Periodic Reporting for period 1 - BiBiCrossLang (Language activation and control in the unimodal and bimodal bilingual lexicon)
Berichtszeitraum: 2015-07-01 bis 2017-06-30
We conducted a series of cross-language activation experiments in language production and comprehension with deaf and hearing bilinguals of Spanish Sign Language (LSE) and Spanish, and hearing bilinguals of Basque and Spanish. For example, LSE-Spanish bilinguals had to name pictures in LSE while ignoring a superimposed Spanish word that, when translated into LSE, resembled the LSE sign they had to produce (see Figure 1) to see if this facilitated or slowed down their sign production. In another experiment, we presented a printed Spanish word on the screen together with four objects. The LSE sign for one of the objects on the screen resembled the LSE sign for the Spanish word (see Figure 2) and we measured how often LSE-Spanish bilinguals looked at this object compared to other objects. In another eye-tracking experiment, we presented hearing LSE-Spanish bilinguals with a video of someone speaking and signing at the same time together with the four objects on the screen to investigate how bimodal bilinguals integrate information in the two languages when perceived together (see Figure 3).
The results from this project show that lexical activation flows freely between spoken and signed languages in language production, presumably because the two languages are not competing for the same articulators. Furthermore, the simultaneous perception of words and signs benefits word recognition by hearing bimodal bilinguals. This latter finding challenges the idea that the simultaneous exposure to speech and (natural) lexical signs for deaf children should be avoided. Finally, we show several striking similarities between cross-language activation in deaf and hearing bimodal bilinguals, demonstrating that signing deaf readers are bilingual language users, which needs to be considered when studying their language acquisition and processing.
Method: Picture naming in LSE/Basque with superimposed Spanish distractor words
Results: 1) phonological facilitation for priming through translation in the target language for deaf and hearing LSE-Spanish bilinguals, but not Basque-Spanish bilinguals, and 2) phonological facilitation for priming through translation in the non-target language in all bilingual groups.
Conclusions: Direct cross-language phonological connections between two spoken languages constrain translation-mediated priming in unimodal bilinguals of spoken languages, but not deaf or hearing bimodal bilinguals.
Dissemination: 11th International Symposium on Bilingualism
Study 2: Validation of a novel visual world eye-tracking paradigm with printed target words (40 participants)
Method: Comparison of frequency effects and orthographic/phonological and semantic competition effects with printed vs. auditory target words
Results: Competition effects occurred earlier in time for printed target words than auditory words and frequency effects were less pronounced.
Conclusions: Although modality differences in incremental processing of linguistic information impacts the time course of lexical activation and competition effects, the novel adaptation can be used to investigate the time course of lexical access in word reading.
Dissemination: 57th Annual Meeting of the Psychonomics Society
Study 3: Time course of within-language and between-language lexical competition in deaf LSE-Spanish bilinguals and hearing Basque-Spanish bilinguals (51 participants)
Method: Comparison of orthographic/phonological competition in Spanish and phonological competition through translation in Basque/LSE in the visual world paradigm.
Main results: In contrast to Basque-Spanish bilinguals, no clear evidence for within/between-language competition in deaf LSE-Spanish bilinguals. Both forms of competition showed a very similar time course in Basque-Spanish bilinguals.
Main conclusions: There are striking similarities in lexical activation within and between languages in unimodal bilinguals, even when the words in the two languages do not have any direct phonological overlap and activation in the other language is mediated through translation. Interindividual variation in reading proficiency may have contributed to the observed null effects for deaf readers with this paradigm.
Dissemination: 57th Annual Meeting of the Psychonomics Society
Study 4: Processing of code-blends by hearing LSE-Spanish bilinguals and Spanish non-signers (47 participants)
Method: Visual world eye-tracking study with audiovisual and code-blend stimuli (simultaneously produced words and signs)
Main results: Preliminary analyses suggest strong evidence for code-blend facilitation in hearing LSE-bilinguals, but not Spanish non-signing controls, in reaction times as well as fixation slopes. These benefits appear to be particularly pronounced for Spanish words from high-density phonological neighborhoods.
Main conclusions: Hearing bimodal bilinguals use early phonological cues across the two language modalities to constrain lexical access.