Which words are activated during bilingual word production?

Whether words are or are not activated within the lexicon of the nonused language is an important question for accounts of bilingual word production. Prior studies have not led to conclusive results, either because alternative accounts could be proposed for their findings or because activation could have been artificially induced by the experimental paradigms. Moreover, previous data only involved target translations, and nothing is known about the activation of nontarget words in the nonused language. The picture–picture interference paradigm was used here, since it allowed the activation of nontarget words to be determined without showing stimuli that could artificially activate the nonused language. Proficient Spanish–Catalan speakers were presented with pairs of partially overlapping colored pictures and were instructed to name the green picture and ignore the red picture. In Experiment 1, distractor pictures with cognate names interfered more than distractor pictures with noncognate names. In Experiment 2, facilitation was observed when the names of the distractor pictures in the nonused language were phonologically related to the names of the target pictures. Overall, these results indicate that nontarget words are activated in the nonused language, at least in the case of proficient bilingual speakers. These results help researchers to constrain theories of bilingual lexical access. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effect of grammatical gender on object categorization.

In 3 experiments, we investigated the effect of grammatical gender on object categorization. Participants were asked to judge whether 2 objects, whose names did or did not share grammatical gender, belonged to the same semantic category by pressing a key. Monolingual speakers of English (Experiment 1), Italian (Experiments 1 and 2), and Spanish (Experiments 2 and 3) were tested in their native language. Italian and Spanish participants responded faster to pairs of stimuli sharing the same gender, whereas no difference was observed for English participants. In Experiment 2, the pictures were chosen in such a way that the grammatical gender of the names was opposite in Italian and Spanish. Therefore, the same pair of stimuli gave rise to different patterns depending on the gender congruency of the names in the languages. In Experiment 3, Spanish speakers performed the same task under an articulatory suppression condition, showing no grammatical gender effect. The locus where meaning and gender interact can be located at the level of the lexical representation that specifies syntactic information: Nouns sharing the same grammatical gender activate each other, thus facilitating their processing and speeding up responses, either to semantically related pairs or to semantically unrelated pairs. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Ease of processing constrains the activation flow in the conceptual-lexical system during speech planning.

In 3 picture–word interference experiments, speakers named a target object in the presence of an unrelated not-to-be-named context object. Distractor words, which were phonologically related or unrelated to the context object's name, were used to determine whether the context object had become phonologically activated. All objects had high frequency names, and the ease of processing of these objects was manipulated by a visual degradation technique. In Experiment 1, both objects were nondegraded; in Experiment 2, both objects were degraded; and in Experiment 3, either the target object or the context object was degraded. Distractor words, which were phonologically related to the context objects, interfered with the naming response when both objects were nondegraded, indicating that the context objects had become phonologically coactivated. The effect vanished when both objects were degraded, when only the context object was degraded, and when only the target object was degraded. These data demonstrate that the amount of available processing resources constrains the forward cascading of activation in the conceptual-lexical system. Context objects are likely to become phonologically coactivated if they are easily retrieved and if prioritized target processing leaves sufficient resources. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Semantic and phonological information flow in the production lexicon.

When speakers produce words, lexical access proceeds through semantic and phonological levels of processing. If phonological processing begins based on partial semantic information, processing is cascaded; otherwise, it is discrete. In standard models of lexical access, semantically processed words exert phonological effects only if processing is cascaded. In 3 experiments, speakers named pictures of objects with homophone names (ball), while auditory distractor words were heard beginning 150 ms prior to picture onset. Distractors speeded picture naming (compared with controls) only when related to the nondepicted meaning of the picture (e.g., dance), exhibiting an early phonological effect, thereby supporting the cascaded prediction. Distractors slowed picture naming when categorically (e.g., frisbee) related to the depicted picture meaning, but not when associatively (e.g., game) related to it. An interactive activation model is presented. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Viewing and naming objects: eye movements during noun phrase production

Eye movements have been shown to reflect word recognition and language comprehension processes occurring during reading and auditory language comprehension. The present study examines whether the eye movements speakers make during object naming similarly reflect speech planning processes. In Experiment 1, speakers named object pairs saying, for instance, 'scooter and hat'. The objects were presented as ordinary line drawings or with partly deleted contours and had high or low frequency names. Contour type and frequency both significantly affected the mean naming latencies and the mean time spent looking at the objects. The frequency effects disappeared in Experiment 2, in which the participants categorized the objects instead of naming them. This suggests that the frequency effects of Experiment 1 arose during lexical retrieval. We conclude that eye movements during object naming indeed reflect linguistic planning processes and that the speakers' decision to move their eyes from one object to the next is contingent upon the retrieval of the phonological form of the object names.     

