scholarly journals The cognate facilitation effect in bilingual lexical decision is influenced by stimulus list composition

2017 ◽  
Vol 180 ◽  
pp. 52-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eva D. Poort ◽  
Jennifer M. Rodd
Keyword(s):  
Lexical Decision ◽  
Facilitation Effect ◽  
Stimulus List

scholarly journals The cognate facilitation effect in bilingual lexical decision is influenced by stimulus list composition

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eva Denise Poort ◽  
Jennifer M Rodd
Keyword(s):  
Lexical Decision ◽  
Lexical Access ◽  
Strong Evidence ◽  
Preceding Trial ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Facilitation Effect ◽  
Stimulus List ◽  
Competition Effects ◽  
Interlingual Homographs ◽  
Specific Impact

This article has been published in Acta Psychologica. Cognates share their form and meaning across languages: “winter” in English means the same as “winter” in Dutch. Research has shown that bilinguals process cognates more quickly than words that exist in one language only (e.g. “ant” in English). This finding is taken as strong evidence for the claim that bilinguals have one integrated lexicon and that lexical access is language non-selective. Two English lexical decision experiments with Dutch-English bilinguals investigated whether the cognate facilitation effect is influenced by stimulus list composition. In Experiment 1, the ‘standard’ version, which included only cognates, English control words and regular non-words, showed significant cognate facilitation (31 ms). In contrast, the ‘mixed’ version, which also included interlingual homographs, pseudohomophones (instead of regular non-words) and Dutch-only words, showed a significantly different profile: a non-significant disadvantage for the cognates (8 ms). Experiment 2 examined the specific impact of these three additional stimuli types and found that only the inclusion of Dutch words significantly reduced the cognate facilitation effect. Additional exploratory analyses revealed that, when the preceding trial was a Dutch word, cognates were recognised up to 50 ms more slowly than English controls. We suggest that when participants must respond ‘no’ to non-target language words, competition arises between the ‘yes’- and ‘no’-responses associated with the two interpretations of a cognate, which (partially) cancels out the facilitation that is a result of the cognate’s shared form and meaning. We conclude that the cognate facilitation effect is a real effect that originates in the lexicon, but that cognates can be subject to competition effects outside the lexicon.

Visual recognition of cognates and interlingual homographs in two non-native languages

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 441-470 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yanjiao Zhu ◽  
Peggy Pik Ki Mok
Keyword(s):  
Word Recognition ◽  
Lexical Decision ◽  
Response Time ◽  
Visual Word Recognition ◽  
Visual Recognition ◽  
Lexical Processing ◽  
Facilitation Effect ◽  
Native Languages ◽  
Asian Populations ◽  
Interlingual Homographs

Abstract Previous studies on bilingual visual word recognition have been mainly based on European participants, while less is understood about Asian populations. In this study, the recognition of German-English cognates and interlingual homographs in lexical decision tasks was examined in the two non-native languages of Cantonese-English-German trilinguals. In the L2 English task, cognates were reacted to faster and more accurately than their matched non-cognates, while in the equivalent L3 German task, no cognate facilitation effect was found. However, cognate facilitation effects on response time and accuracy were observed in another L3 German task including cognates and interlingual homographs. The study suggests that Asian trilinguals access L2 and L3 in a language non-selective manner, despite their low proficiency in the recently acquired L3. Meanwhile, lexical processing in a non-proficient L3 is to a great extent affected by multiple contextual factors.

scholarly journals Towards a distributed connectionist account of cognates and interlingual homographs: evidence from semantic relatedness tasks

PeerJ ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. e6725 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eva D. Poort ◽  
Jennifer M. Rodd
Keyword(s):  
Lexical Decision ◽  
Response Competition ◽  
Semantic Relatedness ◽  
Control Word ◽  
Decision Task ◽  
Recent Experience ◽  
Facilitation Effect ◽  
Major Drawback ◽  
Link Type ◽  
Interlingual Homographs

Background Current models of how bilinguals process cognates (e.g., “wolf”, which has the same meaning in Dutch and English) and interlingual homographs (e.g., “angel”, meaning “insect’s sting” in Dutch) are based primarily on data from lexical decision tasks. A major drawback of such tasks is that it is difficult—if not impossible—to separate processes that occur during decision making (e.g., response competition) from processes that take place in the lexicon (e.g., lateral inhibition). Instead, we conducted two English semantic relatedness judgement experiments. Methods In Experiment 1, highly proficient Dutch–English bilinguals (N = 29) and English monolinguals (N = 30) judged the semantic relatedness of word pairs that included a cognate (e.g., “wolf”–“howl”; n = 50), an interlingual homograph (e.g., “angel”–“heaven”; n = 50) or an English control word (e.g., “carrot”–“vegetable”; n = 50). In Experiment 2, another group of highly proficient Dutch–English bilinguals (N = 101) read sentences in Dutch that contained one of those cognates, interlingual homographs or the Dutch translation of one of the English control words (e.g., “wortel” for “carrot”) approximately 15 minutes prior to completing the English semantic relatedness task. Results In Experiment 1, there was an interlingual homograph inhibition effect of 39 ms only for the bilinguals, but no evidence for a cognate facilitation effect. Experiment 2 replicated these findings and also revealed that cross-lingual long-term priming had an opposite effect on the cognates and interlingual homographs: recent experience with a cognate in Dutch speeded processing of those items 15 minutes later in English but slowed processing of interlingual homographs. However, these priming effects were smaller than previously observed using a lexical decision task. Conclusion After comparing our results to studies in both the bilingual and monolingual domain, we argue that bilinguals appear to process cognates and interlingual homographs as monolinguals process polysemes and homonyms, respectively. In the monolingual domain, processing of such words is best modelled using distributed connectionist frameworks. We conclude that it is necessary to explore the viability of such a model for the bilingual case. Data, scripts, materials and pre-registrations. Experiment 1: http://www.osf.io/ndb7p; Experiment 2: http://www.osf.io/2at49.

scholarly journals The facilitation effect of associative and semantic relatedness in word recognition

Psihologija ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 44 (4) ◽  
pp. 367-385
Author(s):  
Milena Jakic ◽  
Dusica Filipovic-Djurdjevic ◽  
Aleksandar Kostic
Keyword(s):  
Word Recognition ◽  
Lexical Decision ◽  
Priming Effect ◽  
Semantic Relatedness ◽  
Facilitation Effect ◽  
Distributed Models ◽  
The Third ◽  
Associative Relatedness

In this study we addressed three issues concerning semantic and associative relatedness between two words and how they prime each other. The first issue is whether there is a priming effect of semantic relatedness over and above the effect of associative relatedness. The second issue is how difference in semantic overlap between two words affects priming. In order to specify the semantic overlap we introduce five relation types that differ in number of common semantic components. Three relation types (synonyms, antonyms and hyponyms) represent semantic relatedness while two relation types represent associative relatedness, with negligible or no semantic relatedness. Finally, the third issue addressed in this study is whether there is a symmetric priming effect if we swap the position of prime and target, i.e. whether the direction of relatedness between two words affects priming. In two lexical decision experiments we presented five types of word pairs. In both experiments we obtained stronger facilitation for pairs that were both semantically and associatively related. Closer inspection showed that larger semantic overlap between words is paralleled by greater facilitation effect. The effects did not change when prime and target swap their position, indicating that the observed facilitation effects are symmetrical. This outcome complies with predictions of distributed models of memory.

scholarly journals Towards a distributed connectionist account of cognates and interlingual homographs: Evidence from semantic relatedness tasks

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eva Denise Poort ◽  
Jennifer M Rodd
Keyword(s):  
Lexical Decision ◽  
Response Competition ◽  
Semantic Relatedness ◽  
Control Word ◽  
Recent Experience ◽  
Facilitation Effect ◽  
Major Drawback ◽  
Dutch Translation ◽  
Interlingual Homographs ◽  
Cross Lingual

This article has been published in PeerJ.Background. Current models of how bilinguals process cognates (e.g. “wolf”, which has the same meaning in Dutch and English) and interlingual homographs (e.g. “angel”, meaning “insect’s sting” in Dutch) are based primarily on data from lexical decision tasks. A major drawback of such tasks is that it is difficult—if not impossible—to separate processes that occur during decision making (e.g. response competition) from processes that take place in the lexicon (e.g. lateral inhibition). Instead, we conducted two English semantic relatedness judgement experiments. Methods. In Experiment 1, highly proficient Dutch–English bilinguals (N = 29) and English monolinguals (N = 30) judged the semantic relatedness of word pairs that included a cognate (e.g. “wolf”–“howl”; n = 50), an interlingual homograph (e.g. “angel”–“heaven”; n = 50) or an English control word (e.g. “carrot”–“vegetable”; n = 50). In Experiment 2, another group of highly proficient Dutch–English bilinguals (N = 101) read sentences in Dutch that contained one of those cognates, interlingual homographs or the Dutch translation of one of the English control words (e.g. “wortel” for “carrot”) approximately 15 minutes prior to completing the English semantic relatedness task.Results. In Experiment 1, there was an interlingual homograph inhibition effect of 39 ms only for the bilinguals, but no evidence for a cognate facilitation effect. Experiment 2 replicated these findings and also revealed that cross-lingual long-term priming had an opposite effect on the cognates and interlingual homographs: recent experience with a cognate in Dutch speeded processing of those items 15 minutes later in English but slowed processing of interlingual homographs. However, these priming effects were smaller than previously observed using a lexical decision task.Conclusion. After comparing our results to studies in both the bilingual and monolingual domain, we argue that bilinguals appear to process cognates and interlingual homographs as monolinguals process polysemes and homonyms, respectively. In the monolingual domain, processing of such words is best modelled using distributed connectionist frameworks. We conclude that it is necessary to explore the viability of such a model for the bilingual case. Data, scripts, materials and pre-registrations. Experiment 1: www.osf.io/ndb7p; Experiment 2: www.osf.io/2at49.

Facilitating Word Recognition: Evidence for Strategic and Automatic Factors

1981 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-59 ◽  
Author(s):  
James R. Tweedy ◽  
Robert H. Lapinski
Keyword(s):  
Word Recognition ◽  
Lexical Decision ◽  
Lexical Decision Task ◽  
Present Experiment ◽  
Semantic Context ◽  
Decision Task ◽  
Facilitation Effect ◽  
Semantic Relationships

An appropriate semantic context has been demonstrated to facilitate word recognition in a variety of paradigms. The present experiment examined the consequences of varying the probability that word pairs presented in a lexical decision task would be related in meaning. Early in the 20-min session, the recent density of semantic relationships between words had little influence on the size of the contextual facilitation effect, but later the influence was marked. The results suggest that the processing facilitation provided by an appropriate semantic context consisted of both a relatively automatic component and a labile strategic component with an influence that was modulated by the recent usefulness of the information provided by semantic context.

More on interlingual homograph recognition: language intermixing versus explicitness of instruction

2000 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-78 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ton Dijkstra ◽  
Ellen De Bruijn ◽  
Herbert Schriefers ◽  
Sjoerd Ten Brinke
Keyword(s):  
Word Recognition ◽  
Lexical Decision ◽  
Lexical Decision Task ◽  
Decision Task ◽  
Strong Inhibition ◽  
Stimulus List ◽  
Performance Consequences ◽  
Interlingual Homographs

We contrasted the effect of instruction-induced expectancies and language intermixing in an English lexical decision task performed by Dutch–English bilinguals. At the start of the experiment, participants were instructed to respond to interlingual homographs and exclusively English words by giving a “yes” response, and to English non-words and exclusively Dutch words by giving a “no” response. In the first part of the experiment the stimulus list did not contain any Dutch words. In the second part of the experiment, Dutch items were introduced. No significant differences were found between interlingual homographs and controls in the first part of the experiment, while strong inhibition effects were obtained for interlingual homographs in the second part. These results indicate that language intermixing rather than instruction-based expectancies drives the bilingual partipants' performance. Consequences for current views on bilingual word recognition are discussed.

