Competing activation in bilingual language processing: Within- and between-language competition

Marian, Viorica; Spivey, Michael J.

doi:10.1017/s1366728903001068

Cited by 481 publications

(457 citation statements)

References 45 publications

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“…This ensured that the participants remained in an English language mode throughout the experiment. Importantly, sound perception and word recognition studies have shown that when L2 learners (especially very advanced ones) are tested entirely in their L2, they have much less interference from their L1 than when they are tested in both languages (Escudero & Boersma, 2002;Kroll & Sunderman, 2003;Marian & Spivey, 2003). Therefore, we believe that the subjects treated the words they learned as English novel words and that they therefore would employ a similar learning mechanism to the present word-learning task as they usually employ in any L2 word-learning situation.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Novel second-language words and asymmetric lexical access

Escudero

Hayes‐Harb

Mitterer

2008

Journal of Phonetics

197

272

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The lexical and phonetic mapping of auditorily confusable L2 nonwords was examined by teaching L2 learners novel words and by later examining their word recognition using an eye-tracking paradigm. During word learning, two groups of highly proficient Dutch learners of English learned 20 English nonwords, of which 10 contained the English contrast /e/-ae/ (a confusable contrast for native Dutch speakers). One group of subjects learned the words by matching their auditory forms to pictured meanings, while a second group additionally saw the spelled forms of the words. We found that the group who received only auditory forms confused words containing /ae/ and /e/ symmetrically, i.e., both /ae/ and /e/ auditory tokens triggered looks to pictures containing both /ae/ and /e/. In contrast, the group who also had access to spelled forms showed the same asymmetric word recognition pattern found by previous studies, i.e., they only looked at pictures of words containing /e/ when presented with /e/ target tokens, but looked at pictures of words containing both /ae/ and /e/ when presented with /ae/ target tokens. The results demonstrate that L2 learners can form lexical contrasts for auditorily confusable novel L2 words. However, and most importantly, this study suggests that explicit information over the contrastive nature of two new sounds may be needed to build separate lexical representations for similar-sounding L2 words. r

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Novel second-language words and asymmetric lexical access

Escudero

Hayes‐Harb

Mitterer

2008

Journal of Phonetics

197

272

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“…Recently, support for an asymmetry in native/nonnative phonological processing has come from eye-tracking experiments. While numerous studies found native language activation during non-native language processing (Blumenfeld and Marian 2005;Marian and Spivey 2003a,b;Weber and Cutler 2004;Weber and Paris 2004; but see Spivey and Marian 1999), findings of non-native language activation during native language processing have been mixed (Ju and Luce 2004;Marian and Spivey 2003b;Weber and Cutler 2004). The exact mechanism of the asymmetry in native and non-native language processing remains unknown; however, language proficiency may be an important mediator.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sensitivity to Phonological Similarity Within and Across Languages

Marian

Blumenfeld

Boukrina

2007

J Psycholinguist Res

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The influence of phonological similarity on bilingual language processing was examined within and across languages in three experiments. Phonological similarity was manipulated within a language by varying neighborhood density, and across languages by varying extent of cross-linguistic overlap between native and non-native languages. In Experiment 1, speed and accuracy of bilinguals' picture naming were susceptible to phonological neighborhood density in both the first and the second language. In Experiment 2, eye-movement patterns indicated that the time-course of language activation varied across phonological neighborhood densities and across native/non-native language status. In Experiment 3, speed and accuracy of bilingual performance in an auditory lexical decision task were influenced by degree of cross-linguistic phonological overlap. Together, the three experiments confirm that bilinguals are sensitive to phonological similarity within and across languages and suggest that this sensitivity is asymmetrical across native and non-native languages and varies along the timecourse of word processing.

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“…Although only one language (i.e., the target language) is overtly engaged during communication, the bilingual's nontarget language is also coactivated and available, meaning that at any given time, one language is being suppressed (9)(10)(11). The need to constantly control two languages confers advantages in the executive system (12,13), the system that directs cognitive processing.…”

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confidence: 99%

Subcortical encoding of sound is enhanced in bilinguals and relates to executive function advantages

Krizman

Marian

Shook

et al. 2012

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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237

226

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Bilingualism profoundly affects the brain, yielding functional and structural changes in cortical regions dedicated to language processing and executive function [Crinion J, et al. (2006) Science 312:1537–1540; Kim KHS, et al. (1997) Nature 388:171–174]. Comparatively, musical training, another type of sensory enrichment, translates to expertise in cognitive processing and refined biological processing of sound in both cortical and subcortical structures. Therefore, we asked whether bilingualism can also promote experience-dependent plasticity in subcortical auditory processing. We found that adolescent bilinguals, listening to the speech syllable [da], encoded the stimulus more robustly than age-matched monolinguals. Specifically, bilinguals showed enhanced encoding of the fundamental frequency, a feature known to underlie pitch perception and grouping of auditory objects. This enhancement was associated with executive function advantages. Thus, through experience-related tuning of attention, the bilingual auditory system becomes highly efficient in automatically processing sound. This study provides biological evidence for system-wide neural plasticity in auditory experts that facilitates a tight coupling of sensory and cognitive functions.

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Competing activation in bilingual language processing: Within- and between-language competition

Cited by 481 publications

References 45 publications

Novel second-language words and asymmetric lexical access

Novel second-language words and asymmetric lexical access

Sensitivity to Phonological Similarity Within and Across Languages

Subcortical encoding of sound is enhanced in bilinguals and relates to executive function advantages

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