Cross-language mediated priming: Effects of context and lexical relationship

2008 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANA I. SCHWARTZ ◽  
ANA B. ARÊAS DA LUZ FONTES
Keyword(s):  
Sentence Context ◽  
Linguistic Context ◽  
Word Condition ◽  
Single Word ◽  
Priming Effects ◽  
Lexical Activation ◽  
Word Context ◽  
Mediated Priming ◽  
Cross Language ◽  
Target Words

We examined how linguistic context influences the nature of bilingual lexical activation. We hypothesized that in single-word context, form-related words would receive the strongest activation while, in sentence context, semantically related words would receive the strongest activation. Spanish–English bilinguals performed a semantic verification task on English target words preceded by a prime. On critical trials, the prime and target words were paired based either on a form-mediated relationship through the native language (L1), [e.g., bark (barco): BOAT] (Experiment 1) or on a semantically-mediated relationship [e.g., boat (barco): BARK] (Experiment 2). The prime word was presented either in isolation or after a sentence context. In Experiment 1 interference was observed in the single word condition only. In Experiment 2 interference was observed in both single-word and sentence contexts. The findings demonstrate that the context in which words are embedded has an impact on the type of lexical competitors that become active.

Target accessibility contributes to asymmetric priming in translation and cross-language semantic priming in unbalanced bilinguals

2017 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 157-176 ◽  
Author(s):  
YISRAEL SMITH ◽  
JOEL WALTERS ◽  
ANAT PRIOR
Keyword(s):  
Lexical Decision ◽  
Lexical Decision Task ◽  
Semantic Priming ◽  
Decision Task ◽  
Priming Effects ◽  
Lexical Activation ◽  
Frequency Of Use ◽  
Translation Priming ◽  
Cross Language ◽  
L1 And L2

The current study examined within- and cross-language connectivity in four priming conditions: repetition, translation, within-language semantic and cross-language semantic priming. Unbalanced Hebrew–English bilinguals (N = 89) completed a lexical decision task in one of the four conditions in both languages. Priming effects were significantly larger from L1 to L2 for translation priming and marginally so for cross-language semantic priming. Priming effects were comparable for L1 and L2 in repetition and within-language semantic priming. These results support the notion that L1 words are more effective primes but also that L2 targets benefit more from priming. This pattern of results suggests that the lower frequency of use of L2 lexical items in unbalanced bilinguals contributes to asymmetrical cross-language priming via lower resting-level activation of targets and not only via less efficient lexical activation of primes, as highlighted by the BIA+ model.

The Direction of Affective Priming as a Function of Trait Anxiety When Naming Target Words With Regular and Irregular Pronunciation

2004 ◽  
Vol 51 (3) ◽  
pp. 180-190 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael P. Berner ◽  
Markus A. Maier
Keyword(s):  
Trait Anxiety ◽  
Reading Aloud ◽  
Naming Task ◽  
Affective Priming ◽  
Priming Effects ◽  
Expected Effect ◽  
Negative Affective Priming ◽  
Whole Word ◽  
German Data ◽  
Target Words

Abstract. Results from an affective priming experiment confirm the previously reported influence of trait anxiety on the direction of affective priming in the naming task ( Maier, Berner, & Pekrun, 2003 ): On trials in which extremely valenced primes appeared, positive affective priming reversed into negative affective priming with increasing levels of trait anxiety. Using valenced target words with irregular pronunciation did not have the expected effect of increasing the extent to which semantic processes play a role in naming, as affective priming effects were not stronger for irregular targets than for regular targets. This suggests the predominant operation of a whole-word nonsemantic pathway in reading aloud in German. Data from neutral priming trials hint at the possibility that negative affective priming in participants high in trait anxiety is due to inhibition of congruent targets.

