Language has been shown to influence non-linguistic cognitive operations such as colour perception, object categorization and motion event perception. Here, we show that language also modulates higher level processing, such as semantic knowledge. Using event-related brain potentials, we show that highly fluent Welsh–English bilinguals require significantly less processing effort when reading sentences in Welsh which contain factually correct information about Wales, than when reading sentences containing the same information presented in English. Crucially, culturally irrelevant information was processed similarly in both Welsh and English. Our findings show that even in highly proficient bilinguals, language interacts with factors associated with personal identity, such as culture, to modulate online semantic processing.
The present study investigated whether local stimulus enhancement and the demonstration of objects' affordances--both of which are inherent in modelling of object-directed target actions--are themselves sufficient to evoke the target behaviour on imitation test trials. Six-month-old infants were presented with a puppet wearing a removable mitten and observed either a demonstration of mitten removal (modelling group), the experimenter pointing at the mitten (stimulus enhancement group), the mitten falling off apparently by itself (affordance demonstration group), or no specific action directed at the mitten (control group). For all infants, the puppet was next presented without any accompanying demonstrations and infants' mitten removal behaviours in the response period were recorded. The results showed that local stimulus enhancement and affordance demonstration were as effective as full modelling in evoking the target action. This finding shows that the performances of 6-month-old infants on imitation tests can be multiply determined and evoked by variables other than modelling of target behaviour.
The determinants of generalized imitation of manual gestures were investigated in 1- to 2-year-old infants. Eleven infants were first trained eight baseline matching relations; then, four novel gestures that the infants did not match in probe trials were selected as target behaviors. Next, in a generalized imitation test in which matching responses to baseline models were intermittently reinforced, but matching responses to target models were not eligible for reinforcement, the infants matched baseline models but not the majority of their target behaviors. To ensure their failure to match the target behaviors was not due to motor constraints, the infants were trained, in a multiple-baseline procedure, to produce the target responses under stimulus control that did not include an antecedent model of the target behavior. There was no evidence of generalized imitation in subsequent tests. When the infants were next trained to match each target behavior to criterion (tested in extinction) in a multiple-baseline-across-behaviors procedure, only 2 infants continued to match all their targets in subsequent tests; the remaining infants matched only some of them. Seven infants were next given mixed matching training with the target behaviors to criterion (tested in extinction); they subsequently matched these targets without reinforcement when interspersed with trials on which matching responses to baseline models were intermittently reinforced. In repeat tests, administered at 3-week intervals, these 7 children (and 2 that did not take part in mixed matching training) continued to match most of their target behaviors. The results support a trained matching account, but provide no evidence of generalized imitation, in 1- to 2-year-old infants.
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