Exploring the nature of the gender-congruency effect: implicit gender activation and social bias

The aim of the study was to explore the nature of the gender-congruency effect, characterized by a facilitation on the processing of congruent words in grammatical gender. Moreover, we explored whether resemblances between gender identities and gender attitudes with grammatical gender modulated lexical processing. We designed a gender-priming paradigm in Spanish, in which participants decided the gender of a masculine or feminine pronoun preceded by three different primes: biological gender nouns (mapping biological sex), stereotypical nouns (mapping biological and stereotypical information), and epicene nouns (arbitrary gender assignment). We found faster processing of gender congruent pronouns independently of the type of prime, showing that the grammatical gender feature is active even when processing bare nouns that are not conceptually related to gender. This indicates that the gendercongruency effect is driven by the activation of the gender information at the lexical level, which is transferred to the semantic level. Interestingly, the results showed an asymmetry for epicene primes: the gender-congruency effect was smaller for epicene primes when preceding the feminine pronoun, probably driven by the grammatical rule of the masculine being the generic gender. Furthermore, we found that masculine oriented attitudes can bias language processing diminishing the activation of feminine gender, which ultimately could overshadow the female figureFEDER/Junta de Andalucía-Consejería de Economía y Conocimiento (A-SEJ- 416-UGR20)The Ministry of Science and Innovation (PID2019- 111359GBI00/AEI/10.13039/501100011033

Grammatical gender processing in bilinguals: An analytic review

In this review article, we analyze how grammatical gender is represented and processed in the bilingual mind. To that end, we review the data from 13 existing behavioral studies of mainly late second language (L2) learners on the so-called gender congruency (GC) effect (facilitated processing for translation equivalents with the same gender, in comparison to those with a different gender) in L2 production and comprehension. The majority of the results showed a GC effect, regardless of the type of language involved. However, the state of cognateness of the target nouns, as well as the similarity between the gender systems of the bilingual speakers and their L2 proficiency, modulated the results. Interestingly, a gender agreement context is not required in order to observe gender effects, in that they are also observed with bare nouns. Overall, the findings support an integrative view of bilingual gender representation, with competitive and inhibitory processes at different levels of language processing underlying cross-language GC effects.This paper was funded by the Government of Spain-Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports– through the Training program for Academic Staff (Ayudas para la Formación del Profesorado Universitario, FPU grant BOE-B-2017-2646), the research project with reference PSI2015-65116-P granted by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness and the grant for research groups with reference GRC 2015/006 given by the Galician Government. This paper was funded by the FCT (Foundation for Science and Technology, Portugal) through the state budget with reference IF / 00784/2013 / CP1158 / CT0013. The study has also been partially supported by the FCT and the Portuguese Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education through national funds and co-financed by FEDER through COMPETE2020 under the PT2020 Partnership Agreement (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007653)

Exploring the nature of the gender-congruency effect: implicit gender activation and social bias

The aim of the study was to explore the nature of the gender-congruency effect, characterized by a facilitation on the processing of congruent words in grammatical gender. Moreover, we explored whether resemblances between gender identities and gender attitudes with grammatical gender modulated lexical processing. We designed a gender-priming paradigm in Spanish, in which participants decided the gender of a masculine or feminine pronoun preceded by three different primes: biological gender nouns (mapping biological sex), stereotypical nouns (mapping biological and stereotypical information), and epicene nouns (arbitrary gender assignment). We found faster processing of gender congruent pronouns independently of the type of prime, showing that the grammatical gender feature is active even when processing bare nouns that are not conceptually related to gender. This indicates that the gender-congruency effect is driven by the activation of the gender information at the lexical level, which is transferred to the semantic level. Interestingly, the results showed an asymmetry for epicene primes: the gender-congruency effect was smaller for epicene primes when preceding the feminine pronoun, probably driven by the grammatical rule of the masculine being the generic gender. Furthermore, we found that masculine oriented attitudes can bias language processing diminishing the activation of feminine gender, which ultimately could overshadow the female figure

