Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dlnhk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T12:13:32.836Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Working memory influences on cross-language activation during bilingual lexical disambiguation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2010

ANA B. ARÊAS DA LUZ FONTES  and
ANA I. SCHWARTZ
ANA B. ARÊAS DA LUZ FONTES*
Affiliation:
The University of Texas at El Paso
ANA I. SCHWARTZ
Affiliation:
The University of Texas at El Paso
*
Address for correspondence: Ana B. Arêas da Luz Fontes, Department of Psychology, 500 W. University Ave., University of Texas at El Paso, El Paso, Texas 79968, USAaafontes@miners.utep.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This study investigated the role of verbal working memory on bilingual lexical disambiguation. Spanish–English bilinguals read sentences that ended in either a cognate or noncognate homonym or a control word. Participants decided whether follow-up target words were related in meaning to the sentences. On critical trials, sentences biased the subordinate meaning of a homonym and were followed by targets related to the dominant meaning. Bilinguals with high span were faster at rejecting unrelated targets when the sentences ended in a homonym, whereas bilinguals with low span were slower. Furthermore, error rates for bilinguals with low span showed cognate inhibition, while bilinguals with high span showed no effects of cross-language activation. Results demonstrated that bilinguals with high span benefit from shared lexical codes whether these converge on to a single semantic representation (cognates) or not (homonyms). Conversely, bilinguals with low span showed inhibition from the competing lexical codes, even when they converge onto a single semantic representation.

