Inhibitory and facilitatory effects of phonological and orthographic similarity on L2 word recognition across modalities in bilinguals

Candice Frances,Clara D Martin,Eugenia Navarra-Barindelli

doi:10.1038/s41598-021-92259-z

Candice Frances, Clara D Martin + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-92259-z

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Abstract

Language perception studies on bilinguals often show that words that share form and meaning across languages (cognates) are easier to process than words that share only meaning. This facilitatory phenomenon is known as the cognate effect. Most previous studies have shown this effect visually, whereas the auditory modality as well as the interplay between type of similarity and modality remain largely unexplored. In this study, highly proficient late Spanish–English bilinguals carried out a lexical decision task in their second language, both visually and auditorily. Words had high or low phonological and orthographic similarity, fully crossed. We also included orthographically identical words (perfect cognates). Our results suggest that similarity in the same modality (i.e., orthographic similarity in the visual modality and phonological similarity in the auditory modality) leads to improved signal detection, whereas similarity across modalities hinders it. We provide support for the idea that perfect cognates are a special category within cognates. Results suggest a need for a conceptual and practical separation between types of similarity in cognate studies. The theoretical implication is that the representations of items are active in both modalities of the non-target language during language processing, which needs to be incorporated to our current processing models.

Highlights

Language perception studies on bilinguals often show that words that share form and meaning across languages are easier to process than words that share only meaning
For A’ in the auditory modality, we found a main effect of phonological similarity by participant, such that high phonological similarity led to higher signal detection (M = 0.86, SD = 0.07) than low similarity (M = 0.84, SD = 0.09), F1(1, 54) = 18.349, p < 0.001, ηp2 = 0.254; by item, this phonological effect was not significant, F2(1, 196) = 0.478, p = 0.490, ηp2 = 0.002
The objectives of the present study were three-fold: to assess phonological similarity effects in the auditory modality, to assess phonological and orthographic similarity effects and their interactions across modalities, and to evaluate whether orthographically identical words are a special case within the spectrum of orthographic similarity

Summary

Introduction

Language perception studies on bilinguals often show that words that share form and meaning across languages (cognates) are easier to process than words that share only meaning This facilitatory phenomenon is known as the cognate effect. The theoretical implication is that the representations of items are active in both modalities of the non-target language during language processing, which needs to be incorporated to our current processing models At this point in the literature, it is quite clear that the two languages of a bilingual influence each other—meaning that a bilingual is not two monolinguals in one body. Note that there is a particular case of cognates in which words are not spelled between languages but rather are exact matches, or orthographically identical words (identical cognates) These perfect or identical cognates are thought to have a special status, causing larger effects than non-identical cognates. Within the few studies exploring the cognate effect aurally, most have determined the cognate status of words based on orthographic

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