The learning, representation and processing of ambiguous words in bilinguals

En este trabajo se revisan los estudios que han investigado el procesamiento, la representación y el aprendizaje de palabras ambiguas (homónimas y polisémicas) en individuos bilingües. La evidencia disponible apoya la influencia mutua entre las dos lenguas del bilingüe, tanto en un nivel léxico como semántico. Más concretamente, destaca el impacto de la llamada “ambigüedad de traducción”, el cual se ve modulado por el nivel de competencia en la segunda lengua (L2). Se recogen además, las aportaciones de los distintos modelos de organización léxica bilingüe (Dijkstra y van Heuven, 2002; Kroll y Stewart, 1994; van Hell y De Groot, 1998), que parecen complementarse a la hora de explicar los resultados obtenidos. Para terminar, se corrobora la dificultad que encierra, en el ámbito educativo, el aprendizaje de palabras con varios significados y se concluye con algunas recomendaciones que facilitarían el aprendizaje de este tipo de palabras en la L2This study reviewed research on the processing of homonymous and polysemous words in bilingual individuals and assessed its contribution to knowledge of ambiguous word processing, representation, and learning in such individuals. Available evidence supports the mutual influence of each language at the lexical and the semantic level. Specifically, research shows the impact of translation ambiguity on bilingual processing. However, the impact varies depending on second language (L2) competence. These results are explained by the main models of bilingual lexical organization (Dijkstra and van Heuven, 2002; Kroll and Stewart, 1994; van Hell and De Groot, 1998), which are highlighted in this article. From an educational perspective, these studies illustrate the difficulty of learning words with multiple meanings; hence, some recommendations are made that would specifically facilitate the learning of these words in an L2S

Of beavers and tables: the role of animacy in the processing of grammatical gender within a picture-word interference task

Grammatical gender processing during language production has classically been studied using the so-called picture-word interference (PWI) task. In this procedure, participants are presented with pictures they must name using target nouns while ignoring superimposed written distractor nouns. Variations in response times are expected depending on the congruency between the gender values of targets and distractors. However, there have been disparate results in terms of the mandatory character of an agreement context to observe competitive gender effects and the interpretation of the direction of these effects in Romance languages, this probably due to uncontrolled variables such as animacy. In the present study, we conducted two PWI experiments with European Portuguese speakers who were asked to produce bare nouns. The percentage of animate targets within the list was manipulated: 0, 25, 50, and 100%. A gender congruency effect was found restricted to the 0% list (all targets were inanimate). Results support the selection of gender in transparent languages in the absence of an agreement context, as predicted by the Gender Acquisition and Processing (GAP) hypothesis (Sá-Leite et al., 2019), and are interpreted through the attentional mechanisms involved in the PWI paradigm, in which the processing of animate targets would be favored to the detriment of distractors due to biological relevance and semantic prioritizationThis work was supported by the Government of Spain, Ministry of Education and Vocational Training through the Training program for Academic Staff (FPU [BOE-B-2017-2646]), the Spanish Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation with the research project PID2019-110583GB-I00, the Galician Government (grant for research groups ED431B 2019/2020), and by the FCT and FEDER through COMPETE2020 under the PT2020 Partnership Agreement POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007653S

Language balance rather than age of acquisition: a study on the cross-linguistic gender congruency effect in Portuguese–German bilinguals

The data that support the findings of this study are openly available at http://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/UE9XHThe cross-linguistic gender congruency effect (GCE; a facilitation on gender retrieval for translations of the same gender) is a robust phenomenon analysed almost exclusively with late bilinguals. However, it is important to ascertain whether it is modulated by age of acquisition (AoA) and language proficiency. We asked 64 early and late bilinguals of European Portuguese and German to do a forward and backward translation task. A measure of language balance was calculated through the DIALANG test. Analyses included this factor along with the gender congruency between translations, the target language, and the AoA of both languages, among others. Results showed a GCE for European Portuguese that was independent of the AoA and greater the higher the language imbalance. We propose that changes in proficiency in any of the languages create situations of dependency between them which allow cross-linguistic gender interaction to occur and effects to emerge depending on gender transparency.This work was funded by the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) through the Portuguese State Budget (UIDP/01662/2020) and the grant UIDB/00305/2020, as well as by the Spanish Ministry of Education and Vocational Training, through the Training program for Academic Staff (Ayudas para la Formación del Profesorado Universitario [FPU16/06983]), and the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation [research project PID2019-110583GB-I00

