ORIGINAL RESEARCH ARTICLE

published: 12 June 2013

doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00322

Second language proficiency modulates

conflict-monitoring in an oculomotor Stroop task:
evidence from Hindi-English bilinguals
Niharika Singh* and Ramesh K. Mishra
Centre of Behavioural and Cognitive Sciences, University of Allahabad, Allahabad, India

Edited by: Many studies have confirmed the presence of a bilingual advantage which is manifested as
Ping Li, Penn State University, USA enhanced cognitive and attention control. However, very few studies have investigated the
Reviewed by: role of second language proficiency on the modulation of conflict-monitoring in bilinguals.
Judith F. Kroll, Penn State University,
We investigated this by comparing high and low proficient Hindi-English bilinguals on a
USA
Albert Costa, University Pompeu modified saccadic arrow Stroop task under different monitoring conditions, and tested
Fabra, Spain the predictions of the bilingual executive control advantage proposal. The task of the
Emily Coderre, University of participants was to make an eye movement toward the color patch in the same color
Nottingham, UK
as the central arrow, ignoring the patch to which the arrow was pointing. High-proficient
*Correspondence:
bilinguals had overall faster saccade latency on all types of trials as compared to the
Niharika Singh, Centre of
Behavioural and Cognitive Sciences, low proficient bilinguals. The overall saccadic latency for high proficiency bilinguals
University of Allahabad, Allahabad, was similarly affected by the different types of monitoring conditions, whereas conflict
211002, India resolution advantage was found only for high monitoring demanding condition. The results
e-mail: [email protected]
support a conflict-monitoring account in a novel oculomotor task and also suggest that
language proficiency could modulate executive control in bilinguals.

Keywords: bilingualism, conflict-monitoring, language proficiency, saccades, Stroop task

INTRODUCTION bilinguals need to manage their two languages efficiently

Bilingualism is a widespread socio-cultural phenomenon in the and select the right lexicon during language production. The
world today. Most people learn a second language and become inhibitory control model of Green (1998) predicts superior con-
bilingual for different professional, social as well as cultural rea- flict resolution between competing language nodes in bilinguals.
sons. Several studies have found a bilingual cognitive control On this account, on a non-linguistic conflict task like the Stroop
advantage on non-linguistic tasks (Bialystok and Martin, 2004; task, bilinguals should show some advantage while processing
Bialystok et al., 2005, 2006; Carlson and Meltzoff, 2008; Colzato the incongruent trials. However, a close inspection of the per-
et al., 2008; Costa et al., 2008, 2009; Martin-Rhee and Bialystok, formance on different trials in different conflict tasks shows that
2008; Bialystok and Feng, 2009; Bialystok and Viswanathan, 2009; bilinguals are not only faster on incongruent trials but also on
Kovács and Mehler, 2009; Ye and Zhou, 2009; Bialystok, 2010; congruent and neutral trials, where there is no conflict (Bialystok
Festman et al., 2010; Hernández et al., 2010). Even bilingual et al., 2006; Costa et al., 2008, 2009; Martin-Rhee and Bialystok,
infants have been shown to demonstrate superior cognitive con- 2008). In some other studies an overall RT advantage also accom-
trol skills than monolingual infants (Kovács and Mehler, 2009). panies reduced conflict costs and facilitation (Hernández et al.,
However, the exact locus of the bilingual cognitive control advan- 2010 experiment 1; Singh and Mishra, 2012). Luk et al. (2010)
tage is still not understood in a variety of situations. For example, administered a spatial Flanker Task and a go no-go task to
it is still not clear if bilingualism enhances inhibitory control bilinguals and monolinguals. The behavioral RTs showed no dif-
mechanisms in particular or the general executive control systems ferences between the bilinguals and monolinguals. However, the
that allow them to be faster in situations even when there is no neuroimaging results showed that bilinguals are better in inter-
apparent conflict. There have been recent proposals (Bialystok, ference suppression but not on response inhibition. This pattern
2010; Hilchey and Klein, 2011) that suggest bilinguals in gen- of results shows that the bilingual advantage is specific to some
eral have enhanced attentional control system and not a specific type of cognitive control. The result showed that brain networks
response inhibition mechanism. In this research we particularly for bilinguals and monolinguals differed for the interference
explore the “bilingual executive control advantage” theory to see suppression task but not for the response inhibition task.
if language proficiency modulates conflict-monitoring in an ocu- Bilingual’s superior performance on congruent and neu-
lomotor Stroop task when monitoring demands are manipulated. tral trials in a conflict task is problematic for an inhibitory
control account. Hilchey and Klein (2011) in an influential
THE BILINGUAL EXECUTIVE CONTROL ADVANTAGE meta-analysis of several bilingual cognitive advantage studies
The central assumption behind bilingual’s cognitive control observed that most studies have found a global RT advantage
advantage on non-linguistic tasks stems from the fact that for bilinguals but not many have found statistically significant