Relationship between the target word form and children’s productions: place of articulation in Consonant-Vowel-Consonant (C1VC2) words in American English

Phonetica ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 78 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-94
Author(s):  
Katsura Aoyama ◽  
Barbara L. Davis
Keyword(s):  
Target Word ◽  
American English ◽  
English Word ◽  
Word Form ◽  
Single Word ◽  
Place Of Articulation ◽  
Target Words

Abstract The aim of the present study was to investigate relationships between characteristics of children’s target words and their actual productions during the single-word period in American English. Word productions in spontaneous and functional speech from 18 children acquiring American English were analyzed. Consonant sequences in 3,328 consonant-vowel-consonant (C1VC2) target words were analyzed in terms of global place of articulation (labials, coronals, and dorsals). Children’s actual productions of place sequences were compared between target words containing repeated place sequences (e.g., mom, map, dad, not) and target words containing variegated place sequences (e.g., mat, dog, cat, nap). Overall, when the target word contained two consonants at the same global place of articulation (e.g., labial-labial, map; coronal-coronal, not), approximately 50% of children’s actual productions matched consonant place characteristics. Conversely, when the target word consisted of variegated place sequences (e.g., mat, dog, cat, nap), only about 20% of the productions matched the target consonant sequences. These results suggest that children’s actual productions are influenced by their own production abilities as well as by the phonetic forms of target words.

Perception of Word Junctures by Children

1995 ◽  
Vol 80 (3_suppl) ◽  
pp. 1075-1082 ◽  
Author(s):  
Salvatore De Marco ◽  
Roxanne M. Harrell
Keyword(s):  
Age Groups ◽  
Relative Magnitude ◽  
Young Group ◽  
Sentence Context ◽  
Linguistic Context ◽  
Top Down ◽  
School Aged Children ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Meaningful Context ◽  
Better Than

A comparative study was undertaken to assess the relative magnitude of the effects of linguistic context on the perception of word-juncture boundaries in 30 young school-aged children, 30 older school-aged children, and 30 adults. Minimally contrasted two-word phrases differing in word-juncture boundaries were embedded in a meaningful sentence context, nonmeaningful sentence context, and in neutral phrase context. Groups performed similarly in the neutral phrase context, and two older groups performed better than the young group in the meaningful context. The poorest performances occurred during the nonmeaningful context, with a significant difference among age groups. Heavier reliance upon top-down processing and less developed linguistic and metalinguistic competence may account for the observed differences among groups.

Perceptual and Conceptual Priming of Environmental Sounds

2011 ◽  
Vol 23 (11) ◽  
pp. 3241-3253 ◽  
Author(s):  
Annett Schirmer ◽  
Yong Hao Soh ◽  
Trevor B. Penney ◽  
Lonce Wyse
Keyword(s):  
Spectral Composition ◽  
Linguistic Context ◽  
Environmental Sounds ◽  
Priming Effects ◽  
Conceptual Priming ◽  
Target Sound ◽  
Conceptual Processing ◽  
Sonic Environment ◽  
Prime Target ◽  
Conceptual Relationship

It is still unknown whether sonic environments influence the processing of individual sounds in a similar way as discourse or sentence context influences the processing of individual words. One obstacle to answering this question has been the failure to dissociate perceptual (i.e., how similar are sonic environment and target sound?) and conceptual (i.e., how related are sonic environment and target?) priming effects. In this study, we dissociate these effects by creating prime–target pairs with a purely perceptual or both a perceptual and conceptual relationship. Perceptual prime–target pairs were derived from perceptual–conceptual pairs (i.e., meaningful environmental sounds) by shuffling the spectral composition of primes and targets so as to preserve their perceptual relationship while making them unrecognizable. Hearing both original and shuffled targets elicited a more positive N1/P2 complex in the ERP when targets were related to a preceding prime as compared with unrelated. Only related original targets reduced the N400 amplitude. Related shuffled targets tended to decrease the amplitude of a late temporo-parietal positivity. Taken together, these effects indicate that sonic environments influence first the perceptual and then the conceptual processing of individual sounds. Moreover, the influence on conceptual processing is comparable to the influence linguistic context has on the processing of individual words.

