How country of origin and stimuli language influence visual word recognition in bilingual children

Abstract

Aims and objectives: We used mouse tracking to determine how country of origin and stimuli language influence visual word recognition in bilingual children. Methodology: Children attending bilingual schools in Spain and the USA completed a lexical decision task in English. The task included real English words (e.g., true), and pseudohomophones following Spanish (e.g., tru) and English (e.g., troo) orthographical rules. Data and analysis: Bilingual children from both countries performed worse when responding to English pseudohomophones (within-language interference) than Spanish pseudohomophones (between-language interference). Findings/conclusions: The children from the USA outperformed the children from Spain in almost every measure. Interestingly, their mouse trajectories followed a different pattern. Originality: When responding to pseudohomophones, children from the USA showed a pronounced initial deviation toward the incorrect response (likely due to a strong activation of the phonology of the real English word) followed by a very effective corrective movement (likely due to an orthographic verification mechanism). Significance: Mouse tracking provides novel insights regarding language activation in bilingual readers.