The connection between articulatory skill and higher-level executive function in monolinguals and bilinguals

While the existence of a bilingual advantage in higher-level executive function remains controversial, recent studies showed bilinguals consistently outperform monolinguals in learning new patterns of pronunciation (in both natural or artificially constructed novel dialects). Since audition and articulatory control are involved in this type of learning, the question arises to what extent these lower-level functions are enhanced in people with superior performance on phonetic learning tasks. Dugaillard & Spinu (2019) found that sequential bilinguals outperformed monolinguals and simultaneous bilinguals on a tongue-twister task (Goldrick & Blumstein 2006, McMillan&Corley 2010), suggesting an advantage in articulatory skill. In the current study, we aim to replicate the original findings with a new group of bilinguals and further explore the connection of articulatory skill with one aspect of executive function (i.e. interference/conflict resolution). The experimental tasks include (1) reading artificially constructed tongue-twisters such as “kifkivkivkif” three times in succession, matching a 150 bps rhythm on a metronome, and (2) a classic Simon task asking participants to react or inhibit their response to congruent and incongruent stimuli. We expect the findings to shed more light on the bilingual advantage phenomenon and the connection between lower- and higher-level cognitive functions in both populations.