Tracing attention and the activation flow in spoken word planning using eye movements.

The flow of activation from concepts to phonological forms within the word production system was examined in 3 experiments. In Experiment 1, participants named pictures while ignoring superimposed distractor pictures that were semantically related, phonologically related, or unrelated. Eye movements and naming latencies were recorded. The distractor pictures affected the latencies of gaze shifting and vocal naming. The magnitude of the phonological effects increased linearly with latency, excluding lapses of attention as the cause of the effects. In Experiment 2, no distractor effects were obtained when both pictures were named. When pictures with superimposed distractor words were named or the words were read in Experiment 3, the words influenced the latencies of gaze shifting and picture naming, but the pictures yielded no such latency effects in word reading. The picture-word asymmetry was obtained even with equivalent reading and naming latencies. The picture-picture effects suggest that activation spreads continuously from concepts to phonological forms, whereas the picture-word asymmetry indicates that the amount of activation is limited and task dependent. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Patterns of lexical processing in a nonnative language.

In three experiments, native Cantonese speakers were asked to read words aloud, name pictures, and translate words. In the study, subjects with different degrees of proficiency in their nonnative language were used (i.e., proficient subjects, adult beginners, and second- and fourth-grade child beginners). The results show that all subjects were more efficient in reading words than in naming pictures when responding in their native language. When the response was in the nonnative language, the proficient subjects were equally efficient in both translating and picture-naming tasks. For the adult beginners, however, translating was faster than picture naming, whereas naming was faster than translating for the child beginners. These results were consistent with the idea that proficient subjects could directly access the meanings of words in the nonnative language, whereas beginners tended to use either corresponding words in the native language (i.e., the adult beginners) or pictorial representations (i.e., the child beginners) as media for such end. These results thus suggest that the proficiency of the nonnative language and the age or method of acquisition of the language are important determinants for the pattern of lexical processing in the nonnative language. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Capacity demands of phoneme selection in word production: New evidence from dual-task experiments.

Three dual-task experiments investigated the capacity demands of phoneme selection in picture naming. On each trial, participants named a target picture (Task 1) and carried out a tone discrimination task (Task 2). To vary the time required for phoneme selection, the authors combined the targets with phonologically related or unrelated distractor pictures (Experiment 1) or words, which were clearly visible (Experiment 2) or masked (Experiment 3). When pictures or masked words were presented, the tone discrimination and picture naming latencies were shorter in the related condition than in the unrelated condition, which indicates that phoneme selection requires central processing capacity. However, when the distractor words were clearly visible, the facilitatory effect was confined to the picture naming latencies. This pattern arose because the visible related distractor words facilitated phoneme selection but slowed down speech monitoring processes that had to be completed before the response to the tone could be selected. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Rhyme priming of pictures and words: A lexical activation account.

Orthographically/phonologically related primes have typically been found to facilitate processing of target words. This phenomenon is usually explained in terms of spreading activation between nodes for orthographically/phonologically similar words in lexical memory. The phenomenon was explored in a series of studies involving the manipulations of prime and target type (word or picture) and prime and target task (naming or categorization). Generally, the results support the lexical activation explanation. Named primes, which activate lexical memory, facilitate processing in all target tasks involving lexical access (word and picture naming and word categorization), independent of prime type. Categorized primes show the expected Prime Type?×?Relatedness interaction with word primes, which activate lexical memory, producing much more facilitation than picture primes. Finally, unlike in semantic priming studies, increased depth of processing of a word prime decreased the size of the priming effects. Apparently, initial activation levels in lexical memory are not maintained when semantic processing of the prime is required. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Context Effects on Lexical Choice and Lexical Activation.

Speakers are regularly confronted with the choice among lexical alternatives when referring to objects, including basic-level names (e.g., car) and subordinate-level names (e.g., Beetle). Which of these names is eventually selected often depends on contextual factors. The present article reports a series of picture-word interference experiments that explored how the designated target name (basic level vs. subordinate level) and contextual constraints rendering the name alternative either appropriate or inappropriate affect lexical activation and lexical choice. The experimental data demonstrate clear context effects on the eventual lexical choice. However, they also show that alternative nonselected object names are phonologically activated, even if a constraining context makes these alternative names currently inappropriate. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Does word length affect speech onset latencies when producing single words?