Keywords

bilingualismlexical ambiguitycross-language activationworking memory
Type
Research Article
Information
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition , Volume 14 , Issue 3 , July 2011 , pp. 360 - 370
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Arêas da Luz Fontes, A. B., & Schwartz, A. I. (2010). On a different plane: Cross-language effects on the conceptual representations of within-language homonyms. Language and Cognitive Processes, 25 (4), 508–532.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baayen, R. H., Piepenbrock, R., & Gulikers, L. (1995). The CELEX Lexical Database (CD-ROM). Linguistic Data Consortium, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA.Google Scholar
Daneman, M., & Carpenter, P. A. (1980). Individual differences in working memory and reading. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 19, 450–466.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Daneman, M., & Carpenter, P. A. (1983). Individual differences in integrating information between and within sentences. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, 9, 561–584.Google Scholar
De Bruijn, E. R. A., Dijkstra, T., Chwilla, D. J., & Schriefers, H. J. (2001). Language context effects on interlingual homograph recognition: Evidence from event-related potentials and response times in semantic priming. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 4 (2), 155–168.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dijkstra, A. F. J., Grainger, J., & Van Heuven, W. J. B. (1999). Recognition of cognates and interlingual homographs: The neglected role of phonology. Journal of Memory and Language, 41 (4), 496–518.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dijkstra, T., De Bruijn, E., Schriefers, H., & Brinke, S. T. (2000). More on interlingual homograph recognition: Language intermixing versus explicitness of instruction. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 3 (1), 69–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dijkstra, T., Timmermans, M., & Schriefers, H. (2000). On being blinded by your other language: Effects of task demands on interlingual homograph recognition. Journal of Memory and Language, 42 (4), 445–464.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dijkstra, T., & Van Hell, J. G. (2003). Testing the language mode hypothesis using trilinguals. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 6 (1), 2–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Duffy, S. A., Morris, R. K., & Rayner, K. (1988). Lexical ambiguity and fixation times in reading. Journal of Memory and Language, 27 (4), 429–446.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Duyck, W., Van Assche, E., Drieghe, D., & Hartsuiker, R. J. (2007). Visual word recognition by bilinguals in a sentence context: Evidence for nonselective lexical access. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 33 (4), 663–679.Google Scholar
Elston-Güttler, K. E. (2000). An enquiry into cross-language differences in lexical–conceptual relationships and their effect on L2 lexical processing. Dh.D. dissertation, University of Cambridge.Google Scholar
Elston-Güttler, K. E., & Friederici, A. D. (2005). Native and L2 processing of homonyms in sentential context. Journal of Memory and Language, 52 (2), 256–283.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elston-Güttler, K. E., Gunter, T. C., & Kotz, S. A. (2005). Zooming into L2: Global language context and adjustment affect processing of interlingual homographs in sentences. Cognitive Brain Research, 25 (1), 57–70.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Elston-Güttler, K. E., Paulmann, S., & Kotz, S. A. (2005). Who's in control? Proficiency and L1 influence on L2 processing. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 17 (10), 1593–1610.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gadsby, N., Arnott, W., & Copland, D. (2008). An investigation of working memory influences on lexical ambiguity resolution. Neuropsychology, 22 (2), 209–216.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gollan, T. H., Forster, K. I., & Frost, R. (1997). Translation priming with different scripts: Masked priming with cognates and noncognates in Hebrew–English bilinguals. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 23, 1122–1139.Google ScholarPubMed
Gunter, T. C., Wagner, S., & Friederici, A. D. (2003). Working memory and lexical ambiguity resolution as revealed by ERPs: A difficult case for activation theories. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 15, 643–657.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jared, D., & Kroll, J. F. (2001). Do bilinguals activate phonological representations in one or both of their languages when naming words? Journal of Memory and Language, 44 (1), 2–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kambe, G., Rayner, K., & Duffy, S. A. (2001). Global context effects on processing lexically ambiguous words: Evidence from eye fixations. Memory and Cognition, 29, 363–372.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
King, J., & Just, M. A. (1991). Individual differences in syntactic processing: The role of working memory. Journal of Memory and Language, 30, 580–602.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kroll, J. F., & Stewart, E. (1994). Category interference in translation and picture naming: Evidence for asymmetric connections between bilingual memory representations, Journal of Memory and Language, 33, 149–174.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Libben, M. R., & Titone, D. A. (2009). Bilingual lexical access in context: Evidence from eye movements during reading. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 35 (2), 381–390.Google ScholarPubMed
Miyake, A., Just, A. M., & Carpenter, P. A. (1994). Working memory constrains on the resolution of lexical ambiguity: Maintaining multiple representations in neutral contexts. Journal of Memory and Language, 33, 175–202.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nelson, D. L., McEvoy, C. L., & Schreiber, T. A. (1998). The University of South Florida word association, rhyme, and word fragment norms. http://www.usf.edu/FreeAssociation/ (retrieved November 23, 2009).Google Scholar
Schwartz, A. I., & Kroll, J. F. (2006). Bilingual lexical activation in sentence context. Journal of Memory and Language, 55 (2), 197–212.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schwartz, A. I., Kroll, J. F., & Diaz, M. (2008). Reading words in Spanish and English: Mapping orthography to phonology in two languages. Language and Cognitive Processes, 22 (1), 106–129.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schwartz, A. I., Yeh, L., & Arêas da Luz Fontes, A. B. (2008). Cross-language activation and lexical disambiguation: An extension of the Re-Ordered Access Model. Presented at ARMADILLO: The Southwest Cognition Conference, El Paso, TX.Google Scholar
Schwartz, A. I., Yeh, L., & Shaw, M. (2008). Lexical representation of second language words: Implications for second language vocabulary acquisition and use. The Mental Lexicon, 3 (3), 309–324.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sereno, S. C., Brewer, C. C., & O'Donnell, P. J. (2003). Context effects in word recognition: Evidence for early interactive processing. Psychological Science, 14, 328–333.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sereno, S. C., Rayner, K., & Posner, M. I. (1998). Establishing a time-line of word recognition: Evidence from eye movements and event-related potentials. NeuroReport, 9, 2195–2200.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Van Hell, J. G., & De Groot, A. M. B (2008). Sentence context affects lexical decision and word translation. Acta Psychologica, 128, 431–451.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Van Heuven, W. J. B., Dijkstra, T., Grainger, J., & Schriefers, H. (2001). Shared neighborhood effects in masked orthographic priming. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 8 (1), 96–101.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed