Mixing the stimulus list in bilingual lexical decision turns cognate facilitation effects into mirrored inhibition effects

Abstract

To test the BIA+ and Multilink models’ accounts of how bilinguals process words with different degrees of cross-linguistic orthographic and semantic overlap, we conducted two experiments manipulating stimulus list composition. Dutch–English late bilinguals performed two English lexical decision tasks including the same set of cognates, interlingual homographs, English control words, and pseudowords. In one task, half of the pseudowords were replaced with Dutch words, requiring a ‘no’ response. This change from pure to mixed language list context was found to turn cognate facilitation effects into inhibition. Relative to control words, larger effects were found for cognate pairs with an increasing cross-linguistic form overlap. Identical cognates produced considerably larger effects than non-identical cognates, supporting their special status in the bilingual lexicon. Response patterns for different item types are accounted for in terms of the items’ lexical representation and their binding to ‘yes’ and ‘no’ responses in pure vs mixed lexical decision.

Neural Evidence of Language Membership Control in Bilingual Word Recognition: An fMRI Study of Cognate Processing in Chinese–Japanese Bilinguals

“…Their results were consistent with those of Poort and Rodd (2017), suggesting that stimulus list composition determines facilitation and inhibition effects during cognate recognition. Besides, Vanlangendonck et al (2020) show the unique role of identical cognates since the reaction time of non-identical cognates did not differ relative to control words in both stimulus lists. Peeters et al (2019) demonstrated that bilinguals relied on language control areas when facing cognates in a lexical decision task with a mixed-language stimulus list composition.…”

“…The cognate facilitation effect was mainly observed from single language stimulus list composed of cognates and matched control words from bilinguals’ first (L1) or second language (L2) only (e.g., Peeters et al, 2013 ; Xiong et al, 2020 ). Because no word belongs to any language other than the target language, any lexical activation may be regarded as evidence supporting facilitation in word recognition ( Vanlangendonck et al, 2020 ). In contrast, according to context-sensitive lexical access, the composition of the stimulus list could influence participants’ language processing ( Dijkstra and van Heuven, 2018 ).…”

“…A significant cognate facilitation effect was observed from the single language stimulus list, but the disadvantage for cognates was observed from the mixed-language list. Similarly, Vanlangendonck et al (2020) recruited Dutch–English bilinguals to complete English lexical decision tasks under the same experimental procedure as Poort and Rodd (2017) . Still, the word types were slightly different between these two studies.…”

“… Peeters et al (2019) demonstrated that bilinguals relied on language control areas when facing cognates in a lexical decision task with a mixed-language stimulus list composition. The stimuli and procedure were identical to those of Vanlangendonck et al (2020) . In the single language stimulus list, the activation of language control areas such as the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and supplementary motor area (SMA) was observed from interlingual homographs, not from identical and non-identical cognates.…”

Evidence of Non-Selective Lexical Access in Children From a Portuguese-English Bilingual School

“…One source of evidence for non-selectivity comes from studies showing cognate facilitation, in which bilinguals are faster to recognize a cognate such as "piano" in English and Spanish than a control word GRAINGER, 1998;GOLLAN;FORSTER;FROST, 1997;STEWART, 1994;COP, et al, 2017;LAURO;SCHWARTZ, 2019;ANGELE, B. et al, 2019;VANLANGENDONCK et al, 2020; BARCELOS, L.; ARÊAS DA LUZ FONTES, in press; TOASSI; MOTA; TEIXEIRA, 2020). In one of the first studies to show cognate facilitation, Caramazza and Brones (1979) had Spanish-English bilinguals perform a lexical decision task in which they had to decide if strings of letters formed a real word in their second language (L2) or not.…”