THE IMPACT OF LANGUAGE CONTEXT ON PROACTIVE CONTROL IN BILINGUALS

With the acceleration of globalization, frequent cross-linguistic communication has emerged as a defining cognitive feature of modern society. This phenomenon has shifted scholarly focus from single-language contexts to mixed-language, emphasizing how varying language environments modulate the bilingual advantage. Guided by the Adaptive Control Hypothesis, this study operationalized three distinct language contexts (Chinese, English, and Mixed-language). It employed the AX-Continuous Performance Task (AX-CPT) with event-related potential (ERP) recordings to investigate context-dependent modulations of proactive control in bilinguals. The results revealed that compared to single-language contexts, mixed-language contexts demonstrate superior behavioral efficiency, manifested as faster response time specifically in BX and BY trials, along with distinct neurophysiological profiles: (1) augmented N2 amplitudes during cue B processing, and (2) attenuated late positive component amplitudes throughout picture processing stage. These findings suggest that mixed-language enhances proactive control through increased task complexity, demonstrating differential neural resource allocation patterns across language environments.