The Bilingual Is a Mental Juggler: Behavioral and Electrophysiological Evidence

Although proficient bilinguals are able to speak fluently in each of their two languages, recent studies suggest that both languages are continually active, to the point where the unintended language is often on the tip of the speaker’s tongue. In this talk, I describe recent evidence on bilingual speech planning that suggests that alternatives in each language are planned but that the more dominant language is inhibited to allow the weaker language to proceed. A question of interest is how this inhibitory process during speech planning may create domain-general cognitive advantages in cognitive control.