Frequency drives lexical access in reading but not in speaking: the frequency-lag hypothesis

To contrast mechanisms of lexical access in production versus comprehension we compared the effects of word frequency (high, low), context (none, low constraint, high constraint), and level of English proficiency (monolingual, Spanish-English bilingual, Dutch-English bilingual) on picture naming, lexical decision, and eye fixation times. Semantic constraint effects were larger in production than in reading. Frequency effects were larger in production than in reading without constraining context but larger in reading than in production with constraining context. Bilingual disadvantages were modulated by frequency in production but not in eye fixation times, were not smaller in low-constraint contexts, and were reduced by high-constraint contexts only in production and only at the lowest level of English proficiency. These results challenge existing accounts of bilingual disadvantages and reveal fundamentally different processes during lexical access across modalities, entailing a primarily semantically driven search in production but a frequency-driven search in comprehension. The apparently more interactive process in production than comprehension could simply reflect a greater number of frequency-sensitive processing stages in production

New insights on what leads bilinguals to be able to name some pictures only in their nondominant language: Immersion, dominance reversal, and balanced bilingualism.

ObjectiveThe present study asked if bilinguals who are immersed in their nondominant language are more likely to know some words only in their nondominant language.MethodThe either-language scoring benefit (ELSB) reflects how many more points bilinguals get when credited for pictures named regardless of which language is used. We asked if the ELSB varies with self-rated proficiency level of the nondominant language in young English-dominant (n = 68) compared to Spanish-dominant (n = 33) bilinguals, and in older English-dominant (n = 36) compared to Spanish-dominant (n = 32) bilinguals. All bilinguals were immersed in English (in the USA) at the time of testing.ResultsSpanish-dominant bilinguals showed a larger ELSB than English-dominant bilinguals (in both young and older groups), but simple correlations showed that the degree of Spanish dominance was associated with a higher ELSB only in young bilinguals. Additionally, the ELSB was larger for bilinguals with more years of immersion and for more balanced bilinguals, whether measured by naming scores or self-rated balance (in both age groups). Nearly half (n = 14/33) of the young bilinguals who said they were Spanish-dominant scored higher in English than in Spanish, and on average these participants had similar naming scores in English and Spanish.ConclusionsEither-language scoring benefits bilinguals with higher proficiency level in the nondominant language, which is more likely in bilinguals with extended immersion in the nondominant language, who also tend to be more balanced bilinguals, and for young adult bilinguals who may be in the process of a switch in which language is dominant

Predicting naming scores from language history: A little immersion goes a long way, and self-rated proficiency matters more than percent use

Abstract: Language proficiency is a critically important factor in research on bilingualism, but researchers disagree on its measurement. Validated objective measures exist, but investigators often rely exclusively on subjective measures. We investigated if combining multiple self-report measures improves prediction of objective naming test scores in 36 English-dominant versus 32 Spanish-dominant older bilinguals (Experiment 1), and in 41 older Spanish–English bilinguals versus 41 proficiency-matched young bilinguals (Experiment 2). Self-rated proficiency was a powerful but sometimes inaccurate predictor and better predicted naming accuracy when combined with years of immersion, while percent use explained little or no unique variance. Spanish-dominant bilinguals rated themselves more strictly than English-dominant bilinguals at the same objectively measured proficiency level. Immersion affected young more than older bilinguals, and non-immersed (English-dominant) more than immersed (Spanish-dominant) bilinguals. Self-reported proficiency ratings can produce spurious results, but predictive power improves when combined with self-report questions that might be less affected by subjective judgements

Not just semantics: Strong frequency and weak cognate effects on semantic association in bilinguals

To investigate the possibility that knowledge of two languages influences the nature of semantic representations, bilinguals and monolinguals were compared in a word association task. In Experiment 1, bilinguals produced less typical responses relative to monolinguals when given cues with a very common associate (e.g., given bride, bilinguals said "dress" instead of "groom"). In Experiment 2, bilinguals produced responses as typical as those of monolinguals when given cues with high-frequency associates, but not when given cues with low-frequency associates. Bilinguals' responses were also affected, to a certain extent, by the cognate status of the stimulus word pairs: They were more similar to monolinguals' responses when the cue and its strongest associate were both cognates (e.g., minute-second is minuto-segundo in Spanish), as opposed to both being noncognates. Experiment 3 confirmed the presence of a robust frequency effect on bilingual but not on monolingual association responses. These findings imply a lexical locus for the bilingual effect on association responses and reveal the association task to be not quite as purely semantic as was previously assumed

Controlling Two Languages: Cost-Benefit Analysis of Immersion in Second-Language Learning

One of the most efficient methods to learn a second language (L2) is through immersion in a country where that language is spoken. What aspects of language immersion enable adult learners to acquire an L2 more efficiently? An obvious consequence of immersion is more frequent and varied exposure to the L2, but another possibility is that immersion makes it easier to inhibit the first language (L1). If so, learning an L2 would involve cognitive mechanisms that lead to some benefits but also produce some cost to the learner, and if so, it would be of interest to know exactly how and to what extent does immersion negatively impact the learner? In this study, we tested a group of eleven English-speaking college students learning Italian through a study abroad program in Rome, Italy for a period of eight weeks. We predicted that language immersion would reduce fluency in the L1, in order to obtain the benefit of acquiring greater gains in fluency in the L2. To test this, participants completed a language history questionnaire and a verbal fluency task in both English and Italian on the first and last days of the term. On average, participants’ levels of Italian fluency increased and to a greater extent than any losses to their L1, which trended in the direction of an inhibitory effect, but not significantly so. These findings consider the possibility that foreign language acquisition is influenced primarily by frequency effects in the L2, and therefore not entirely due to an inhibitory mechanism on the L1

Lexical access in bilingual speakers : what's the (hard) problem?

Models of bilingual speech production generally assume that translation equivalent lexical nodes share a common semantic representation. Though this type of architecture is highly desirable on both theoretical and empirical grounds, it could create difficulty at the point of lexical selection. If two translation equivalent lexical nodes are activated to roughly equal levels every time that their shared semantic representation becomes activated, the lexical selection mechanism should find it difficult to “decide” between the two (the “hard problem”) – yet in some cases bilinguals benefit from the presence of a translation equivalent “competitor”. In this article, we review three models that have been proposed as solutions to the hard problem. Each of these models has difficulty accounting for the full range of findings in the literature but we suggest that these shortcomings stem from their acceptance of the assumption that lexical selection is competitive. We argue that without this assumption each proposal is able to provide a full account of the empirical findings. We conclude by suggesting that the simplest of these proposals should be rejected before more complicated models are considered.14 page(s