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Singh and Mishra Conflict monitoring in bilinguals

reduced conflict or facilitation effects. This led Hilchey and Klein inhibition mechanism. These data suggest that bilingual advan-
(2011) to propose that bilinguals as such may not be exercis- tage is more prominent where some complex decision-making
ing any inhibitory control but may have enhanced attentional is involved that is reached through efficient control of interfer-
mechanisms and goal-maintenance abilities. Hilchey and Klein’s ence. The general executive control advantage theory of Hilchey
Bilingual Executive Process Advantage claims that, bilinguals will and Klein (2011) can accommodate these observations since these
demonstrate domain general executive control advantage on all data do not point toward an exclusive inhibitory control mecha-
kinds of trials including trials that have conflict. This advantage nism and show general RT advantage with, or without, specific
generally shows up in faster RTs on tasks that require some form conflict, or facilitation, advantage.
of interference control and may or may not have any conflict. Some other proposals also point toward bilinguals having a
Most crucially, the executive control advantage theory empha- superior attentional-control system, which is part of the general
sizes on bilingual’s excellent goal directed attention control. This executive control system. Colzato et al. (2008) compared bilin-
does not necessarily refer to an ability to exert reactive forms guals and monolinguals on the stop signal, the IOR, and the
of inhibitory control on tasks that have conflict. A superior attentional blink (AB) task. Interestingly, they could not find any
executive control system also allows top-down attention con- difference between the two groups on the stop signal task, sup-
trol on tasks that require goal maintenance, monitoring as well posedly a task that measures inhibitory control, but bilinguals
as interference suppression. Bilinguals’ excellent performance on showed a high AB effect. It was interpreted that a higher AB effect
congruent trials could stem from their ability to take facilitative suggests that bilinguals are better at keeping goal-directed infor-
cues from the context (Bialystok, 2010). Now, the question is: mation, and at suppressing the unwanted stimuli from further
under what conditions can we observe the Bilingual Executive processing. It has been also shown that bilinguals are better in
Control Advantage? avoiding distraction that may come from maintaining an item in
It is important to note that the overall RT advantage seems to working memory during a visual search task (Hernández et al.,
emerge when the tasks are cognitively demanding. One way to 2012) and attention control during dichotic listening (Soveri
make the task more demanding is to manipulate the monitoring et al., 2011). These examples of top down attention control and
required for the task. Monitoring has been considered an impor- goal-maintenance indirectly lend support to the general claims
tant part of the executive control system (Posner, 1994). Costa of the executive control account in showing that bilingualism
et al. (2009) had examined bilinguals and monolinguals on the enhances the ability to suppress interference increases acting in
Flanker Task in high and low monitoring conditions. The low a focused manner.
monitoring condition had higher proportion of either congru- In summary, the bilingual executive control account which
ent or incongruent trials and the high monitoring condition had predicts overall RTs for all types of trials can account for a range
congruent and incongruent trials in equal proportion. The ratio- of findings. However, most such findings have come from stud-
nale was that low monitoring condition will not demand higher ies where bilinguals and monolinguals have been compared. In
alertness and monitoring, and therefore will not tax the bilingual the present study, we wanted to further extend this proposal in
executive system. The results showed an overall RT advantage for testing if bilingual language fluency could modulate the overall
bilinguals only for the high monitoring condition but not for the RT advantage in the oculomotor domain. Below, we review stud-
low monitoring condition. In this study, the bilinguals showed ies where language proficiency has been an issue in the studies of
reduced conflict cost only in the block that had 75% congruent executive control system.
condition. Costa et al. (2009) concluded that bilingual overall
RT advantage is seen only when the monitoring context had BILINGUAL LANGUAGE PROFICIENCY AND EXECUTIVE CONTROL
high uncertainty and was demanding. Further, it has also been Why should bilingual fluency enhance executive control on non-
suggested that the bilinguals may show advantage for congruent linguistic conflict tasks? The rationale behind linking higher
trials only for mixed blocks of trials, since this calls for constant proficiency to enhanced executive control lies in the observa-
monitoring and goal-maintenance (Bialystok et al., 2006; Costa tion that highly fluent bilinguals have constant experience of
et al., 2008; Bialystok, 2010). An earlier study by Bialystok and handling cross-linguistic influences from two lexicons. Bilinguals
Martin (2004) found global RT advantage in a task that did not need to manage these cross-linguistic influences, since they acti-
have any explicit conflict but participants operated under higher vate two lexicons in parallel in a language non-selective manner.
cognitive load. However, this level of activation varies with proficiency and there-
There is other evidence which suggests that bilingualism could fore this should modulate the demand for the executive control
not just strengthen an inhibitory control system but may influ- system to intervene. Blumenfeld and Marian (2007) used the
ence the attention system in general. Emmorey et al. (2009) had visual world eye tracking paradigm with German-English and
compared bimodal and unimodal bilinguals with monolinguals English-German bilinguals to examine the influence of language
on a modified Flanker’s task that had go no-go blocks and conflict proficiency on parallel lexicon activation. The results showed that
trials. There was no group-difference for the response inhibi- only highly fluent German-English bilinguals activated German
tion conditions, whereas unimodal bilinguals were faster on both while processing English-specific targets. Similarly, others have
incongruent and congruent trials. This led the authors to con- shown that higher language proficiency produces stronger par-
clude that bilingual executive control advantage strengthens the allel activation of lexicons in bilinguals (Jared and Kroll, 2001;
interference suppression system so that they can better manage Van Hell and Dijkstra, 2002). ERP studies with naming have
the conflict, while there is no evidence of a superior response shown that language proficiency of bilinguals affect the time

