Orthography plays a critical role in cognate priming: Evidence from French/English and Arabic/French cognates

Bowers, Jeffrey S.; Mimouni, Zohra; Arguin, Martin

doi:10.3758/bf03211829

Cited by 26 publications

(20 citation statements)

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“…They reported equivalent priming for these items, showing that repeated access to orthographic codes is critical for priming, whereas repeated encoding of the same semantic context is not. Consistent with this story, priming is greatly reduced or eliminated between Arabic and French cognates that are orthographically unrelated due to their different scripts (Bowers, Mimouni, & Arguin, 1999).…”

Section: The Influence Of Various Contextual Variables On Primingsupporting

confidence: 61%

In defense of abstractionist theories of repetition priming and word identification

2000

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There is a great deal of interest in characterizing the representations and processes that support visual word priming and written word identification more generally. On one view, these phenomena are supported by abstract orthographic representations that map together visually dissimilar exemplars of letters and words (e.g., the letters Ala map onto a common abstract letter code a*), On a second view, orthographic codes consist in a collection of episodic representations of words that interact in such a way that it sometimes looks as if there are abstract codes. Tenpenny (1995) contrasted these general approaches and concluded by endorsing the episodic account, arguing that no evidence demands that we posit abstract orthographic representations. This review reconsiders the evidence and argues that a variety of priming and nonpriming research strongly supports the conclusion that abstract orthographic codes exist and support priming and word identification. On this account, episodic representations are represented separately from abstract orthographic knowledge and contribute minimally to these functions.There is a great deal of interest in characterizing the representations and processes that support the improved processing of stimuli repeated during an experiment-the repetition priming effect. Indeed, two different types of repetition priming have been intensively studied from two quite different perspectives. On the one hand, researchers interested in memory have tended to focus on long-term repetition priming, in which facilitation can last minutes, hours, and sometimes longer (Sloman, Hayman, Ohta, Law, & Tulving, 1988). For example, participants are generally faster and more accurate in making lexical decisions to test words encoded a few minutes or hours previously in a study list (see, e.g., Scarborough, Cortese, & Scarborough, 1977). On the other hand, researchers interested in language processing have tended to focus on short-term repetition priming in order to address questions regarding how single words are identified. In a typical short-term priming task, a pattern mask (e.g., ######) is replaced by a prime word that is briefly flashed (e.g., 50 msec), which in turn is replaced by the target. Under these conditions, primes are typically unnoticed by the participants, but these items nevertheless facilitate processing of targets when the prime and target are the same. One key attribute of masked priming is that it lasts only a few seconds (e.g., Forster & Davis, 1984).Among memory researchers, interest in long-term repetition priming was inspired by the observation that densely amnesic patients show robust (sometimes normal) priming despite poor (sometimes chance) performance I thank Chad Marsolek, Michael Masson, Kate Nation, and Keith Rayner for valuable suggestions that greatly improved this paper. Correspondence should be addressed to 1. S. Bowers, Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Bristol, 8 Woodland Road, Bristol SS8 lIN, England (e-mail: j.bowers@bris.ac.uk). 83on explicit re...

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Section: The Influence Of Various Contextual Variables On Primingsupporting

confidence: 61%

In defense of abstractionist theories of repetition priming and word identification

2000

Self Cite

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“…Strong cognate effects have also been reported in a variety of priming paradigms (Lalor & Kirsner, 2001; Bowers, Mimouni, & Arguin, 2000; Cristoffanini, Kirsner, & Milech, 1986), including masked priming (e.g., Gollan, Forster, & Frost, 1997; Sanchez-Casas et al, 1992; De Groot & Nas, 1991), where the contribution of strategic factors is less likely to have influenced the findings. Voga and Grainger (2007) found priming for both cognates and noncognates across different scripts (Greek and French).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 93%

Effects of Cognate Status on Word Comprehension in Second Language Learners: An ERP Investigation

Midgley

Holcomb

Grainger

2011

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience

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ERPs were used to explore the different patterns of processing of cognate and noncognate words in the first (L1) and second (L2) language of a population of second language learners. L1 English students of French were presented with blocked lists of L1 and L2 words, and ERPs to cognates and noncognates were compared within each language block. For both languages, cognates had smaller amplitudes in the N400 component when compared with noncognates. L1 items that were cognates showed early differences in amplitude in the N400 epoch when compared with noncognates. L2 items showed later differences between cognates and noncognates than L1 items. The results are discussed in terms of how cognate status affects word recognition in second language learners.

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“…They found significant priming from cross-script homophones when the task required access to phonology (i.e., in a naming task) but not in lexical decision or semantic categorization (but see Zhou et al, 2010 for homophone priming even in lexical decision). Using longer delays between prime and target, Bowers et al (2000) observed that presenting Arabic–French bilinguals with a cognate word during the first phase of the experiment, either orthographically or aurally, facilitated later processing of a target word in the other language in a lexical decision task. Using cognate translations and phonologically overlapping stimuli, the findings therefore suggest phonologically mediated cross-language influences even from primes in a different orthography.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Using cognate translations and phonologically overlapping stimuli, the findings therefore suggest phonologically mediated cross-language influences even from primes in a different orthography. Notably, however, because both orthographies were presented in these studies, bottom-up activation is provided to both languages (but see Bowers et al, 2000 who also included phonological presentation of the prime). Thus, both languages become relevant to the task, albeit without participants' awareness.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cross-language semantic influences in different script bilinguals

2017

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The current study examined automatic activation and semantic influences from the non-target language of different-script bilinguals during visual word processing. Thirty-four Arabic–Hebrew bilinguals and 34 native Hebrew controls performed a semantic relatedness task on visually presented Hebrew word pairs. In one type of critical trials, cognate primes between Arabic and Hebrew preceded related Hebrew target words. In a second type, false-cognate primes preceded Hebrew targets related to the Arabic meaning (but not the Hebrew meaning) of the false-cognate. Although Hebrew orthography is a fully reliable cue of language membership, facilitation on cognate trials and interference on false-cognate trials were observed for Arabic–Hebrew bilinguals. The activation of the non-target language was sufficient to influence participants’ semantic decisions in the target language, demonstrating simultaneous activation of both languages even for different-script bilinguals in a single language context. To discuss the findings we refine existing models of bilingual processing to accommodate different-script bilinguals.

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Orthography plays a critical role in cognate priming: Evidence from French/English and Arabic/French cognates

Cited by 26 publications

References 50 publications

In defense of abstractionist theories of repetition priming and word identification

In defense of abstractionist theories of repetition priming and word identification

Effects of Cognate Status on Word Comprehension in Second Language Learners: An ERP Investigation

Cross-language semantic influences in different script bilinguals

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