Activating Three Languages Simultaneously in Mental Lexicon: An Investigation of Nepali – English – Sanskritparallel Language Activation

Abstract

This is the first study investigating the nature of trilingual parallel language activation in Nepal-English-Sanskrit triad. Twenty-four participants have been divided into groups of 8 based on the dominance of the three language use to understand the nature of activation in three groups. Stimuli consisted of audio-visual bimodal in nature. An emerging novel technology Mouse Tracker that can study continuous unfolding of cognitive processing has been used to design the experiment and collect the software generated data. The data has been analyzed using SPSS and visualized using R. Results which showed when three languages are activated simultaneously, the phonological similarity plays a facilitating role. The results are explained in line with BLINCS (Bilingual Language Interaction Network for Comprehension of Speech) model.

Trilingual parallel processing: Do the dominant languages grab all the attention?

“…The authors also exhibited that mouse tracking can even outscore eye tacking when it comes to the capturing of temporal processing details by revisiting the seminal eye tracking work on bilingual parallel language activation study of Marian and Spivey (2003b;see Pathak et al, 2021 for comparison of mouse tracking with eye tracking and button press paradigms). We wanted to further test its efficacy in trilingual processing (Pathak, 2020;Pathak, 2022b) because of its unique features and architecture in recording temporal and spatial cognitive processing of participants' response patterns modulated by the experimental manipulation.…”