Lexikalischer Zugriff bei Mehrsprachigen: Eine Studie zur visuellen Verarbeitung von Kognaten im Polnischen als Erstsprache

2021 ◽  
Vol 66 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-60
Author(s):  
Kamil Długosz
Keyword(s):  
Lexical Decision ◽  
Lexical Decision Task ◽  
Lexical Access ◽  
Lexical Processing ◽  
Decision Task ◽  
Facilitation Effect ◽  
L3 Acquisition

Summary Research into cross-linguistic influence in L3 acquisition and processing has recently shown remarkable growth. However, still little is known about reverse interactions, i. e. the effects of L2 and L3 on L1. This study investigates visual cognate processing in Polish to determine whether lexical access in the dominant L1 is susceptible to the influence of the non-dominant L2 and L3. A group of 13 Polish learners of German and English participated in a lexical decision task in which both double and triple cognates were examined in comparison to control non-cognates and non-words. In line with the pattern found in most similar studies, the results reveal no cognate facilitation effect, thus indicating that L1 lexical access in multilinguals may also be selective with respect to L2 and L3. The theoretical consequences for L1 lexical processing in the multilingual mind are discussed.

scholarly journals Studies of cross-lingual long-term priming

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eva Denise Poort ◽  
Jennifer M Rodd
Keyword(s):  
Lexical Decision ◽  
Priming Effect ◽  
Bayes Factors ◽  
Decision Task ◽  
Recent Experience ◽  
Facilitation Effect ◽  
P Values ◽  
Interlingual Homographs ◽  
Cross Lingual

Poort, Warren and Rodd (2016) showed that bilinguals profit from recent experience with an identical cognate in their native language when they encounter the same word in their second language. We conducted two experiments employing the same cross-lingual long-term priming paradigm to determine whether this is also the case for non-identical cognates, as this would indicate they share an orthographic representation in the bilingual lexicon. In Experiment 1, Dutch–English bilinguals read Dutch sentences containing identical cognates (e.g. “winter”–“winter”), non-identical cognates (e.g. “baard”–“beard”) or the Dutch translations (e.g. “fiets”) of English control words (e.g. “bike”). These words were presented again in an English lexical decision task approximately 19 minutes later. The analysis revealed only weak evidence, based both on p-values and Bayes factors, for a small 6-9 ms facilitative priming effect. Experiment 2 aimed to determine whether including interlingual homographs (e.g. “angel”–“angel”) in the experiment modulates the size of the priming effect. This time, the analysis revealed no evidence for a priming effect, either based on p-values or Bayes factors, in either version of the experiment for either the cognates or the interlingual homographs. In line with previous findings (Poort & Rodd, 2017, May 9), we did find strong evidence for an interlingual homograph inhibition effect and no evidence for a cognate facilitation effect. We conclude that, since the cross-lingual long-term priming effect is largely semantic in nature, the lexical decision tasks we used were not sensitive enough to detect an effect of priming.Note: This manuscript has not been peer-reviewed.

scholarly journals T-value and mutual information as measures of the association strength in Serbian language

Psihologija ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-74 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jelena Lisac ◽  
Petar Milin
Keyword(s):  
Reaction Time ◽  
Mutual Information ◽  
Lexical Decision ◽  
Lexical Decision Task ◽  
Cognitive Processing ◽  
Word Processing ◽  
Decision Task ◽  
Association Strength ◽  
Facilitation Effect ◽  
Response Latencies

Since the study of Meyer and Schvaneveldt (1971), a large number of researches have shown facilitation effect in cognitive processing of a given word when it is preceded by a semantically (i.e. associatively) related word. In this study, we examined influence of association strength between context and target on visual word processing in Serbian language. Primary goal was to test cognitive relevance of the t-value and mutual information (MI) as measures of the association strength. The results showed that the mutual information affects response latencies in the visual lexical decision task: the higher the mutual information for two words (bigram), the shorter the reaction time. Contrariwise, cognitive relevance of the t-value as a measure of the words' association strength was not confirmed.

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