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Singh and Mishra Conflict monitoring in bilinguals

course of parallel activation of the non-target lexicon (Guo presented color word was written resisting interference from
and Peng, 2006). Recent studies have shown that highly fluent the meaning of the word. The results showed that bilinguals
bilinguals activate translation equivalents of the non-target lan- with superior L2 proficiency had an overall speed advantage and
guages unconsciously (Thierry and Wu, 2010; Guo et al., 2012; higher conflict resolution compared to low proficient bilinguals.
Sunderman and Priya, 2012). Given this evidence it is logical Interestingly a previous study by Bialystok et al. (2006) did not
to assume that higher language proficiency will lead to higher find any bilingual advantage for an anti-saccade task where eye
executive control. movements were recorded while an advantage was seen when
Tao et al. (2011) looked at how age of L2 acquisition influ- in the same task participants had to make a manual response.
enced executive control in early and late bilinguals. Their results In another study, Mishra et al. (2012) used the classic Posner’s
on the lateralized attention network task showed that low pro- cuing paradigm (Posner, 1980) to study if high-proficient Hindi-
ficient bilinguals were better at the monitoring processes while English bilinguals could disengage their attention from an unin-
the late and balanced bilinguals had greater conflict resolution formative peripheral cue and thus would indicate the presence of
advantage. In sum, it appears that age of acquisition and current better endogenous attention disengagement. The results revealed
proficient both have an effect on the executive control systems in that high-proficient bilinguals showed an early appearance of IOR
bilinguals. It is not necessarily true that bilinguals who acquired compared to low proficient bilinguals, suggesting their ability to
their L2 later are non-balanced and vice-versa. Bilinguals who are disengage their attention from a task-irrelevant cue. These stud-
more balanced may require a different kind of inhibitory control ies provide evidence for the fact that those bilinguals who have
mechanism, since they may activate unnecessary lexicons to dif- achieved a superior fluency in their language skills demonstrate
ferent degrees than bilinguals who are less balanced. Therefore, better attentional control on tasks that demand either conflict res-
it is important to explain bilingual cognitive advantage data on olution or disengagement of their attention. Others have shown
non-linguistic stimuli from these perspectives. In another rele- that language fluency could influence goal maintenance and con-
vant study, Festman and Münte (2012) studied late but fluent flict resolution (Coderre et al., 2012; Tse and Altarriba, 2012).
bilinguals who differed in their switching behavior. Language However, none of the previous studies have examined if language
switching has been known to be linked to bilingual’s proficiency. proficiency affects the overall RT advantage in a conflict task.
Festman and Münte (2012) observed that late high-proficient
bilinguals who switched less had higher conflict resolution and THE CURRENT STUDY
superior executive control. However, it looks like for highly flu- In this study we examined how language proficiency might modu-
ent bilinguals their abilities to switch between linguistic items and late monitoring during a conflict resolution task in Hindi-English
non-linguistic items and the amount of control they need may be bilinguals who differed exclusively in their L2 proficiency. The
different. Calabria et al. (2011) compared highly proficient bilin- oculomotor Stroop task that we used (see Singh and Mishra,
guals on both linguistic and non-linguistic switch tasks. These 2012) requires participants to make an eye movement toward
bilinguals demonstrated symmetrical switch costs for the linguis- a color patch that is similar to the arrow’s color while resist-
tic task while it was not so for the non-linguistic task. Based on ing interference generated from the arrow’s direction. In essence
these results Calabria et al. (2011) argued that bilinguals’ language the task requires resolving the conflict between these two oppo-
control system could be different from their overall executive site responses. We also manipulated the trial compositions of
control system, or may even be a subsidiary. congruent and incongruent trials to test the predictions of the
Bialystok et al. (2006) investigated presence of bilingual advan- monitoring account of bilingual executive control in participants
tage on executive function component related to monitoring who differed on their current language proficiency. If Costa et al.
and switching in High-proficient bilinguals, unbalanced bilin- (2009) findings are to be replicated in this oculomotor version
guals and the control group of monolinguals. Participants had of the Arrow Stroop task, we should expect overall RT advan-
to classify objects in the visual modality while simultaneously tages for the highly fluent group in the block where congruent
processing auditory information. Interestingly, the scores for the and incongruent trials are of equal number. As for the reduced
unbalanced bilinguals lied midway between bilinguals and mono- conflict effect, the question remains open since it has been shown
linguals group, but no reliable and significant difference was to depend on particular contexts. Further, we expected the highly
observed for the unbalanced bilinguals. The study showed fluent fluent group to commit fewer errors.
bilinguals being better at monitoring. Luk et al. (2011) compared Although Singh and Mishra (2012) had examined an oculo-
late bilinguals, early bilinguals and monolinguals on a Flanker motor version of the Stroop task with bilinguals with two different
Task. The results showed early bilinguals demonstrating smaller language proficiencies, the study was not an explicit test of the
interference costs for the incongruent trials while late bilinguals conflict-monitoring account. Secondly, Singh and Mishra (2012)
were similar to monolinguals. These studies indicate that bilin- had used written words and it remains a possibility that linguistic
guals’ language experience and fluency could have some influence processing of words might have played some role in the adjust-
on the executive control system. ment of control processes. In this study we used colored arrows
Singh and Mishra (2012) compared two groups of Hindi- to reflexively manipulate attention and create conflict which we
English bilinguals who differed in their L2 proficiency on an assumed would be a proper non-linguistic task (Hilchey and
oculomotor version of the Stroop task (Hodgson et al., 2009). Klein, 2011 recommend this task as a suitable task to measure
Participants were asked to make an eye movement toward the conflict-monitoring). Recent literature suggests that certain bio-
color patch that was similar to the color in which the centrally logical cues, such as eye gaze, and highly learned social symbols

