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This study aims to examine language dominance and language switching effects in a series of monolingual and multilingual lexical decisions in which participants have to decide if the presented letter string is a word or not, regardless of language. Thirty participants (12 FrenchÁEnglish bilinguals and 18 FrenchÁEnglishÁSpanish trilinguals) were recruited for two different experiments. In Experiment 1, 12 bilinguals processed two monolingual lists (L1 and L2) followed by a bilingual list (with L1 and L2 words). The results indicate faster answers and better accuracy for L1 words compared to L2 words in both lists, and a general slowdown of processing in the bilingual list, highlighting language switching effects (switch from L2 to L1 faster than from L1 to L2). In Experiment 2, 18 trilinguals performed successively monolingual (L1, L2 and L3), bilingual (L1L2, L1L3 and L2L3) and trilingual (L1L2L3) lists. The results show a slowdown of word processing as a function of number of languages involved, even for the dominant language (L1). Moreover, a language switching effect was found for all multilingual lists, in larger proportions when the list involves the two weakest languages (L2 and L3). Results are discussed in the light of interactive models of bilingual visual word processing.

The present behavioral study aimed to examine the impact of language control expertise on two domain-general control processes, i.e. active inhibition of competing representations and overcoming of inhibition. We compared how Simultaneous Interpreters (SI) and Highly Proficient Bilinguals-two groups assumed to differ in language control capacity-performed executive tasks involving specific inhibition processes. In Experiment 1 (language decision task), both active and overcoming of inhibition processes are involved, while in Experiment 2 (bilingual Stroop task) only interference suppression is supposed to be required. The results of Experiment 1 showed a language switching effect only for the highly proficient bilinguals, potentially because overcoming of inhibition requires more cognitive resources than in SI. Nevertheless, both groups performed similarly on the Stroop task in Experiment 2, which suggests that active inhibition may work similarly in both groups. These contrasting results suggest that overcoming of inhibition may be harder to master than active inhibition. Taken together, these data indicate that some executive control processes may be less sensitive to the degree of expertise in bilingual language control than others. Our findings lend support to psycholinguistic models of bilingualism postulating a higher-order mechanism regulating language activation.

Aims In May 2016, a new version of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) Guidelines for the management of heart failure (HF) was released. The aim of this study was to describe the management of HF with reduced ejection fraction after the publication of ESC Guidelines. Methods and results The Linx registry is a multicentre, observational, cross‐sectional study from 14 Catalan hospitals that enrolled 1056 patients with HF and reduced left ventricular ejection fraction (≤40%) from 1 February to 30 April 2017 in outpatient cardiology clinics. Results were compared between hospitals according to their level of complexity in our own registry and compared with previously published registries similar to ours. Sacubitril/valsartan was prescribed to 23.9% of patients in our population, as a consequence, use of angiotensin‐converting enzyme inhibitor and angiotensin receptor blockers in monotherapy decreased to 48.1% and 16.9%, respectively, and prescription of beta‐blockers (91.8%), mineralocorticoid receptor antagonists (72.7%), and ivabradine (21.4%) remained similar to previous registries. Target doses of beta‐blockers (25.4%), angiotensin‐converting enzyme inhibitors (24.9%), angiotensin receptor blockers (7.7%), sacubitril/valsartan (8.1%), and mineralocorticoid receptor antagonists (19.7%) were accomplished in a low proportion of patients. Our results also suggest that prescription and up‐titration of class I HF drugs were greater in hospitals with higher level of complexity. Conclusions The Linx registry shows an appropriate adherence to pharmacological recommendations from ESC HF Guidelines despite a low proportion of patients reached target doses. Almost one‐quarter of patients were under treatment with sacubitril/valsartan a few months after ESC HF Guidelines recommendations.

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