Most models of spoken production predict that shorter utterances should be initiated faster than longer ones. However, whether word-length effects in single word production exist is at present controversial. A series of experiments did not find evidence for such an effect. First, an experimental manipulation of word length in picture naming showed no latency differences. Second, Dutch and English speakers named 2 sets of either objects or words (monosyllabic names in Dutch and disyllabic names in English or vice versa). A length effect, which should manifest itself as an interaction between object set and response language, emerged in word naming but not in picture naming. Third, distractors consisting of the final syllable of disyllabic object names speeded up responses, but at the same time, no word-length effect was found. These results suggest that before the response is initiated, an entire word has been phonologically encoded, but only its initial syllable is placed in an articulatory buffer. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Semantic interference effects on naming using a postcue procedure: Tapping the links between semantics and phonology with pictures and words.

Five experiments are reported in which a new technique for assessing the processes involved in mapping semantic representations onto name information in simple naming tasks was used. This technique, the postcue naming procedure, requires participants to name 1 of 2 potential target stimuli after they receive a relevant selection cue. Naming performance is slowed when the 2 potential targets are semantically related, relative to when they are unrelated. Effects on picture and word targets are of equal magnitude, providing these 2 types of stimulus are intermingled in the experiment. When words are presented alone, semantic interference is abolished (although evidence for lexical processing of words can be demonstrated). The effect on picture naming is also eliminated when the interfering stimulus has to be categorized rather than named. These results suggest that the locus of the interference is in the processes mapping semantic information onto names. These processes seem to be shared by pictures and words when the semantic processing of words is induced. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The relative time course of semantic and phonological activation in reading Chinese.

The relative time course of semantic and phonological activation was investigated in the context of whether phonology mediates access to lexical representations in reading Chinese. Compound words (Experiment 1) and single-character words (Experiments 2 and 3) were preceded by semantic and phonological primes. Strong semantic priming effects were found at both short (57 ms) and long (200 ms) stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA), but phonological effects were either absent in lexical decision (Experiment 1), were present only at the longer SOA in character decision (Experiment 2) or were equally strong as semantic effects in naming (Experiment 3). Experiment 4 revealed facilitatory or inhibitory effects, depending on SOA, in phonological judgments to character pairs that were not phonologically but semantically related. It was concluded that, in reading Chinese, semantic information in the lexicon is activated at least as early and just as strongly as phonological information. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Evidence for a cascade model of lexical access in speech production.

How word production unfolds remains controversial. Serial models posit that phonological encoding begins only after lexical node selection, whereas cascade models hold that it can occur before selection. Both models were evaluated by testing whether unselected lexical nodes influence phonological encoding in the picture-picture interference paradigm. English speakers were shown pairs of superimposed pictures and were instructed to name one picture and ignore another. Naming was faster when target pictures were paired with phonologically related (bed-bell) than with unrelated (bed-pin) distractors. This suggests that the unspoken distractors exerted a phonological influence on production. This finding is inconsistent with serial models but in line with cascade ones. The facilitation effect was not replicated in Italian with the same pictures, supporting the view that the effect found in English was caused by the phonological properties of the stimuli. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Distributed versus localist representations: evidence from a study of item consistency in a case of classical anomia

Models of word production and comprehension can be split into two broad classes: localist and distributed. In localist architectures each word within the lexicon is represented by a single unit. The distributed approach, on the other hand, encodes each lexical item as a pattern of activation across a set of shared units. If we assume that the localist representations are more than a convenient shorthand for distributed representations at the neuroanatomical level, it should be possible to find patients who, after brain injury, have lost specific words from their premorbid vocabulary. Following a closed head injury, JS had severe word-finding difficulties with no measurable semantic impairment nor did he make phonological errors in naming. Cueing with an initial phoneme proved relatively ineffective. JS showed a high degree of item consistency across three administrations of two tests of naming to confrontation. This consistency could not be predicted from a linear combination of psycholinguistic variables but the distribution fitted a stochastic model in which it is assumed that a proportion of items have become consistently unavailable. Further evidence is presented which suggests that these items are not, in fact, lost but rather have a very low probability of retrieval. Given phonemic cueing of sufficient length, or delayed repetition priming from a written word, the consistently unnamed items were produced by JS. Additional data is reported which seems to support a distributed model of speech production. JS's naming accuracy for one set of pictures was found to predict his performance on a second set of items only when the names of the pictures were both semantically and phonologically related (e.g., cat-rat). There was no association for pairs of pictures if they were only semantically (e.g., cat-dog) or phonologically related (e.g., cat-cap). It is argued that JS's data are best described in terms of a graded, non-linear, distributed model of speech production.     

