Neural evidence for a bilingual advantage in conflict monitoring among Dai bilinguals

Abstract

Abstract Research on the bilingual advantage in cognitive control has yielded mixed results, particularly across diverse populations. This study examined whether Dai bilinguals in China demonstrate enhanced cognitive control compared to monolinguals. Participants completed a classic Eriksen Flanker task while both behavioral responses and EEG data were recorded. Analyses focused on reaction times, conflict effects, congruency sequence effects, and the ERP components N2 (associated with conflict monitoring) and P3 (associated with attentional allocation). Although no significant group differences emerged in behavioral performance, bilinguals showed reduced N2 and increased P3 amplitudes relative to monolinguals, indicating group differences in neural correlates of conflict monitoring. No differences were observed in conflict or congruency sequence effects between the groups. These findings suggest a bilingual experience may be associated with differences in the neural dynamics of conflict monitoring, even in the absence of behavioral differences. The effects were not lateralized. This highlights the value of combining behavioral and ERP measures to investigate bilingual cognitive processing in non-Indo-European language contexts.