Single-word shadowing and the study of lexical access

1997 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 157-180 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hua Liu ◽  
Elizabeth Bates ◽  
Tracy Powell ◽  
Beverly Wulfeck
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Priming ◽  
Lexical Access ◽  
Context Effects ◽  
Single Word ◽  
Priming Effects ◽  
Secondary Tasks ◽  
Healthy Elderly ◽  
Promising Tool ◽  
Different Populations ◽  
Age Range

ABSTRACTA new procedure called single-word shadowing was applied to the study of lexical access in context. Subjects listened to word pairs or sentences recorded in one voice and were asked to repeat the target word signaled by a voice shift. This technique yielded rapid and robust priming effects in normal adult subjects in word pairs and in a sentence context. Regression analyses showed that the semantic priming effects were large and significant, even when several additional factors believed to affect lexical access were controlled. Evidence was found for robust semantic priming in the healthy elderly and in children from 7 to 11 years of age, and there was also evidence for a change in the size and nature of context effects across the lifespan. Because single-word shadowing works across a broad age range and does not require reading, secondary tasks, or metalinguistic judgments, it is a promising tool for the study of lexical access in a range of different populations.

scholarly journals Syllabic organization and phonetic indices in German stop-lateral clusters

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stavroula Sotiropoulou ◽  
Adamantios Gafos
Keyword(s):  
Target Word ◽  
Phrase Boundary ◽  
Word Context ◽  
Initial Cluster ◽  
Prosodic Boundary ◽  
Coordination Patterns ◽  
Target Words

Using articulatory data from five German speakers, we study how segmental sequences under different syllabic organizations respond to perturbations of phonetic parameters in the segments that compose them. Target words contained stop-lateral clusters /bl, gl, kl, pl/ in a word-initial and a cross-word context and were embedded in carrier phrases with different prosodic boundary strengths, i.e., no phrase boundary versus an utterance phrase boundary preceded the target word in the case of word-initial clusters or separated the consonants in the case of cross-word clusters. For word-initial cluster onsets, we find that increasing the lag between two consonants and C1 stop duration leads to earlier vowel initiation and reduced local timing stability across CV and CCV. Furthermore, as the inter-consonantal lag increases, C2 lateral duration decreases. In contrast, for cross-word clusters, increasing the lag between two consonants does not lead to earlier vowel initiation across CV and C#CV and robust local timing stability is maintained across CV and C#CV. Overall, the findings indicate that the effect of phonetic perturbations on the coordination patterns depends on the syllabic organization superimposed on these clusters.

How multiple sources of experience influence bilingual syntactic choice: Immediate and cumulative cross-language effects of structural priming, verb bias, and language dominance

2016 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 710-732 ◽  
Author(s):  
GERRIT JAN KOOTSTRA ◽  
WILLEMIJN J. DOEDENS
Keyword(s):  
Language Change ◽  
Structural Priming ◽  
Multiple Sources ◽  
Priming Effects ◽  
Language Dominance ◽  
Verb Bias ◽  
Syntactic Information ◽  
Language Effects ◽  
Cross Language ◽  
L1 And L2

We investigated trial-by-trial and cumulative cross-language effects of structural priming and verb bias on L1 and L2 dative syntactic choices (e.g., ‘boy-give-ball-to-girl’ [PO structure] vs. ‘boy-give-girl-ball’ [DO structure]). Dutch-dominant Dutch–English bilinguals listened to a prime sentence with a DO or PO structure in one language and then described a picture in the other language, using verbs that varied in their bias towards the PO or DO structure in Dutch and English. We found effects of cross-language structural priming and verb bias on syntactic choice, some of which were influenced by the participants’ language dominance. In addition, we found cumulative forms of structural priming, leading to cross-language priming effects between experimental blocks. We discuss these results in terms of models on the representation of lexical and syntactic information in bilinguals, and point out how the observed effects can be related to experience-based mechanisms of language use and contact-induced language change.

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