In everyday conversation, bilingual individuals switch between languages not only in reaction to monolinguals with different language profiles but also voluntarily and naturally. However, whether and how various switching contexts dynamically modulate the domain-general control were still illusive. Using a cross-task paradigm which flanker task was interleaved with language switching task trial-by-trial, the present study manipulated forced, voluntary and natural switching contexts. A group of unbalanced Chinese-English bilinguals performed a flanker task in the three switching contexts. The results showed that the cross-domain interaction on the P3 effect revealed an atypical flanker effect in forced switching contexts only, and P3 amplitude of incongruent trials in forced switching contexts was smaller than both natural and voluntary switching contexts. Furthermore, the robust brain-brain and brain-behavior relationships between language control and domain-general control were significantly emerged in the forced switching context only. Altogether, our findings support the dynamic adaptation of language control to cognitive control and highlight the importance of switching contexts.

For bilingual individuals, a notable aspect of their language control lies in its adaptive generalization to domain-general conflict control, known as ‘cross-task adaptation’. However, previous studies have primarily focused on examining adaptation in cue-driven top-down switching, overlooking the existence of three distinct forms of language control: top-down switching, lexical-accessibility-driven bottom-up switching, and voluntary switching that integrates both approaches. This study delved into the adaptation effects of these language control forms in a cohort of 30 unbalanced Chinese-English bilinguals, who engaged in the flanker task paired with picture-naming across three distinct switching contexts. Surprisingly, participants exhibited heightened executive control capacity in resolving interference when confronted with the bottom-up switching compared to the top-down and mixed-switching contexts. Notably, Granger causality analysis consistently emphasized that bottom-up switching demonstrated a more robust interaction with conflict control, particularly in the low gamma band (25~35Hz). These findings underscore the remarkable upregulation of the bottom-up switching strategy in contributing to domain-general conflict control. Our study highlights that the effective adoption of switching strategy, rather than the switching itself, yields more significant benefits in cross-task adaptation.