Where is the bilingual advantage in task-switching?

•Different groups of bilinguals and monolinguals performed 3 task-switching implementations.•Bilingualism does not affect the ability of switching between different tasks.•Bilingualism impacts the ability to restart a previous task.•Effects of bilingualism are observed in settings engaging higher cognitive demands.

Based on previous reports of bilinguals’ reduced non-linguistic switch cost, we explored how bilingualism affects various task-switching mechanisms. We tested different groups of Spanish monolinguals and highly-proficient Catalan–Spanish bilinguals in different task-switching implementations. In Experiment 1 we disengaged the restart cost typically occurring after a cue from the switch cost itself using two cue–task versions varying in explicitness. In Experiment 2 we tested bilingualism effects on overriding conflicting response sets by including bivalency effects. In Experiment 3 we attempted to replicate the reduced switch cost of bilinguals with the same implementation as in previous studies. Relative to monolinguals, bilinguals showed a reduced restart cost in the implicit cue–task version of Experiment 1 and overall faster response latencies in Experiment 2. However, bilinguals did not show reduced switch cost in any experiment – not even in an omnibus analysis combining the standardized switch cost scores of 292 participants across the three experiments. These results qualify previous claims about bilingualism reducing non-linguistic switch costs.