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This study investigated if bilingual language coactivation would be observed in the context of the Deese-Roediger-McDermott paradigm. Portuguese-English bilinguals listened to 12 lists of semantically associated words that related to either a cognate or a noncognate critical lure. Participants were instructed to recall as many words as they could and to type them on the computer keyboard. Then, they performed a recognition test with words from the study phase of the recall test, as well as critical lures and unstudied words. Statistical analyses showed a small but statistically significant difference in the recall of studied words between conditions. No differences were observed in the recognition. We suggest that participants relied more on verbatim than gist trace, which may have reduced language coactivation effects.

Multilinguals who live in their native multilingual communities are constantly switching between languages, whereas those who live in monolingual communities need to constrain their code-switching. Malaysia is a multilingual country in which people mix languages on a daily basis, whereas, in Taiwan, Mandarin is predominately used and people are more cautious about code-switching. Therefore, in the current study, we investigated what factors might facilitate Malaysian-Chinese students to reduce the unintentional switching between languages to adapt to the language environment in Taiwan. Malaysian-Chinese who live in Malaysia (MIM) and Taiwan (MIT) were recruited to investigate whether and how non-linguistic code-switching and their awareness of language environment (ALE) influence their intentional and unintentional code-switching experiences. Participants' non-verbal code-switching was measured by a color/shape switching task, whereas ALE and code-switching experiences were measured by questionnaires. The multiple regression analyses of MIT's responses showed that the moderation of non-linguistic switch cost and ALE significantly predicted MIT's unintentional code-switching. Moreover, the simple slope analysis showed that MIT with high executive control have a dynamic unintentional switch in which the higher level of ALE is associated with lower unintentional switch. However, MIT with low executive control have a static unintentional switch, uninfluenced by their level of ALE. These results suggested that multilinguals' executive control along with their awareness of the language environment help them adapt to living in a community with a predominant language.