The effects of language switching experience and acute stress on bilingual advantages in cognitive flexibility.

This article investigates how bilingual advantages in cognitive flexibility are influenced by language switching experience and acute psychological stress in Chinese-English unbalanced bilinguals. Two experiments using a cued color-shape switching task compared bilinguals with high (HLS) and low (LLS) language switching experience under stress-free and Trier Social Stress Test (TSST)-induced acute stress conditions. Results showed no significant difference in cognitive flexibility between HLS and LLS bilinguals without stress, but under acute stress, HLS bilinguals exhibited better transient switching ability (lower switching costs) than LLS bilinguals, whose performance declined. These findings suggest that bilingual advantages in cognitive flexibility are conditional, modulated by both language switching experience and psychological stress, with stress tolerance playing a key role in cognitive control during task switching.