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Singh and Mishra Conflict monitoring in bilinguals

such as arrows or spatial words (right, left etc.), can lead to a shift of the participants was determined by asking participants to indi-
of attention reflexively even when these cues are task irrelevant cate, on a 3 point scale, to which socio-economic group they
(Friesen and Kingstone, 1998; Driver et al., 1999; Langton and belonged (1 for lower middle class, 2 for middle class and 3 for high
Bruce, 1999; Langton et al., 2000; Kunde et al., 2011). Centrally middle class). The t-tests conducted to compare the two groups on
presented arrow cues produce reflexive shifts of attention in the the non-verbal IQ test and SES revealed no significant difference
direction of the arrow (Ristic et al., 2002; Tipples, 2002). We between SES for the two groups (see Table 1).
expected that highly fluent bilinguals will override the reflex- It is important to briefly discuss the socio-linguistic aspects
ive shifts of attention induced by central arrow cues using their of language use of the participants. These participants study at
top-down attention control strategies (Friesen et al., 2004). a University where language of instruction is English. They use
Hindi socially and often at home. However, the high and the low
METHOD proficient participants are different in terms of their use of English
PARTICIPANTS in and outside work place. All the participants spoke the standard
Fifty-six Hindi–English bilinguals participated in the experiment. variety of Hindi. None of the participants knew another language
All the participants were native speakers of Hindi (L1) and and could not be considered multi-lingual. Very frequently these
acquired English as a second language formally through instruc- bilinguals code mix while using language.
tion at school. Based on their proficiency ratings and responses
made to the language proficiency questionnaire the participants STIMULI
were assigned to low (Mean age = 19.8, SD = 2.2) and high The stimuli consisted of a display containing four squares in four
(Mean age = 21.9, SD = 2.6) proficiency bilingual groups. The different colors (blue, black, green, and red) along with a central
proficiency of participants for both L1 and L2 was assessed by a arrow presented at the center of the screen. The four squares were
self-devised language proficiency questionnaire, which required presented at four different locations i.e., up, down, left, and right
the participants to provide information related to age of acqui- and each cultured square subtended 1.6◦ of arc at an eccentric-
sition of L2, daily exposure to both the languages (1 = rarely ity of 7.3◦ from the center of a screen. These color patches were
exposed, 2 = sometimes exposed, 3 = most often exposed), fixed at their locations for all trials. There were three experiment
daily usage of languages for work-related activities and their trials (congruent, incongruent and neutral). The arrow extend-
daily percentage exposure to both the languages (see Table 1). ing 0.96 × 0.23 cm at the center, could point at any of the four
The participant also rated their L1 and L2 language proficien- squares in any of the four locations, however, the combination of
cies for speaking, understanding, reading and writing ability on color of and direction central arrow decided the congruency of the
a Likert scale of 5 (where 1 represented “poor” and 5 represented trials. In the congruent condition the color and direction of arrow
“excellent”) (See Table 2). pointed at the same square (e.g., red color arrow pointing toward
Apart from this, participants’ proficiency was also established red square) whereas in the incongruent trials they corresponded
by their scores obtained on a reading comprehension in both to different squares (e.g., red cultured arrow pointing toward
the languages (See Table 1). An effort was taken that the two green square). In the neutral trials, the central arrow was replaced
groups were well matched on the factors like SES and non-verbal by cultured equi-sized (vertical or horizontal) lines which could
IQ (Raven’s progressive matrices), which are known to modulate match with any of the four square patch color. However, for all the
cognitive control (Emmorey et al., 2009). Socioeconomic status types of trial the participants were instructed to look at the square
that matched the color of the arrow while ignoring the square at
which it was pointing.
Table 1 | Demographic details and mean non-verbal IQ of Apart from this, three different monitoring conditions were
high-proficient bilinguals (HPB) and low proficient bilinguals (LBP). created by manipulating the congruent proportion. There were
three conditions: (1) 50% congruence proportion condition in
HPB LPB which congruent (90) and incongruent trials (90) were equal
in number, (2) 80% congruence proportion condition in which
Mean formal age of L1 acquisition (years) 3.5 (0.65) 3.8 (0.77)
congruent (144) trials were more than incongruent trials (36),
Mean formal age of L2 acquisition (years) 3.5 (0.82) 4.2 (0.75)
and (3) 20% congruence proportion condition consisted of more
Exposure to L1** 3 (0.0) 2.8 (0.35)
incongruent (144) trials than congruent trials(36). For all the
Exposure to L2** 2.8 (0.35) 2.0 (0.47)
conditions the number of neutral trials (90) was fixed. Each con-
Hours of work related activity in L1** 2.8 (2.0) 4.3 (2.6)
dition consisted of 270 trials in total and was presented as separate
Hours of work related activity in L2** 4.7 (1.9) 2.5 (2.3)
block.
Mean score in L1 comprehension (out of 5) 4.7 (0.51) 4.3 (1.1)
Mean score in L2 comprehension (out of 5)** 4.3 (0.77) 2.8 (1.2)
APPARATUS AND PROCEDURE
Non-verbal IQ 54.3 (3.3) 53.7 (2.5)
Eye movements were monitored using IView X high-speed eye
Socio-economic status 2.3 (0.66) 2.17 (0.47)
tracking system (Sensomotoric Instruments, Berlin). The stim-
Standard deviations are given in parentheses. ulus was delivered using PRESENTATION (Neurobehavioral
Note: L1, Hindi; L2, English; Non-verbal IQ: Ravens Progressive Matrices, out of System) on a 17 cultured monitor, with 1024 × 768 pixel reso-
60. See text for explanation. lution while the participants comfortably seated in chair at 75 cm
*p < 0.05; **p < 0.01. away from it. Eye movement data were collected with sampling

