Eye movements and the activation of native words in non-native spoken-word recognition

Abstract

Using the eye-tracking paradigm, this study explored the recognition of non-native spoken words. In particular, it focused on whether listeners activate native candidate words during the recognition of non-native words. Dutch participants followed spoken instructions in English to click on pictures using a computer mouse, while their eye movements were monitored. A target picture (e.g., the picture of a desk) was presented along with distractor pictures. The Dutch name of a distractor picture was either phonologically related to the English name of the target picture (e.g., English target desk /dEsk/ and Dutch competitor deksel, ‘‘lid,’’ /dEks@l/) or it was phonologically unrelated (e.g., bloem, ‘‘flower’’ or schommel, ‘‘swing’’). Eye movements to a picture were interpreted as evidence for activation of the lexical representation associated with this picture. As the English target word unfolded over time, participants fixated distractor pictures with phonologically related Dutch names more than distractor pictures with phonologically unrelated names. The results demonstrate that listeners consider candidate words of the native language for recognition of a non-native word. Listeners are not able to deactivate the native mental lexicon even when they are in a monolingual non-native situation where the native language is irrelevant and possibly even misleading. [Work supported by MPI for Psycholinguistics.]