poorly understood. Here, we propose a study that integrates a stop-signal task with either a semantic violation or a language-switching paradigm to investigate the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying prediction error resolution during the processing of semantic violations and language switches. This novel dual-task design allows us to test whether domain-general inhibitory processes—typically associated with motoric response inhibition—are engaged in the resolution of prediction errors during bilingual comprehension, and whether semantic violation and language switching recruit overlapping cognitive recourses. We combine behavioral measures, electroencephalography (EEG), and multivariate EEG decoding analysis to characterize potentially shared cognitive and neural dynamics across domains. Ultimately, the proposed study aims to advance our understanding of the neural and cognitive mechanisms that support flexible bilingual language processing under conditions of unpredictability.
Topic Areas: Control, Selection, and Executive Processes, Reading