Bilingual Language Control: Separating Preparation and Production

Abstract

The role of reparatory process in bilingual language control has been largely overlooked, as traditional language switching paradigms don’t separate cued preparation from production. The current study employed a novel paradigm, Rapid Instructed Task Learning (RITL), in which preparatory and production processes of bilingual language control were separately investigated. Results showed that preparatory processes elicited activation in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) as well as regions involved in the default mode network (medial prefrontal cortex, posterior cingulate/precuneus, and lateral parietal cortex). Bilateral caudate nuclei were involved in maintaining target language features over the three phases of the RITL. The presupplementary motor area, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, and left inferior frontal gyrus were most active when the target language was in use during task execution. The results highlight the fact that bilingual language control mechanisms are differentially deployed across time, suggesting multiple dissociable networks.