Abstract
Prior studies using the event-related potential (ERP) technique show that integrating sentential code-switches during online processing leads to a broadly distributed late positivity component (LPC), while processing semantically unexpected continuations instead leads to the emergence of an N400 effect. While the N400 is generally assumed to index lexico-semantic processing, the LPC has two different interpretations. One account suggests that it reflects the processing of an improbable or unexpected event, while an alternative account proposes sentence-level reanalysis. To investigate the relative costs of semantic to language-based unexpectancies (i.e., code-switches), the current study tests 24 Spanish-English bilinguals in an ERP reading study. Semantically constrained Spanish frames either varied in their semantic expectancy (high vs. low expectancy) and/or their language continuation (same-language vs. code-switch) while participants’ electrophysiological responses were recorded. The Spanish-to-English switch direction provides a more naturalistic test for integration costs to code-switching as it better approximates the code-switching practices of the target population. Analyses across three time windows show a main effect for semantic expectancy in the N400 time window and a main effect for code-switching in the LPC time window. Additional analyses based on the self-reported code-switching experience of the participants suggest an early positivity linked to less experience with code-switching. The results highlight that not all code-switches lead to similar integration costs and that prior experience with code-switching is an important additional factor that modulates online processing.
Highlights
Over the last decade, interest in the psycholinguistic processes underlying the integration of code-switched speech, defined as the fluid alternation of both languages within the same conversation or in text (Poplack, 1980), has grown rapidly
A marginally significant language effect [F(1,21) = 3.78, MSe = 3.07, p = 0.078, ηp2 = 0.14; observed power = 0.42] showed a neurophysiological fluctuation associated with a codeswitch that was positive rather than negative (Figure 1; grand averages across the scalp are found in Supplemental Materials at the Open Science Framework (OSF) repository3), potentially suggesting an early frontal positivity (Beatty-Martínez and Dussias, 2017)
N400 (350–450 ms) The ANOVA on the mean amplitudes corresponding to this time window showed a main effect of Expectancy [F(1,21) = 4.33; MSe = 42.92; p = 0.04; ηp2 = 0.08; observed power = 0.51], of the Anterior/Posterior factor [F(1,21) = 5.32; MSe = 11.26; p = 0.02; ηp2 = 0.20; observed power = 0.65] and Laterality [F(1,21) = 4.01; MSe = 6.06; p = 0.03; ηp2 = 0.16; observed power = 0.62], as well as an Expectancy × Anterior/Posterior factor interaction [F(1,42) = 4.42; MSe = 11.13; p = 0.04; ηp2 = 0.17; observed power = 0.56]
Summary
Interest in the psycholinguistic processes underlying the integration of code-switched speech, defined as the fluid alternation of both languages within the same conversation or in text (Poplack, 1980), has grown rapidly. There are several reviews dedicated to this topic (Van Hell et al, 2015, 2018; Beatty-Martínez et al, 2018; Valdés Kroff et al, 2018) building off of prior and more established work by sociolinguists and structural linguists (see Bullock and Toribio, 2009; Gardner-Chloros, 2009 for comprehensive reviews). One plausible account for the discrepancy between the ubiquity of code-switching in bilingual speech and the cognitive costs of its integration in comprehension is its unexpectancy in lab-based studies. As a means to providing a more complete picture, the study we report here builds off of prior work (Altarriba et al, 1996; Moreno et al, 2002) to directly compare different forms of unexpectancy: semantic and language-based (i.e., code-switches) unexpectancies
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