Bilingual writing coactivation: lexical and sublexical processing in a word dictation task

Bilinguals’ two languages seem to be coactivated in parallel during reading, speaking, and listening. However, this coactivation in writing has been scarcely studied. This study aimed to assess orthographic coactivation during spelling-to-dictation. We took advantage of the presence of polyvalent graphemes in Spanish (one phonological representation with two orthographic specifications, e.g., / b /for both the graphemes v and b) to manipulate orthographic congruency. Spanish–English bilinguals were presented with cross-linguistic congruent (movement–movimiento) and incongruent words (government–gobierno) for a dictation task. The time and accuracy to initiate writing and to type the rest-of-word (lexical and sublexical processing) were recorded in both the native language (L1) and the second language (L2). Results revealed no differences between conditions in monolinguals. Bilinguals showed a congruency and language interaction with better performance for congruent stimuli, which was evident from the beginning of typing in L2. Language coactivation and lexical–sublexical interaction during bilinguals’ writing are discussed.

Early lexical influences on sublexical processing in speech perception: Evidence from electrophysiology

Contextual information influences how we perceive speech, but it remains unclear at which level of processing contextual information merges with acoustic information. Theories differ on whether early, sublexical speech processing levels are strictly feed-forward or are influenced by semantic and lexical context. Studies using behavioral responses have shown contextual factors influence sublexical judgments but are unable to pinpoint whether context biases responses by modulating sublexical processing or later response selection stages. In the current study, we investigate the time-course of context effects by simultaneously recording electroencephalography as an online measure of sublexical speech processing while subjects engage in a lexically biasing phoneme categorization task. We find that lexical context modulates the amplitude of the N100, an ERP component linked with sublexical processes in speech perception. These results support interactive accounts of speech perception over accounts in which early speech perception processes are only driven by bottom up information.

A mare in a pub? Nonnative facilitation in phonological priming

A phonological priming experiment reports inhibition for Russian prime-target pairs with onset overlap in native speakers. When preceded by the phonological prime /kabɨla/, the target /kabak/ ( кобыла – КАБАК, mare – PUB) takes longer to respond than the same target preceded by a phonologically unrelated word. English-speaking late learners of Russian also show inhibition, but only for high-frequency prime-target pairs. Conversely, they show facilitation for low-frequency pairs. In semantic priming (e.g. carnation – DAISY), facilitation is observed for the same two lexical frequency ranges both in native speakers and learners of Russian, suggesting that the primes and targets in the low-frequency range are familiar to the nonnative participants. We interpret nonnative phonological facilitation for low-frequency words as evidence for sublexical processing of less familiar words that is accompanied by reduced lexical competition in nonnative lexical access. We posit that low lexical competition is due to unfaithful, or fuzzy phonolexical representations: nonnative speakers are unsure about the exact phonological form of low-frequency words. Such unfaithful representations are not strongly engaged in lexical competition and selection. High reliance on sublexical rather than lexical processing may be a general property of nonnative word recognition in case when the words are less familiar and have a low level of entrenchment.

Reading and Lexicalization in Opaque and Transparent Orthographies: Word Naming and Word Learning in English and Spanish

Do skilled readers of opaque and transparent orthographies make differential use of lexical and sublexical processes when converting words from print to sound? Two experiments are reported, which address that question, using effects of letter length on naming latencies as an index of the involvement of sublexical letter–sound conversion. Adult native speakers of English (Experiment 1) and Spanish (Experiment 2) read aloud four- and seven-letter high-frequency words, low-frequency words, and nonwords in their native language. The stimuli were interleaved and presented 10 times in a first testing session and 10 more times in a second session 28 days later. Effects of lexicality were observed in both languages, indicating the deployment of lexical representations in word naming. Naming latencies to both words and nonwords reduced across repetitions on Day 1, with those savings being retained to Day 28. Length effects were, however, greater for Spanish than English word naming. Reaction times to long and short nonwords converged with repeated presentations in both languages, but less in Spanish than in English. The results support the hypothesis that reading in opaque orthographies favours the rapid creation and use of lexical representations, while reading in transparent orthographies makes more use of a combination of lexical and sublexical processing.

Masked onset priming in lexical decision

In masked onset priming (MOPE) there is an overlap between prime and target in the onset. This has been shown to lead to faster word recognition of the target in adults in naming tasks but not in lexical decision tasks. To take a developmental stance, the present study investigated MOPE of various onsets in 30 adults and 74 second graders in a lexical decision task. For adults we found no effects for MOPE in lexical decision, which is congruent with the literature. However, results revealed priming effects for the beginning readers: accuracy scores were higher and response times were shorter for both words and pseudowords when there was an overlap of the onset between prime and target. The effects that we found may reflect either sublexical processing or speech planning, leaving it for future research to reach a firm conclusion with regard to underlying processes. Based on our findings, it can tentatively be assumed that beginning readers are susceptible to MOPE in lexical decision because of the fact that their word identification is far from automated.