Chinese-English bilinguals read paragraphs with language switches using a rapid serial visual presentation paradigm silently while ERPs were measured (Experiment 1) or read them aloud (Experiment 2). Each paragraph was written in either Chinese or English with several function or content words switched to the other language. In Experiment 1, language switches elicited an early, long-lasting positivity when switching from the dominant language to the nondominant language, but when switching to the dominant language, the positivity started later, and was never larger than when switching to the nondominant language. In addition, switch effects on function words were not significantly larger than those on content words in any analyses. In Experiment 2, participants produced more cross-language intrusion errors when switching to the dominant than to the nondominant language, and more errors on function than content words. These results implicate different control mechanisms in bilingual language selection across comprehension and production.

中英双语者在测量 ERP（实验 1）或大声朗读（实验 2）时，使用快速串行视觉呈现范式默读带有语言切换的段落。每个段落都用中文或英文写成，其中几个功能词或实词切换为另一种语言。在实验1中，当从主导语言切换到非主导语言时，语言转换会引发早期、持久的积极性，但是当切换到主导语言时，积极性开始较晚，并且从未比切换到非主导语言时更大。此外，在任何分析中，虚词的转换效果并不明显大于实词的效果。在实验2中，参与者在切换到主导语言时比切换非主导语言时产生更多的跨语言侵入错误，并且在功能词上产生的错误比内容词上的错误更多。这些结果暗示了理解和生产过程中双语语言选择的不同控制机制。