Social bilingual language use is associated with neural efficiency in inhibitory control: Evidence from ERPs

Abstract

Cognitive control supports flexible goal maintenance and conflict resolution. Although bilingual experience has been proposed to enhance its efficiency through sustained language control, emerging evidence suggests these effects reflect adaptive recalibration driven by individual language use rather than domain-general transfer. Here we examined how individual differences in bilingual experience modulate behavioral and neural indices of adaptive attentional control during conflict processing, as indexed by an adaptive Flanker task. Fifty participants (M = 19.6 years) completed the Language and Social Background Questionnaire and an electroencephalography adaptive Flanker task. Event-related potentials in the N100, N200 and P300 windows indexed attentional allocation, conflict detection, and monitoring. Behaviorally, participants showed the expected Flanker interference effect, with no modulation by bilingual experience. In contrast, greater Non-English Social Use, but not overall bilingualism or home use, was associated with attenuated N100s and N200s, suggesting reduced early attentional demands. These neural effects, in the absence of behavioral differences, suggest experience-dependent efficiency in control recruitment rather than enhanced control.