The impact of multicultural experience on language switching: Evidence from language comprehension

Abstract The present study aimed to investigate the impact of cultural exposure conditions (i.e., Chinese culture, American culture, dual cultures and control condition) on the bilingual language switch costs during the process of language comprehension. Sixty unbalanced Chinese–English bilinguals performed a modified animacy judgment task across four cultural exposure conditions, judging whether Chinese or English words referred to a living or nonliving objects. Reaction times and accuracy rates were analyzed using repeated-measures ANOVA. The results showed smaller switch costs in dual-cultural exposure than in the control condition. Furthermore, switch costs under different cultural exposures varied only for the second language (L2), with no significant differences for the first language (L1). Moreover, in the Chinese cultural exposure and control conditions, the switch costs for L2 were found to be larger than those for L1. Conversely, in the American and dual-cultural exposure conditions, the switch costs for L2 were smaller than those for L1.