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Singh and Mishra Conflict monitoring in bilinguals

rate of 1250 Hz. The eye tracker recorded XY coordinates of eye respond within this time a tone was presented to them and the
gaze with an accuracy of 0.01◦ . trial ended. It was followed by blank screen for 1000 ms (see
The experiment began with automatic calibration by presen- Figure 1).
tation of a cross at 13 different locations on the screen. After suc-
cessful calibration a fixation cross was presented which remained DATA ANALYSIS
on the screen and it remained on the screen until participants Eye tracking data were analysed using the BeGaze analysis soft-
fixated it. It was followed by a display consisting of four cul- ware (Sensomotoric Instruments, Berlin). A saccade was defined
tured squares and central arrow. Participants were instructed to as a movement of the eye more than 30◦ /s, following a veloc-
look at the square matching the color of the arrow by mak- ity criterion from its present position in any direction. Each
ing speeded eye movement toward it ignoring the square in color patch was considered as an area of interest (AOI) for cal-
which arrow was pointing. The display was made gaze contin- culation of saccades and their latencies. Saccadic latency was
gent such that the display remained till the participants made a calculated only for the correct trials. We did not consider those
saccade to the correct square. However, the maximum time dura- trials where the first saccade had landed on a wrong color
tion of the display was 1500 ms and in case participants didn’t patch. Fixations were counted if they fell on the color patch

Table 2 | Self-ratings for reading, writing, speaking, and comprehension in L1 and L2.

Speaking Listening Reading Writing

L1 L2** L1 L2** L1 L2** L1 L2**

HPB 4.7 (0.46) 3.7 (0.87) 4.7 (0.44) 4.3 (0.72) 4.5 (0.57) 4.4 (0.57) 4.3 (0.68) 4.1 (0.62)
LPB 4.6 (0.47) 2.8 (0.80) 4.7 (0.41) 3.1 (0.91) 4.7 (0.44) 3.4 (0.93) 4.4 (0.63) 3.1 (0.91)

Standard deviations are given in parentheses.

Note: L1, Hindi; L2, English; high and low proficiency based on L2 proficiency.
*p < 0.05; **p < 0.01.

FIGURE 1 | A sample trial sequence for an incongruent trial.

