This study examined memory integration performance in Chinese adults with high and low executive function levels in a cross-Chinese-English language context. The executive function of 356 college students was assessed prior to the experiments to identify participants with different executive function levels. All three studies utilized the separate-sentence paradigm as the experimental design. Considering that memory integration involves the encoding of two stem facts and the retrieval process of the integrated facts, Experiment 1 investigated memory integration performance across different encoding language conditions, while Experiment 2 focused on retrieval language conditions. Experiment 3 aimed to address limitations and explore the impact of different questioning languages in cross-language encoding conditions. Results showed that the presentation language during encoding significantly influenced memory integration, with better performance when the first stem fact was presented in the first language. The questioning language used for integrated facts also affected memory integration, with performance declining as the difficulty of switching between questioning and encoding languages increased. It is noteworthy that participants’ retrieval of questions in their first language was associated with superior results in terms of integration performance. The study suggests that the influence of executive function and language condition on memory integration varied depending on the specific processing stage. These findings support theories on low surface similarity’s influence on knowledge integration and highlight the role of executive function at the individual level.
