WP1
Description
The goal of Work Package 1 was to test the hypothesis that crosslinguistic effects on L2 word recognition, in noise, depends on the phonological overlap between translation equivalents. Specifically we investigated whether translation equivalents were more susceptible to the number of phonological neighbors in L1, activated by the L1 translation, if they share phonological form. To this end, we manipulated listening condition, cognate status, and the phonological neighborhood density of the L1 translation.
Results
The results show that crosslinguistic interactions are modulated by noise and affect L2 auditory word recognition, in Spanish-English (L1-L2) bilinguals, as a function of phonological overlap. Specifically, the findings show that, in noise, phonological overlap between translation equivalents leads to impairments on L2 word recognition, for L1 translations that have a high number of phonological neighbors. This finding supports a previously made claim that during auditory word recognition, in noise, crosslinguistic interactions make L2 word recognition more susceptible to effects of crosslinguistic competition.
WP2
Description
The goal of Work Package 2 was to determine the underlying neural systems that support accurate L2 word recognition, in noise, as a function of cross linguistic phono-lexical overlap between translation equivalents, and semantic context.
Results
The results showed that the engagement of a set of regions, often referred to as the bilingual language control network, was upregulated when cross linguistic interactions promoted cross linguistic lexical competition and down regulated by semantic priming, suggesting that semantic access helps mitigate effects of cross linguistic lexical interactions that generate competition. Interestingly, the regions are similar to those previously identified in monolingual studies of lexical competition.
WP 3
Description
The original goal of Work Package 3 was to relate cross linguistic phonological effects to neural oscillations across different frequency bands using EEG. This work package was not completed due to Covid-19 restrictions. Based on the findings in the other two packages, we will pursue a related goal, for a future experiment.
General results, exploitation, dissemination:
The findings of this project has provided insight into some of the daily challenges, typical of the L2 listening experience and how they can be overcome to improve accurate word recognition, in noise. These results will advance theoretical models of bilingual lexical processing and contribute to a more detailed functional architecture that specifies the nature of the of cross linguistic interactions across, phonological, lexical, and semantic levels of processing. One set of findings has been published and the rest are being submitted for publication.