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Singh and Mishra Conflict monitoring in bilinguals

or very near it. This area was 135 × 135 in pixels. Each color η2p = 0.085 in general for all monitoring conditions. The main
patch was of 63 × 63 pixels. We also calculated saccadic error effect of congruency was significant, F(2, 108) = 28.65, MSE =
rates. 2510.69, p = 0.001, η2p = 0.347, revealing significantly higher
saccade latency for the incongruent trials (294.3 ms) than the neu-
RESULTS tral (280.6 ms) and congruent(259.9 ms) trials respectively. The
SACCADE LATENCY main effect of congruence proportions was not found signifi-
Saccadic latency or saccadic reaction time is the time lag between cant, F(2, 108) = 0.79, MSE = 6693.94, p = 0.45, η2p = 0.04. The
the onset of the display and the initiation of a saccade toward interaction between congruence proportion and language pro-
the correct color patch, i.e., the color patch matching the ink ficiency was not significant, F(2, 108) = 0.018, MSE = 6693.94,
color of the central arrow. Data trimming involved exclusion of all p = 0.98, η2p = 0.00. There was a significant interaction between
the saccade latency less than 80 ms (anticipatory) and more than congruence proportion and congruency, F(4, 216) = 5.6, MSE =
1000 ms followed by further exclusion of saccade latencies which 1100.67, p = 0.001, η2p = 0.095 (Figure 2). The interactions
were more than two standard deviations from the final analysis. revealed significantly higher saccade latency for incongruent
A repeated measure of analysis of variance with congru- trials in 80 and 50% congruence proportion conditions than
ency (congruent, incongruent, neutral) and congruence propor- congruent trials in all the congruence proportion. The interac-
tion (80% congruence, 20% congruent, and 50% congruence) tion between congruency and language proficiency was not sig-
as within subject factors and language proficiency(high and nificant, F(2, 108) = 1.15, MSE = 172.185, p = 0.31, η2p = 0.02.
low proficiency bilinguals) as between subject factor was con- The three way interaction between language proficiency × con-
ducted on the saccade latency data. The high-proficient bilinguals gruency × proportion congruence was also not found to be
were 33.6 ms faster in initiating a correct saccade than the low significant, F(4, 216) = 1.43, MSE = 931.0, p = 0.22, η2p = 0.02
proficient bilinguals, F(1, 54) = 5.0, MSE = 28396.406, p = 0.02, (see Table 3).

FIGURE 2 | Mean saccade latency (ms) and error rates for high and low proficient bilinguals for the saccadic arrow Stroop task in different
congruence proportion conditions.

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Singh and Mishra Conflict monitoring in bilinguals