Picture naming of cognate and non-cognate nouns in bilingual aphasia

Previous research has found differences in the speed and accuracy of responses involving concrete cognate nouns and non-cognate nouns in a range of written and "on-line" tasks using neurologically unimpaired, bilingual adults. The present study investigated whether cognateness affects verbal confrontation naming performance in balanced French/English bilinguals (N = 15 aphasic and 15 non-aphasic subjects). Subjects met selection criteria for equal proficiency, regular use, and early acquisition of both languages. Results of a picture naming test show that cognate pictures were more often correctly named in both languages than were non-cognates. Some error types and self-correction behaviors also varied with cognate status. There were similarities between the results of this study and those of previous studies of monolingual naming. Some error types and self-correction strategies appear to be unique to bilingual speakers. Theoretical questions and treatment applications arising from these findings are outlined.     

Masked repetition and phonological priming in picture naming

We report a series of picture naming experiments in which target pictures were primed by briefly presented masked words. Experiment 1 demonstrates that the prior presentation of the same word prime (e.g., rose-ROSE) facilitates picture naming independently of the target's name frequency. In Experiment 2, primes that were homophones of picture targets (e.g., rows-ROSE) also produced facilitatory effects compared with unrelated controls, but priming was significantly larger for targets with low-frequency names relative to targets with high-frequency names. In Experiment 3, primes that were higher frequency homophones of picture targets produced facilitatory effects compared with identical primes. These results are discussed in relation to different accounts of the effects of masked priming in current models of picture naming.     

Syllables in the processing of spoken Italian.

Five experiments explored the role of the syllable in the processing of spoken Italian. According to the syllabic hypothesis, the sublexical unit used by speakers of Romance languages to segment speech and access the lexicon is the syllable. However, languages with different degrees of acoustic-phonetic transparency give rise to syllabic effects that vary in robustness. It follows from this account that speakers of phonologically similar languages should behave in a similar way. By exploiting the similarities between Spanish and Italian, the authors tested this prediction in Experiments 1–4. Indeed, Italian listeners were found to produce syllabic effects similar to those observed in Spanish listeners. In Experiment 5, the predictions of the syllabic hypothesis with respect to lexical access were tested. The results corroborated these predictions. The findings are discussed in relation to current models of speech processing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Should I stay or should I switch? A cost–benefit analysis of voluntary language switching in young and aging bilinguals.

Bilinguals spontaneously switch languages in conversation even though laboratory studies reveal robust cued language switching costs. The authors investigated how voluntary-switching costs might differ when switches are voluntary. Younger (Experiments 1–2) and older (Experiment 3) Spanish–English bilinguals named pictures in 3 conditions: (a) dominant-language only, (b) nondominant-language only, and (c) using “whatever language comes to mind” (in Experiment 2, “using each language about half the time”). Most bilinguals, particularly balanced bilinguals, voluntarily mixed languages even though switching was costly. Unlike with cued switching, voluntary switching sometimes facilitated responses, switch costs were not greater for the dominant language, and age effects on language mixing and switching were limited. This suggests that the freedom to mix languages voluntarily allows unbalanced and older bilinguals to function more like balanced and younger bilinguals. Voluntary switch costs reveal an expanded role for inhibitory control in bilingual language production and imply a mandatory separation by language in bilingual lexical selection. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Distinguishing common and task-specific processes in word identification: A matter of some moment?

The same 500 words were presented in 6 different word identification tasks (Experiment 1: lexical decision, semantic categorization, and 3 speeded naming tasks; Experiment 2: delayed naming). Reaction time (RT distributions were estimated for each task and analyses tested for the effects of word frequency and animacy on various parameters of the RT distribution. Low frequency words yielded more skewed distributions than high frequency words in all tasks except delayed naming. The differential skew was most marked for tasks that required lexical discrimination. The semantic categorization task yielded highly skewed distributions for all words, but the word frequency effect was due to shifts in the location of the RT distributions rather than changes in skew. The results are used to evaluate the relative contributions of a common lexical access process and task-specific processes to performance in lexical discrimination and naming tasks. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)