The mechanisms underlying grammatical gender selection in language production: a meta-analysis of the gender congruency effect

Grammatical gender retrieval during language production has been largely addressed through the picture-word interference (PWI) paradigm, with the aim of capturing the so-called gender congruency effect (GCE). In the PWI paradigm, participants name target pictures while ignoring superimposed written distractor nouns. The GCE shows faster responses when target and distractor nouns share the same gender than when gender differs. Yet, the locus of this effect is not clear: it might be either due to the selection of a determiner or due to the selection of a gender node at the lemma level, which may be primed or delayed by competition. Importantly, many of those who argue that the GCE is not a genuine effect of gender conclude that gender is a feature that is retrieved automatically. Such a claim is controversial since the PWI paradigm has been seen as too complex and perhaps not sensitive enough to capture small effects. Besides, for Romance languages, mixed results draw a complex picture with effects occurring mainly in the opposite direction, i.e., a gender incongruency effect (GIE). In the present study, we conducted a meta-analysis of the 18 studies that have addressed this issue. The results confirm the existence of the GCE as a determiner effect in Germanic/Slavic languages, while little support is found for the GIE in Romance languages. Nevertheless, we argue that the absence of gender effects in Germanic and Slavic languages within the PWI paradigm cannot be taken as evidence of an absence of priming/competition during gender selection and thus as evidence of an automatic selection of gender. Parametric replication of previous studies, especially those featuring bound morphemes, together with the use of other measuring techniques such as event related potentials are suggested as a way forwardThis work was supported by the Government of Spain, Spanish Ministry of Education and Vocational Training, through the Training program for Academic Staff (Ayudas para la Formación del Profesorado Universitario, FPU [FPU16/06983]); the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation [research project PID2019-110583GB-I00]; the Galician Government [grant for research groups ED431B 2019/2020]; and the Foundation for Science and Technology of Portugal [IF / 00784/2013 / CP1158 / CT0013]. Finally, the study has also been partially supported by the FCT and the Portuguese Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education through national funds and co-financed by FEDER- European Regional Development Fund through COMPETE2020 under the PT2020 Partnership Agreement [POCI-01-0145- FEDER-007653]S

What a transparent Romance language with a Germanic gender-determiner mapping tells us about gender retrieval: Insights from European Portuguese

The study of the representation and processing of grammatical gender during language production has encountered mixed results regarding which conditions must be met to observe gender effects and whether these reflect the selection of gender values or competition between elements of agreement. The answer seems to depend on the number of determiners associated with each gender and on the language being explored. The present study aims to assess this issue through three picture-word interference tasks in European Portuguese. This is a transparent Romance language featuring a one-to-one gender-determiner mapping system similar to opaque Germanic languages. Conditions of gender in/congruency between targets and distractors were considered, along with gender transparency and agreement. We observed a gender congruency effect restricted to noun phrases. Importantly, the effect was modulated by transparency, which seems relevant regardless of agreement. To explain the results, we adapted the Dual-Route Model of language comprehension to productionThis work was supported by the Government of Spain, Ministry of Education and Vocational Training, through the Training program for Academic Staff (Ayudas para la Formación del Profesorado Universitario, FPU [FPU16/06983]); the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation [research project PID2019-110583GB-I00]; the Galician Government [grant for research groups ED431B 2022/2019]; and the Foundation for Science and Technology of Portugal [IF / 00784/2013 / CP1158 / CT0013]. Finally, the study has also been partially supported by the FCT and the Portuguese Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education through national funds and co-financed by FEDER through COMPETE2020 under the PT2020 Partnership Agreement [POCI-01-0145- FEDER-007653]S

