Assessing the presence of lexical competition across languages: Evidence from the Stroop task

Abstract

Do the lexical representations of the non-response language enter into lexical competition during speech production? This issue has been studied by means of the picture–word interference paradigm in which two paradoxical effects have been observed. The so-called CROSS-LANGUAGE IDENTITY EFFECT (Costa, Miozzo and Caramazza, 1999) has been taken as evidence against cross-linguistic lexical competition. In contrast, the so-called PHONO-TRANSLATION EFFECT (Hermans, Bongaerts, De Bot and Schreuder, 1998) has been interpreted as revealing lexical competition across languages. In this article, we assess the reliability of these two effects by testing Spanish–Catalan highly-proficient bilinguals performing a Stroop task. The results of the experiment are clear: while the cross-language identity facilitation effect is reliably replicated, the phono-translation interference effect is absent from the Stroop task. From these results, we conclude that we should be cautious when drawing strong conclusions about the presence of competition across languages based on the phono-translation effect observed in the picture–word interference paradigm.

Electrophysiology of cross-language interference and facilitation in picture naming

“…The magnitude of the between-language translation facilitation effect is smaller than the withinlanguage identity facilitation effect (e.g., . The translation facilitation effect is also obtained in the color-word Stroop task (Costa, Albareda, & Santesteban, 2008;Roelofs, 2010).…”

The second language interferes with picture naming in the first language: evidence for L2 activation during L1 production

“…when both the L1 and the L2 are activated by the experimental paradigm), speakers have a harder time to resolve lexical competition as competitors from both languages are activated in parallel. Costa, Albareda, and Santesteban (2008) investigated the phono-translation effect in a Stroop task. Highly proficient Spanish-Catalan (Experiment 1) and CatalanSpanish speakers (Experiment 2) named the print colour of a visually presented word in their L2, while the word itself was an L1 word with varying relations to the target utterance (e.g.…”

Multilingual Stroop performance: Effects of trilingualism and proficiency on inhibitory control

“…Boyden & Gilpin, 1978; Cohen, Dunbar, & McClelland 1990; Warren & Marsh, 1978) and bilinguals (e.g. Costa, Albareda, & Santesteban, 2008; Dyer, 1971; Goldfarb & Tzelgov, 2007; Preston & Lambert, 1969; Zied et al, 2004). In the original version of the task (Stroop, 1935), participants were asked to name the ink colour of colour words, while the print was either congruent or incongruent with the colour that the word spelled out (e.g.…”

“…In manipulating stimulus and response languages, additional inhibitory processes become necessary in order to suppress the language of the stimuli, which is irrelevant for the response (e.g. Costa, Albareda, & Santesteban, 2008; Dyer, 1971; Goldfarb & Tzelgov, 2007; Preston & Lambert, 1969). That is, suppression of the automatic reading of the word may be influenced by inhibitory mechanisms under a within-language or a between-language condition.…”