Table 3 | Mean saccadic latencies to the correct target, error rate, SIE 50% congruent) as within subject factors and language profi-
(Stroop interference effect), and SFE (Stroop facilitation effect) for ciency (high and low proficiency bilinguals) as a between subject
high and low proficient bilinguals (HPB and LPB) for the all the three factor. Low proficient bilinguals committed more errors than
monitoring conditions. the high-proficient bilinguals, F(1, 54) = 6.9, MSE = 379.4, p =
0.01, η2p = 0.115. The main effect of congruency was significant,
Saccade latency (ms) Error rate
F(2, 108) = 42.0, MSE = 93.33, p = 0.001, η2p = 0.438, showing
HPB LPB HPB LPB significantly higher errors on incongruent trials (11.6) than on
congruent (3.8) and neutral trial(7.75). The main effect of con-
80% CONGRUENT
gruence proportion was not found to be significant, F(2, 108) =
Congruent 224.5 (60.8) 269.1 (72.5) 4.7 (6.0) 7.3 (7.9)
0.058, MSE = 56.13, p = 0.94, η2p = 0.01.
Incongruent 290.6 (87.2) 330.8 (90.4) 5.3 (5.6) 9.7 (7.0)
The interaction between congruency and language proficiency
Neutral 268.6 (75.7) 300.2 (80.7) 7.0 (8.2) 11.6 (9.2)
was found to be significant, F(2, 108) = 4.0, MSE = 60.40, p =
SIE 21.9 (40.3) 30.5 (40.2)
0.021, η2p = 0.06, revealing significantly higher error rates for
SFE 22.7 (49.7) 31.0 (46.4)
low proficient bilinguals on the incongruent trials than high-
20% CONGRUENT
proficient bilinguals on congruent and neutral trials. There was
Congruent 238.3 (63.2) 285.0 (88.8) 1.3 (2.0) 2.0 (3.0)
also a significant interaction between congruence proportion and
Incongruent 266.3 (75.0) 302.9 (71.7) 10.8 (12.8) 19.9 (18.8)
congruency, F(4, 216) = 21.6, MSE = 57.5, p = 0.001, η2p = 0.28,
Neutral 276.0 (67.5) 297.6 (67.3) 4.3 (5.1) 8.7 (9.4)
showing significantly higher error rates for incongruent trials in
SIE −9.7 (24.5) 5.3 (61.0)
the 20 and 50% congruence proportion than congruent trails in
SFE* 37.6 (36.2) 12.6 (54.2)
all three congruence proportion and neutral trials in 20% and
50% CONGRUENT
80% congruence proportion (Figure 2). Three way interaction
Congruent 246.4 (68.2) 274.7 (75.9) 2.2 (3.4) 5.3 (6.3)
between congruent proportion, congruency and language profi-
Incongruent 264.6 (61.0) 310.7 (76.2) 8.1 (8.5) 15.5 (13.7)
ciency was not found to be significant, F(4, 216) = 1.53, MSE =
Neutral 256.5 (58.4) 284.7 (74.0) 4.7 (5.3) 9.9 (10.2)
28.64, p = 0.23, η2p = 0.026.
SIE* 8.0 (22.0) 26.0 (37.0)
SFE 10.1 (49.4) 10.0 (46.8)
DISCUSSION
Standard deviations are given in parentheses. In this study we tested if bilingual language fluency modulates
*p < 0.05; **p < 0.01. monitoring in a modified oculomotor version of the Stroop task.
Our main aim was to extend the predictions of the Bilingual
Executive Advantage proposal with proficiency as a variable. We
To see further how the two groups differed in their conflict also wanted to replicate the monitoring account proposed by
resolution ability we calculated Stroop interference effect (SIE) Costa et al. (2009) to test the claim that one can observe bilingual
by subtracting saccadic latency on the neutral trials from the advantage only in scenarios where there is higher uncertainty.
incongruent trials for each congruence proportion condition. The participants were required to respond by making saccades
The t-tests revealed that a significant difference between the SIE toward the color patch that matched the color of the central
between the two groups was found only for 50% congruence arrow ignoring the square to which arrow was pointing. We
proportion, t(54) = −17.9, p = 0.03, d = 0.58 revealing that SIE obtained two important patterns of results. High-proficient bilin-
was 18 ms smaller for the high-proficient bilinguals than the low guals were overall faster on all types of trials in all monitoring
proficient bilinguals. No significant difference in SIE was found blocks in general and there was a specific conflict advantage in
for 80% congruence, t(54) = −0.79, p = 0.42, d = 0.23 and 20% the high monitoring condition. This pattern of results support
congruence proportion t(54) = −1.2, p = 0.23, d = 0.32. Hilchey and Klein’s proposal (Hilchey and Klein, 2011) show-
Likewise, the Stroop facilitation effect (SFE) was calculated ing an enhancement of the bilingual executive control abilities.
(by subtracting saccade latency on the congruent trials from This pattern of results successfully replicates the (Costa et al.,
the neutral trials) for the two groups. The t-test revealed 2009) findings in the oculomotor domain and with a novel task.
that high-proficient group showed significantly higher facil- Further, high-proficient bilinguals also committed less errors sug-
itation (37.6 ms) than low proficient bilinguals (12.6 ms) in gesting better oculomotor control. These results thus suggest
the 20% congruent version, t(54) = 2.0, p = 0.04, d = 0.53. superior cognitive control in bilinguals in many different domains
However, there was no significant difference in SFE for the and response systems and language proficiency modulates exec-
two groups in 80%, t(54) = –0.64, p = 0.52, d = 0.17, and utive control in bilinguals. Our finding of a conflict advantage,
50% congruence propotion, t(54) = 0.006, p = 0.99, d = 0.00 suggests that this advantage emerges when attentional demand
(see Table 3). is higher (Bialystok and Martin, 2004; Hernández et al., 2010;
Coderre et al., 2012; Singh and Mishra, 2012; Tse and Altarriba,
ERROR ANALYSIS 2012). Our results clearly show that high-proficient bilinguals
Any saccade toward any non-target square patches was counted were efficient in resisting capture of attention by the central
as an error. A repeated measure of variance was conducted on cue toward the irrelevant square and directing their attention
the error with congruency (congruent, incongruent, neutral) and toward the target patch resolving any conflict. We argue that
congruence proportion (80% congruent, 20% congruent, and highly fluent bilinguals can modulate their selective attention

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Singh and Mishra Conflict monitoring in bilinguals

in different monitoring contexts and show better interference task goals and selected the correct saccadic plan and therefore
control. The overall pattern of the results also are in harmony did not have to exert any inhibitory control. Higher proficient
with studies that suggest better top-down attention control and bilinguals showed better facilitation with congruent trials in the
goal maintenance in bilinguals (Colzato et al., 2008; Luk et al., condition that had 20% congruent trials and reduced conflict
2010). cost where there were 50% congruent trials. The low proficient
The highly fluent bilinguals were faster on all blocks of tri- bilinguals did not show any such effects. The facilitation effects
als. However, Costa et al. (2009) had found a specific global RT are again an indication of the overall superior executive control
advantage only in the block where congruent and incongruent system.
trials were in equal numbers. Further, we observed a reduced con- It is important to examine the results considering the spe-
flict cost for the highly fluent bilinguals in this block, whereas cific demands of the task used. As argued in the introduction,
Costa et al. (2009) had found such an effect only in one block that central arrows have two functions (Ristic and Kingstone, 2012)
had 75% congruent trials. This discrepancy could be because of in orienting attention. First, they can reflexively affect spatial
many reasons. First, we compared two different types of bilinguals attention and may lead to automatic activation of the oculo-
with different proficiencies and Costa et al. (2009) had compared motor system. Additionally, we had manipulated the monitor-
bilinguals with monolinguals. Secondly, we used a task that was a ing by mixing the trials of different types. Participants had to
non-linguistic Stroop task whereas for Costa et al. (2009) it was keep the goal constantly in mind while programming a cor-
a Flankers task with additional spatial cuing. Our blocks also had rect saccade and had to inhibit the reflexive saccade arising
neutral trials. Costa et al. (2009) had found global RT advantage from the direction of the cue. Our results therefore support
with 50% congruent trials. Importantly we measured oculomotor recent suggestions that bilingualism enhances the top down con-
responses whereas for them it was a manual response. However, trol system and allows greater control over goal maintenance
even with these important differences our results show overall and selection of the most appropriate response (Hernández
speed advantage and supports Hilchey and Klein’s theory of exec- et al., 2012). This top down control in the face of conflict
utive processing advantage (Hilchey and Klein, 2011). Further, involves the executive control system. Bilinguals’ engage this
studies should explore how different percentages of congruency system when the task demands are higher and their speed advan-
affect this global RT advantages and conflict effects for different tage is seen on all trial types. Importantly we have demon-
tasks. strated that such effects generalize to the ocular responses
Several previous studies with congruency proportion manip- and are not restricted to only tasks that demand a manual
ulations with the Stroop task have suggested that Stroop effect response.
is generally larger for blocks where the proportion of congruent Our results support modulatory effects of L2 proficiency on
trials is higher (Logan and Zbrodoff, 1979; Lowe and Mitterer, the bilingual advantage. Our study is in line with Tse and Altarriba
1982; Gratton et al., 1992; West and Baylis, 1998; see also Schmidt (2012) who showed that both L1 and L2 proficiencies contributes
and Besner, 2008). That is because with large number of congru- to the enhancement of conflict resolution and goal maintenance
ent trials compared to incongruent trials, participants develop a in bilinguals. Our results go well with the study by Coderre et al.
stimulus–response compatibility strategy and since very often the (2012) and make their findings even more lucid that it is enhanced
preceding trial of an in congruent trials happens to be congru- conflict resolution in the bilinguals that leads to smaller SIEs.
ent, they immediately cannot bring in additional control. In a Since in our study we used non-linguistic arrow Stroop task the
mostly congruent block participants are also faster on congru- difference in the magnitude of suffered interference between the
ent trials. In our case, both groups had higher SIEs in the 80% two groups of bilinguals can only be attributed to efficient conflict
congruency block and this effect was low for the 20% congruency resolution modulated by their L2 proficiency.
block. However, when the congruency was brought down to 50%, On the same lines, Green (2011) proposes that one must look
the high proficiency bilinguals suffered reduced conflict whereas at the “behavioral ecology” of the bilinguals, particularly their
this magnitude remained so for the low proficient bilinguals. This switching and non-switching behaviors. It makes sense to think
indicates that language proficiency modulates contextual effects that bilinguals who use two languages more often and switch
of Stroop task. more may have developed a different kind of executive control
Higher fluency bilinguals seem to have better goal directed system than other bilinguals. Taken together, these studies that
attention control mechanisms compared to low proficient bilin- have studied late adult bilinguals on different cognitive control
guals. Colzato et al. (2008) suggested that bilinguals need not tasks provide novel insights into the mechanisms of cognitive
exert any inhibitory control to resolve interference, but they are control.
better in maintenance of goals and executing task relevant action. There could be a possible limitation to our study related to the
In this sense, bilinguals have a better top-down action control cognitive differences between the groups. We did not administer
strategy (also see Hernández et al., 2012). Our results indicate that any objective task to measure language fluency, and depended on
high proficiency bilinguals were better at programming saccades the outcome of the self-administered language questionnaire. The
toward the task relevant color patch while controlling interference subjectivity of this task could have been a confound in participant
from the symbolic cue. Our results seem to suggest that higher selection.
attentional demand aids in superior conflict resolution in the In conclusion then, we have shown that bilingual language
presence of an overall speed advantage. One way to look at these proficiency can modulate oculomotor control in a conflict
results is to suggest that higher proficiency bilinguals maintained task, and this indicates their superior executive control ability.

Frontiers in Psychology | Language Sciences June 2013 | Volume 4 | Article 322 | 8

Singh and Mishra Conflict monitoring in bilinguals

Future studies should explore how bilinguals with different lan- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
guage abilities and age of acquisitions of L2 develop different This research was completed as part of Niharika Singh’s Ph.D
executive control system. In this scenario, the language environ- dissertation at University of Allahabad. She was supported
ment of the bilinguals and the use of the two languages seem by a Junior Research Fellowship as a part of grant awarded
crucial for interpreting experimental effects obtained on different by DST (Department of Science and Technology) to Ramesh
non-linguistic attention tasks. K. Mishra.

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