The Gender Congruency Effect across languages in bilinguals: A meta-analysis

In the study of gender representation and processing in bilinguals, two contrasting perspectives exist: integrated vs. the autonomous (Costa, Kovacic, Fedorenko, & Caramazza, 2003). In the former, cross-linguistic interactions during the selection of grammatical gender values are expected; in the latter, they are not. To address this issue, authors have typically explored the cross-linguistic Gender Congruency Effect (GCE: a facilitation on the naming or translation of second language [L2] nouns when their first language [L1] translations are of the same gender, in comparison to those of a different gender). However, the literature suggests that this effect is sometimes difficult to observe and might vary as a function of variables such as the syntactic structure produced to translate or name the target (bare nouns vs. noun phrases), the phonological gender transparency of both languages (whether or not they have phonological gender cues associated with the ending letter [e.g., “–a” for feminine words and “–o” for masculine words in Romance languages]), the degree of L2 proficiency, and task requirements (naming vs. translation). The aim of the present quantitative meta-analysis is to examine the robustness of the cross-linguistic GCE obtained during language production. It involves 25 experiments from 11 studies. The results support a bilingual gender-integrated view, in that they show a small but significant GC effect regardless of the variables mentioned above.This paper was funded through the state budget with reference IF / 00784/2013 / CP1158 / CT0013. The study has also been partially supported by the FCT and the Portuguese Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education through national funds and co-financed by FEDER through COMPETE2020 under the PT2020 Partnership Agreement (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007653). Government of Spain—Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports—through the Training program for Academic Staff (Ayudas para la Formación del Profesorado Universitario, FPU grant BOE-B-2017-2646), the research project (reference PSI2015-65116-P) granted by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, and the grant for research groups (reference ED431B 2019/2020) from the Galician Government, as well as by the FCT (Foundation for Science and Technology, Portugal) through the state budget (reference IF / 00784/2013 / CP1158 / CT0013). Finally, the study has also been partially supported by the FCT and the Portuguese Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education through national funds and co-financed by FEDER through COMPETE2020 under the PT2020 Partnership Agreement (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007653

SARS-CoV-2 introductions and early dynamics of the epidemic in Portugal

Genomic surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 in Portugal was rapidly implemented by the National Institute of Health in the early stages of the COVID-19 epidemic, in collaboration with more than 50 laboratories distributed nationwide. Methods By applying recent phylodynamic models that allow integration of individual-based travel history, we reconstructed and characterized the spatio-temporal dynamics of SARSCoV-2 introductions and early dissemination in Portugal. Results We detected at least 277 independent SARS-CoV-2 introductions, mostly from European countries (namely the United Kingdom, Spain, France, Italy, and Switzerland), which were consistent with the countries with the highest connectivity with Portugal. Although most introductions were estimated to have occurred during early March 2020, it is likely that SARS-CoV-2 was silently circulating in Portugal throughout February, before the first cases were confirmed. Conclusions Here we conclude that the earlier implementation of measures could have minimized the number of introductions and subsequent virus expansion in Portugal. This study lays the foundation for genomic epidemiology of SARS-CoV-2 in Portugal, and highlights the need for systematic and geographically-representative genomic surveillance.We gratefully acknowledge to Sara Hill and Nuno Faria (University of Oxford) and Joshua Quick and Nick Loman (University of Birmingham) for kindly providing us with the initial sets of Artic Network primers for NGS; Rafael Mamede (MRamirez team, IMM, Lisbon) for developing and sharing a bioinformatics script for sequence curation (https://github.com/rfm-targa/BioinfUtils); Philippe Lemey (KU Leuven) for providing guidance on the implementation of the phylodynamic models; Joshua L. Cherry (National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health) for providing guidance with the subsampling strategies; and all authors, originating and submitting laboratories who have contributed genome data on GISAID (https://www.gisaid.org/) on which part of this research is based. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not reflect the view of the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Health and Human Services, or the United States government. This study is co-funded by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia and Agência de Investigação Clínica e Inovação Biomédica (234_596874175) on behalf of the Research 4 COVID-19 call. Some infrastructural resources used in this study come from the GenomePT project (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-022184), supported by COMPETE 2020 - Operational Programme for Competitiveness and Internationalisation (POCI), Lisboa Portugal Regional Operational Programme (Lisboa2020), Algarve Portugal Regional Operational Programme (CRESC Algarve2020), under the PORTUGAL 2020 Partnership Agreement, through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), and by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio