Stuttering on function words in bilingual children who stutter: A preliminary study.

Science.gov (United States)

Gkalitsiou, Zoi; Byrd, Courtney T; Bedore, Lisa M; Taliancich-Klinger, Casey L

2017-01-01

Evidence suggests young monolingual children who stutter (CWS) are more disfluent on function than content words, particularly when produced in the initial utterance position. The purpose of the present preliminary study was to investigate whether young bilingual CWS present with this same pattern. The narrative and conversational samples of four bilingual Spanish- and English-speaking CWS were analysed. All four bilingual participants produced significantly more stuttering on function words compared to content words, irrespective of their position in the utterance, in their Spanish narrative and conversational speech samples. Three of the four participants also demonstrated more stuttering on function compared to content words in their narrative speech samples in English, but only one participant produced more stuttering on function than content words in her English conversational sample. These preliminary findings are discussed relative to linguistic planning and language proficiency and their potential contribution to stuttered speech.

On the facilitatory effects of cognate words in bilingual speech production.

Science.gov (United States)

Costa, Albert; Santesteban, Mikel; Caño, Agnès

2005-07-01

There is a growing body of evidence showing that a word's cognate status is an important dimension affecting the naming performance of bilingual speakers. In a recent article, Kohnert extended this observation to the naming performance of an aphasic bilingual (DJ). DJ named pictures with cognate names more accurately than pictures with non-cognate names. Furthermore, having named the pictures in Spanish helped the subsequent retrieval (with a delay of one week between the two tests) of the same pictures' names in English, but only for pictures with cognate names. That is, there was a language transfer but only for those translation words that were phonologically similar. In this article we first evaluate the conclusions drawn from these results by Kohnert, and second we discuss the theoretical implications of the facilitatory effects of cognate words for models of speech production in bilingual speakers.

Effects of language experience, use, and cognitive functioning on bilingual word production and comprehension

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Litcofsky, K.; Tanner, D.; Hell, A.G. van

2016-01-01

Aims and objectives/purpose/research questions: Considerable research has investigated how bilinguals produce and comprehend words, focusing mainly on how bilinguals are able to select words from the appropriate language. Less research, however, has investigated whether production and comprehension

Differences in Word Recognition between Early Bilinguals and Monolinguals: Behavioral and ERP Evidence

Science.gov (United States)

Lehtonen, Minna; Hulten, Annika; Rodriguez-Fornells, Antoni; Cunillera, Toni; Tuomainen, Jyrki; Laine, Matti

2012-01-01

We investigated the behavioral and brain responses (ERPs) of bilingual word recognition to three fundamental psycholinguistic factors, frequency, morphology, and lexicality, in early bilinguals vs. monolinguals. Earlier behavioral studies have reported larger frequency effects in bilinguals' nondominant vs. dominant language and in some studies…

He Said, She Said: Effects of Bilingualism on Cross-Talker Word Recognition in Infancy

Science.gov (United States)

Singh, Leher

2018-01-01

The purpose of the current study was to examine effects of bilingual language input on infant word segmentation and on talker generalization. In the present study, monolingually and bilingually exposed infants were compared on their abilities to recognize familiarized words in speech and to maintain generalizable representations of familiarized…

The Role of Accessibility of Semantic Word Knowledge in Monolingual and Bilingual Fifth-Grade Reading

Science.gov (United States)

Cremer, M.; Schoonen, R.

2013-01-01

The influences of word decoding, availability, and accessibility of semantic word knowledge on reading comprehension were investigated for monolingual "("n = 65) and bilingual children ("n" = 70). Despite equal decoding abilities, monolingual children outperformed bilingual children with regard to reading comprehension and…

Cross-Language Transfer of Word Reading Accuracy and Word Reading Fluency in Spanish-English and Chinese-English Bilinguals: Script-Universal and Script-Specific Processes

Science.gov (United States)

Pasquarella, Adrian; Chen, Xi; Gottardo, Alexandra; Geva, Esther

2015-01-01

This study examined cross-language transfer of word reading accuracy and word reading fluency in Spanish-English and Chinese-English bilinguals. Participants included 51 Spanish-English and 64 Chinese-English bilinguals. Both groups of children completed parallel measures of phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming, word reading accuracy,…

Learning across Languages: Bilingual Experience Supports Dual Language Statistical Word Segmentation

Science.gov (United States)

Antovich, Dylan M.; Graf Estes, Katharine

2018-01-01

Bilingual acquisition presents learning challenges beyond those found in monolingual environments, including the need to segment speech in two languages. Infants may use statistical cues, such as syllable-level transitional probabilities, to segment words from fluent speech. In the present study we assessed monolingual and bilingual 14-month-olds'…

Word Order Processing in the Bilingual Brain

Science.gov (United States)

Saur, Dorothee; Baumgaertner, Annette; Moehring, Anja; Buchel, Christian; Bonnesen, Matthias; Rose, Michael; Musso, Mariachristina; Meisel, Jurgen M.

2009-01-01

One of the issues debated in the field of bilingualism is the question of a "critical period" for second language acquisition. Recent studies suggest an influence of age of onset of acquisition (AOA) particularly on syntactic processing; however, the processing of word order in a sentence context has not yet been examined specifically. We used…

The effects of stating problems in bilingual students' first and second languages on solving mathematical word problems.

Science.gov (United States)

Bernardo, Allan B I; Calleja, Marissa O

2005-03-01

Researchers have suggested that among bilinguals, solving word problems in mathematics is influenced by linguistic factors (K. Durkin & B. Shire, 1991; L. Verschaffel, B. Greer, & E. De Corte, 2000). Others have suggested that students exhibit a strong tendency to exclude real-world constraints in solving mathematics word problems (L. Verschaffel, E. De Corte, & S. Lasure, 1994). In the present study, the authors explored the effects of stating word problems in either Filipino or English on how Filipino-English bilingual students solved word problems in which the solution required the application of real-world knowledge. The authors asked bilingual students to solve word problems in either their first or second language. For some of the word problems, real-life constraints prevented straightforward application of mathematical procedures. The authors analyzed the students' solutions to determine whether the language of the word problems affected the tendency to apply real-life constraints in the solution. Results showed that the bilingual students (a) rarely considered real-life constraints in their solutions, (b) were more successful in understanding and solving word problems that were stated in their first language, and (c) were more likely to experience failure in finding a solution to problems stated in their second language. The results are discussed in terms of the relationship between linguistic and mathematical problem-solving processes among bilinguals.

The Effects of Bilingualism on Infant Language Development : The Acquisition of Sounds and Words

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Liu, Liquan

2014-01-01

This dissertation reports on the influence of bilingualism on infants’ sound and word acquisition in the first two years of life. It targets the question of whether mono- and bilingual infants follow the same developmental trajectory of language acquisition, it displays similarities and differences

Word reading and translation in bilinguals: The impact of formal and informal translation expertise

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Adolfo M. García

2014-11-01

Full Text Available Studies on bilingual word reading and translation have examined the effects of lexical variables (e.g., concreteness, cognate status by comparing groups of non-translators with varying levels of L2 proficiency. However, little attention has been paid to another relevant factor: translation expertise (TI. To explore this issue, we administered word reading and translation tasks to two groups of non-translators possessing different levels of informal TI (Experiment 1, and to three groups of bilinguals possessing different levels of translation training (Experiment 2. Reaction-time recordings showed that in all groups reading was faster than translation and unaffected by concreteness and cognate effects. Conversely, in both experiments, all groups translated concrete and cognate words faster than abstract and non-cognate words, respectively. Notably, an advantage of backward over forward translation was observed only for low-proficiency non-translators (in Experiment 1. Also, in Experiment 2, the modifications induced by translation expertise were more marked in the early than in the late stages of training and practice. The results suggest that TI contributes to modulating inter-equivalent connections in bilingual memory.

Excitatory and inhibitory priming by attended and ignored non-recycled words with monolinguals and bilinguals.

Science.gov (United States)

Neumann, Ewald; Nkrumah, Ivy K; Chen, Zhe

2018-03-03

Experiments examining identity priming from attended and ignored novel words (words that are used only once except when repetition is required due to experimental manipulation) in a lexical decision task are reported. Experiment 1 tested English monolinguals whereas Experiment 2 tested Twi (a native language of Ghana, Africa)-English bilinguals. Participants were presented with sequential pairs of stimuli composed of a prime followed by a probe, with each containing two items. The participants were required to name the target word in the prime display, and to make a lexical decision to the target item in the probe display. On attended repetition (AR) trials the probe target item was identical to the target word on the preceding attentional display. On ignored repetition (IR) trials the probe target item was the same as the distractor word in the preceding attentional display. The experiments produced facilitated (positive) priming in the AR trials and delayed (negative) priming in the IR trials. Significantly, the positive and negative priming effects also replicated across both monolingual and bilingual groups of participants, despite the fact that the bilinguals were responding to the task in their non-dominant language.

Bilingualism affects 9-month-old infants' expectations about how words refer to kinds.

Science.gov (United States)

Byers-Heinlein, Krista

2017-01-01

Infants are precocious word learners, and seem to possess systematic expectations about how words refer to object kinds. For example, while monolingual infants show a one-to-one mapping bias (e.g. mutual exclusivity), expecting each object to have only one basic level label, previous research has shown that this is less robust in bi- and multilinguals aged 1.5 years and older. This study examined the early origins of such one-to-one mapping biases by comparing monolingual and bilingual 9-10-month-olds' expectations about the relationship between labels and object kinds. In a violation of expectation paradigm, infants heard a speaker name hidden objects with either one label ('I see a mouba! I see a mouba!') or two labels ('I see a camo! I see a tenda!'). An occluder moved to reveal two objects that were either identical or of different kinds. Monolingual infants looked longest when two labels were associated with identical objects, and when one label was associated with objects of different kinds, showing that they found these outcomes unexpected. This replicated previous findings showing that monolinguals expect that distinct words label distinct object kinds (Dewar & Xu, ). Bilinguals looked equally to the outcomes regardless of the number of labels, showing no such expectations. This finding indicates that bilingualism influences young infants' expectations about how words refer to kinds, and more broadly supports the position that language experience contributes to the development of word learning heuristics. © 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

THE BENEFICIAL EFFECT OF BILINGUALISM IN VISUAL MEDIA

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Aliva Rosdiana

2017-04-01

Full Text Available Bilingualism is a phenomenon that affects people throughout the world. People use bilingualism in particular situations in society such as in education, job, mass media, etc. People who speak bilingualism means that they get second language learning. Radio, televison, and YouTube are important vehicles of mass communication. Mass communication differs from the studies of other forms of communication, such as interpersonal communication, in that it focuses on a single source transmitting information to a large group of receivers. The study of bilingualism in visual media is chiefly concerned with how the content of visual media persuades or otherwise affects either behavior, attitude, opinion, or emotion of the person or people receiving the information. The beneficial effect is the development of bilingualism. Watching video affects children‘s acquisition of their native language and hasten language shift to the majority language. By watching the video, it also enrich our knowledge to particular vocabularies based on particular topics. The Internet makes it possible to have conversations across countries and continents. Individuals have multiple identities and belong to other speakers of their heritage language. So, the linguistic competence will develop as a by-product of the interest. In addition, it brings people closer.

Bilingual Word Recognition in Deaf and Hearing Signers: Effects of Proficiency and Language Dominance on Cross-Language Activation

Science.gov (United States)

Morford, Jill P.; Kroll, Judith F.; Piñar, Pilar; Wilkinson, Erin

2014-01-01

Recent evidence demonstrates that American Sign Language (ASL) signs are active during print word recognition in deaf bilinguals who are highly proficient in both ASL and English. In the present study, we investigate whether signs are active during print word recognition in two groups of unbalanced bilinguals: deaf ASL-dominant and hearing…

Inhibitory control, word retrieval and bilingual aphasia: is there a relationship?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yasmeen Faroqi-Shah

2014-04-01

Responses to incongruent trials were slower than congruent for linguistic (F(1,126.3=44.9, p.05. While confrontation naming and category fluency were highly correlated (r=.77, p<.001, correlations between linguistic and non-linguistic inhibition and between word retrieval and linguistic/non-linguistic inhibition were non-significant. This large group study poses challenges to theories of bilingual advantage and the role of non-lexical inhibitory measures in word retrieval in PWA.

Limits on Monolingualism? A comparison of monolingual and bilingual infants’ abilities to integrate lexical tone in novel word learning.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Leher eSingh

2016-05-01

Full Text Available To construct their first lexicon, infants must determine the relationship between native phonological variation and the meanings of words. This process is arguably more complex for bilingual learners who are often confronted with phonological conflict: phonological variation that is lexically relevant in one language may be lexically irrelevant in the other. In a series of four experiments, the present study investigated English-Mandarin bilingual infants’ abilities to negotiate phonological conflict introduced by learning both a tone and a non-tone language. In a novel word learning task, bilingual children were tested on their sensitivity to tone variation in English and Mandarin contexts. Their abilities to interpret tone variation in a language-dependent manner were compared to those of monolingual Mandarin learning infants. Results demonstrated that at 12 to 13 months, bilingual infants demonstrated the ability to bind tone to word meanings in Mandarin, but to disregard tone variation when learning new words in English. In contrast, monolingual learners of Mandarin did not show evidence of integrating tones into word meanings in Mandarin at the same age even though they were learning a tone language. However, a tone discrimination paradigm confirmed that monolingual Mandarin learning infants were able to tell these tones apart at 12 to 13 months under a different set of conditions. Later, at 17 to 18 months, monolingual Mandarin learners were able to bind tone variation to word meanings when learning new words. Our findings are discussed in terms of cognitive adaptations associated with bilingualism that may ease the negotiation of phonological conflict and facilitate precocious uptake of certain properties of each language.

Context affects L1 but not L2 during bilingual word recognition: an MEG study.

Science.gov (United States)

Pellikka, Janne; Helenius, Päivi; Mäkelä, Jyrki P; Lehtonen, Minna

2015-03-01

How do bilinguals manage the activation levels of the two languages and prevent interference from the irrelevant language? Using magnetoencephalography, we studied the effect of context on the activation levels of languages by manipulating the composition of word lists (the probability of the languages) presented auditorily to late Finnish-English bilinguals. We first determined the upper limit time-window for semantic access, and then focused on the preceding responses during which the actual word recognition processes were assumedly ongoing. Between 300 and 500 ms in the temporal cortices (in the N400 m response) we found an asymmetric language switching effect: the responses to L1 Finnish words were affected by the presentation context unlike the responses to L2 English words. This finding suggests that the stronger language is suppressed in an L2 context, supporting models that allow auditory word recognition to be affected by contextual factors and the language system to be subject to inhibitory influence. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Dynamic spatial organization of the occipito-temporal word form area for second language processing.

Science.gov (United States)

Gao, Yue; Sun, Yafeng; Lu, Chunming; Ding, Guosheng; Guo, Taomei; Malins, Jeffrey G; Booth, James R; Peng, Danling; Liu, Li

2017-08-01

Despite the left occipito-temporal region having shown consistent activation in visual word form processing across numerous studies in different languages, the mechanisms by which word forms of second languages are processed in this region remain unclear. To examine this more closely, 16 Chinese-English and 14 English-Chinese late bilinguals were recruited to perform lexical decision tasks to visually presented words in both their native and second languages (L1 and L2) during functional magnetic resonance imaging scanning. Here we demonstrate that visual word form processing for L1 versus L2 engaged different spatial areas of the left occipito-temporal region. Namely, the spatial organization of the visual word form processing in the left occipito-temporal region is more medial and posterior for L2 than L1 processing in Chinese-English bilinguals, whereas activation is more lateral and anterior for L2 in English-Chinese bilinguals. In addition, for Chinese-English bilinguals, more lateral recruitment of the occipito-temporal region was correlated with higher L2 proficiency, suggesting higher L2 proficiency is associated with greater involvement of L1-preferred mechanisms. For English-Chinese bilinguals, higher L2 proficiency was correlated with more lateral and anterior activation of the occipito-temporal region, suggesting higher L2 proficiency is associated with greater involvement of L2-preferred mechanisms. Taken together, our results indicate that L1 and L2 recruit spatially different areas of the occipito-temporal region in visual word processing when the two scripts belong to different writing systems, and that the spatial organization of this region for L2 visual word processing is dynamically modulated by L2 proficiency. Specifically, proficiency in L2 in Chinese-English is associated with assimilation to the native language mechanisms, whereas L2 in English-Chinese is associated with accommodation to second language mechanisms. Copyright © 2017

An Interaction Between the Effects of Bilingualism and Cross-linguistic Similarity in Balanced and Unbalanced Bilingual Adults' L2 Mandarin Word-Reading Production.

Science.gov (United States)

Hsu, Hsiu-Ling

2017-08-01

We conducted three experiments investigating in more detail the interaction between the two effects of bilingualism and L1-L2 similarity in the speech performance of balanced and unbalanced bilinguals. In Experiment 1, L1 Mandarin monolinguals and two groups of Hakka and Minnan balanced bilinguals (Hakka: more similar to Mandarin) performed a non-contextual single-character reading task in Mandarin, which required more inhibitory control. The two bilingual groups outperformed the monolinguals, regardless of their L1 background. However, the bilingual advantage was not found in a contextual multi-word task (Experiment 2), but instead the effect of cross-linguistic similarity emerged. Furthermore, in Experiment 3, the Hakka unbalanced bilinguals showed an advantage in the non-contextual task, while their Minnan counterparts did not, and the impact of L1-L2 similarity emerged in both tasks. These results unveiled the way the two effects dynamically interplayed depending on the task contexts and the relative degrees of using L1 and L2.

Surmounting the Tower of Babel: Monolingual and bilingual 2-year-olds' understanding of the nature of foreign language words.

Science.gov (United States)

Byers-Heinlein, Krista; Chen, Ke Heng; Xu, Fei

2014-03-01

Languages function as independent and distinct conventional systems, and so each language uses different words to label the same objects. This study investigated whether 2-year-old children recognize that speakers of their native language and speakers of a foreign language do not share the same knowledge. Two groups of children unfamiliar with Mandarin were tested: monolingual English-learning children (n=24) and bilingual children learning English and another language (n=24). An English speaker taught children the novel label fep. On English mutual exclusivity trials, the speaker asked for the referent of a novel label (wug) in the presence of the fep and a novel object. Both monolingual and bilingual children disambiguated the reference of the novel word using a mutual exclusivity strategy, choosing the novel object rather than the fep. On similar trials with a Mandarin speaker, children were asked to find the referent of a novel Mandarin label kuò. Monolinguals again chose the novel object rather than the object with the English label fep, even though the Mandarin speaker had no access to conventional English words. Bilinguals did not respond systematically to the Mandarin speaker, suggesting that they had enhanced understanding of the Mandarin speaker's ignorance of English words. The results indicate that monolingual children initially expect words to be conventionally shared across all speakers-native and foreign. Early bilingual experience facilitates children's discovery of the nature of foreign language words. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Asymmetrical Switch Costs in Bilingual Language Production Induced by Reading Words

Science.gov (United States)

Peeters, David; Runnqvist, Elin; Bertrand, Daisy; Grainger, Jonathan

2014-01-01

We examined language-switching effects in French-English bilinguals using a paradigm where pictures are always named in the same language (either French or English) within a block of trials, and on each trial, the picture is preceded by a printed word from the same language or from the other language. Participants had to either make a language…

Performance on Auditory and Visual Tasks of Inhibition in English Monolingual and Spanish-English Bilingual Adults: Do Bilinguals Have a Cognitive Advantage?

Science.gov (United States)

Desjardins, Jamie L.; Fernandez, Francisco

2018-01-01

Purpose: Bilingual individuals have been shown to be more proficient on visual tasks of inhibition compared with their monolingual counterparts. However, the bilingual advantage has not been evidenced in all studies, and very little is known regarding how bilingualism influences inhibitory control in the perception of auditory information. The…

Semantic facilitation in bilingual first language acquisition.

Science.gov (United States)

Bilson, Samuel; Yoshida, Hanako; Tran, Crystal D; Woods, Elizabeth A; Hills, Thomas T

2015-07-01

Bilingual first language learners face unique challenges that may influence the rate and order of early word learning relative to monolinguals. A comparison of the productive vocabularies of 435 children between the ages of 6 months and 7 years-181 of which were bilingual English learners-found that monolinguals learned both English words and all-language concepts faster than bilinguals. However, bilinguals showed an enhancement of an effect previously found in monolinguals-the preference for learning words with more associative cues. Though both monolinguals and bilinguals were best fit by a similar model of word learning, semantic network structure and growth indicated that the two groups were learning English words in a different order. Further, in comparison with a model of two-monolinguals-in-one-mind, bilinguals overproduced translational equivalents. Our results support an emergent account of bilingual first language acquisition, where learning a word in one language facilitates its acquisition in a second language. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Assessing the Effectiveness of Monolingual, Bilingual, and "Bilingualised" Dictionaries in the Comprehension and Production of New Words.

Science.gov (United States)

Laufer, Batia; Hadar, Linor

1997-01-01

Examines the differences in effectiveness of three types of dictionaries--monolingual, bilingual, and "bilingualised" in the comprehension and production of new words by learners of English as a foreign language. The study tested participants on the comprehension of target words and on their ability to use these words in their own sentences. (16…

Vowel reduction in word-final position by early and late Spanish-English bilinguals.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Emily Byers

Full Text Available Vowel reduction is a prominent feature of American English, as well as other stress-timed languages. As a phonological process, vowel reduction neutralizes multiple vowel quality contrasts in unstressed syllables. For bilinguals whose native language is not characterized by large spectral and durational differences between tonic and atonic vowels, systematically reducing unstressed vowels to the central vowel space can be problematic. Failure to maintain this pattern of stressed-unstressed syllables in American English is one key element that contributes to a "foreign accent" in second language speakers. Reduced vowels, or "schwas," have also been identified as particularly vulnerable to the co-articulatory effects of adjacent consonants. The current study examined the effects of adjacent sounds on the spectral and temporal qualities of schwa in word-final position. Three groups of English-speaking adults were tested: Miami-based monolingual English speakers, early Spanish-English bilinguals, and late Spanish-English bilinguals. Subjects performed a reading task to examine their schwa productions in fluent speech when schwas were preceded by consonants from various points of articulation. Results indicated that monolingual English and late Spanish-English bilingual groups produced targeted vowel qualities for schwa, whereas early Spanish-English bilinguals lacked homogeneity in their vowel productions. This extends prior claims that schwa is targetless for F2 position for native speakers to highly-proficient bilingual speakers. Though spectral qualities lacked homogeneity for early Spanish-English bilinguals, early bilinguals produced schwas with near native-like vowel duration. In contrast, late bilinguals produced schwas with significantly longer durations than English monolinguals or early Spanish-English bilinguals. Our results suggest that the temporal properties of a language are better integrated into second language phonologies than

The Acquisition of Morphology by a Bilingual Child: A Whole-Word Approach.

Science.gov (United States)

Vihman, Marilyn May

A delay in the acquisition of morphology by a two-year-old Estonian-speaking boy was investigated to determine the role the child's bilingualism (with English) played in the delay. In contrast to his older sister, whose exposure to English was delayed, the boy exhibited a "whole word" approach to morphology, characterized by the following: (1)…

Processing emotional words in two languages with one brain: ERP and fMRI evidence from Chinese-English bilinguals.

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Peiyao; Lin, Jie; Chen, Bingle; Lu, Chunming; Guo, Taomei

2015-10-01

Emotional words in a bilingual's second language (L2) seem to have less emotional impact compared to emotional words in the first language (L1). The present study examined the neural mechanisms of emotional word processing in Chinese-English bilinguals' two languages by using both event-related potentials (ERPs) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Behavioral results show a robust positive word processing advantage in L1 such that responses to positive words were faster and more accurate compared to responses to neutral words and negative words. In L2, emotional words only received higher accuracies than neutral words. In ERPs, positive words elicited a larger early posterior negativity and a smaller late positive component than neutral words in L1, while a trend of reduced N400 component was found for positive words compared to neutral words in L2. In fMRI, reduced activation was found for L1 emotional words in both the left middle occipital gyrus and the left cerebellum whereas increased activation in the left cerebellum was found for L2 emotional words. Altogether, these results suggest that emotional word processing advantage in L1 relies on rapid and automatic attention capture while facilitated semantic retrieval might help processing emotional words in L2. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Teach yourself visually WordPress

CERN Document Server

Majure, Janet

2012-01-01

Get your blog up and running with the latest version of WordPress WordPress is one of the most popular, easy-to-use blogging platforms and allows you to create a dynamic and engaging blog, even if you have no programming skills or experience. Ideal for the visual learner, Teach Yourself VISUALLY WordPress, Second Edition introduces you to the exciting possibilities of the newest version of WordPress and helps you get started, step by step, with creating and setting up a WordPress site. Author and experienced WordPress user Janet Majure shares advice, insight, and best practices for taking full

Do eye movements reveal differences between monolingual and bilingual children's first-language and second-language reading? A focus on word frequency effects.

Science.gov (United States)

Whitford, Veronica; Joanisse, Marc F

2018-09-01

An extensive body of research has examined reading acquisition and performance in monolingual children. Surprisingly, however, much less is known about reading in bilingual children, who outnumber monolingual children globally. Here, we address this important imbalance in the literature by employing eye movement recordings to examine both global (i.e., text-level) and local (i.e., word-level) aspects of monolingual and bilingual children's reading performance across their first-language (L1) and second-language (L2). We also had a specific focus on lexical accessibility, indexed by word frequency effects. We had three main findings. First, bilingual children displayed reduced global and local L1 reading performance relative to monolingual children, including larger L1 word frequency effects. Second, bilingual children displayed reduced global and local L2 versus L1 reading performance, including larger L2 word frequency effects. Third, both groups of children displayed reduced global and local reading performance relative to adult comparison groups (across their known languages), including larger word frequency effects. Notably, our first finding was not captured by traditional offline measures of reading, such as standardized tests, suggesting that these measures may lack the sensitivity to detect such nuanced between-group differences in reading performance. Taken together, our findings demonstrate that bilingual children's simultaneous exposure to two reading systems leads to eye movement reading behavior that differs from that of monolingual children and has important consequences for how lexical information is accessed and integrated in both languages. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Acquisition of compound words in Chinese-English bilingual children: Decomposition and cross-language activation

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Cheng, C.; Wang, M.; Perfetti, C.A.

2011-01-01

This study investigated compound processing and cross-language activation in a group of Chinese–English bilingual children, and they were divided into four groups based on the language proficiency levels in their two languages. A lexical decision task was designed using compound words in both

Vowel reduction in word-final position by early and late Spanish-English bilinguals

Science.gov (United States)

2017-01-01

Vowel reduction is a prominent feature of American English, as well as other stress-timed languages. As a phonological process, vowel reduction neutralizes multiple vowel quality contrasts in unstressed syllables. For bilinguals whose native language is not characterized by large spectral and durational differences between tonic and atonic vowels, systematically reducing unstressed vowels to the central vowel space can be problematic. Failure to maintain this pattern of stressed-unstressed syllables in American English is one key element that contributes to a “foreign accent” in second language speakers. Reduced vowels, or “schwas,” have also been identified as particularly vulnerable to the co-articulatory effects of adjacent consonants. The current study examined the effects of adjacent sounds on the spectral and temporal qualities of schwa in word-final position. Three groups of English-speaking adults were tested: Miami-based monolingual English speakers, early Spanish-English bilinguals, and late Spanish-English bilinguals. Subjects performed a reading task to examine their schwa productions in fluent speech when schwas were preceded by consonants from various points of articulation. Results indicated that monolingual English and late Spanish-English bilingual groups produced targeted vowel qualities for schwa, whereas early Spanish-English bilinguals lacked homogeneity in their vowel productions. This extends prior claims that schwa is targetless for F2 position for native speakers to highly-proficient bilingual speakers. Though spectral qualities lacked homogeneity for early Spanish-English bilinguals, early bilinguals produced schwas with near native-like vowel duration. In contrast, late bilinguals produced schwas with significantly longer durations than English monolinguals or early Spanish-English bilinguals. Our results suggest that the temporal properties of a language are better integrated into second language phonologies than spectral

Survival Words and Phrases for Professionals Who Work with Students Who Are Bilingual and Severely/Multiply Handicapped, and with Their Families.

Science.gov (United States)

Silberman, Rosanne K.; Correa, Vivian I.

1989-01-01

The paper offers a rationale for bilingual special education, provides suggestions for developing bilingual lessons for severely/multiply handicapped students, and includes a list of Spanish words and phrases used most frequently by students and their parents. (JDD)

Effects of Classroom Bilingualism on Task Shifting, Verbal Memory, and Word Learning in Children

Science.gov (United States)

Kaushanskaya, Margarita; Gross, Megan; Buac, Milijana

2014-01-01

We examined the effects of classroom bilingual experience in children on an array of cognitive skills. Monolingual English-speaking children were compared with children who spoke English as the native language and who had been exposed to Spanish in the context of dual-immersion schooling for an average of two years. The groups were compared on a measure of non-linguistic task-shifting; measures of verbal short-term and working memory; and measures of word-learning. The two groups of children did not differ on measures of non-linguistic task-shifting and verbal short-term memory. However, the classroom-exposure bilingual group outperformed the monolingual group on the measure of verbal working memory and a measure of word-learning. Together, these findings indicate that while exposure to a second language in a classroom setting may not be sufficient to engender changes in cognitive control, it can facilitate verbal memory and verbal learning. PMID:24576079

Generating descriptive visual words and visual phrases for large-scale image applications.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Shiliang; Tian, Qi; Hua, Gang; Huang, Qingming; Gao, Wen

2011-09-01

Bag-of-visual Words (BoWs) representation has been applied for various problems in the fields of multimedia and computer vision. The basic idea is to represent images as visual documents composed of repeatable and distinctive visual elements, which are comparable to the text words. Notwithstanding its great success and wide adoption, visual vocabulary created from single-image local descriptors is often shown to be not as effective as desired. In this paper, descriptive visual words (DVWs) and descriptive visual phrases (DVPs) are proposed as the visual correspondences to text words and phrases, where visual phrases refer to the frequently co-occurring visual word pairs. Since images are the carriers of visual objects and scenes, a descriptive visual element set can be composed by the visual words and their combinations which are effective in representing certain visual objects or scenes. Based on this idea, a general framework is proposed for generating DVWs and DVPs for image applications. In a large-scale image database containing 1506 object and scene categories, the visual words and visual word pairs descriptive to certain objects or scenes are identified and collected as the DVWs and DVPs. Experiments show that the DVWs and DVPs are informative and descriptive and, thus, are more comparable with the text words than the classic visual words. We apply the identified DVWs and DVPs in several applications including large-scale near-duplicated image retrieval, image search re-ranking, and object recognition. The combination of DVW and DVP performs better than the state of the art in large-scale near-duplicated image retrieval in terms of accuracy, efficiency and memory consumption. The proposed image search re-ranking algorithm: DWPRank outperforms the state-of-the-art algorithm by 12.4% in mean average precision and about 11 times faster in efficiency.

Do word associations assess word knowledge? A comparison of L1 and L2, child and adult word associations

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Cremer, M.; Dingshoff, D.; de Beer, M.; Schoonen, R.

2011-01-01

Differences in word associations between monolingual and bilingual speakers of Dutch can reflect differences in how well seemingly familiar words are known. In this (exploratory) study mono-and bilingual, child and adult free word associations were compared. Responses of children and of monolingual

Numbers and functional lateralization: A visual half-field and dichotic listening study in proficient bilinguals.

Science.gov (United States)

Klichowski, Michal; Króliczak, Gregory

2017-06-01

Potential links between language and numbers and the laterality of symbolic number representations in the brain are still debated. Furthermore, reports on bilingual individuals indicate that the language-number interrelationships might be quite complex. Therefore, we carried out a visual half-field (VHF) and dichotic listening (DL) study with action words and different forms of symbolic numbers used as stimuli to test the laterality of word and number processing in single-, dual-language and mixed -task and language- contexts. Experiment 1 (VHF) showed a significant right visual field/left hemispheric advantage in response accuracy for action word, as compared to any form of symbolic number processing. Experiment 2 (DL) revealed a substantially reversed effect - a significant right ear/left hemisphere advantage for arithmetic operations as compared to action word processing, and in response times in single- and dual-language contexts for number vs. action words. All these effects were language independent. Notably, for within-task response accuracy compared across modalities significant differences were found in all studied contexts. Thus, our results go counter to findings showing that action-relevant concepts and words, as well as number words are represented/processed primarily in the left hemisphere. Instead, we found that in the auditory context, following substantial engagement of working memory (here: by arithmetic operations), there is a subsequent functional reorganization of processing single stimuli, whether verbs or numbers. This reorganization - their weakened laterality - at least for response accuracy is not exclusive to processing of numbers, but the number of items to be processed. For response times, except for unpredictable tasks in mixed contexts, the "number problem" is more apparent. These outcomes are highly relevant to difficulties that simultaneous translators encounter when dealing with lengthy auditory material in which single items such

Constraints on Tone Sensitivity in Novel Word Learning by Monolingual and Bilingual Infants: Tone Properties Are More Influential than Tone Familiarity

Science.gov (United States)

Burnham, Denis; Singh, Leher; Mattock, Karen; Woo, Pei J.; Kalashnikova, Marina

2018-01-01

This study compared tone sensitivity in monolingual and bilingual infants in a novel word learning task. Tone language learning infants (Experiment 1, Mandarin monolingual; Experiment 2, Mandarin-English bilingual) were tested with Mandarin (native) or Thai (non-native) lexical tone pairs which contrasted static vs. dynamic (high vs. rising) tones or dynamic vs. dynamic (rising vs. falling) tones. Non-tone language, English-learning infants (Experiment 3) were tested on English intonational contrasts or the Mandarin or Thai tone contrasts. Monolingual Mandarin language infants were able to bind tones to novel words for the Mandarin High-Rising contrast, but not for the Mandarin Rising-Falling contrast; and they were insensitive to both the High-Rising and the Rising-Falling tone contrasts in Thai. Bilingual English-Mandarin infants were similar to the Mandarin monolinguals in that they were sensitive to the Mandarin High-Rising contrast and not to the Mandarin Rising-Falling contrast. However, unlike the Mandarin monolinguals, they were also sensitive to the High Rising contrast in Thai. Monolingual English learning infants were insensitive to all three types of contrasts (Mandarin, Thai, English), although they did respond differentially to tone-bearing vs. intonation-marked words. Findings suggest that infants' sensitivity to tones in word learning contexts depends heavily on tone properties, and that this influence is, in some cases, stronger than effects of language familiarity. Moreover, bilingual infants demonstrated greater phonological flexibility in tone interpretation. PMID:29354077

Reading, syntactic, orthographic, and working memory skills of bilingual Arabic-English speaking Canadian children.

Science.gov (United States)

Abu-Rabia, Salim; Siegel, Linda S

2002-11-01

This study assessed the reading, language, and memory skills of 56 bilingual Arab-Canadian children age's 9-14. English was their main instructional language, and Arabic was the language spoken at home. All children attended a Heritage Language Program in Toronto where they were taught to read and write Arabic. The children were administered word and pseudo-word reading, language, and working memory tests in English and Arabic. The majority of the children showed at least adequate proficiency in both languages. There was a significant relationship between the acquisition of word and pseudo-word reading working memory, and syntactic awareness skills in the two languages. The poor readers in Arabic had lower scores on all linguistic tasks, except the visual task. There were no significant differences between bilingual English Arabic children and monolingual English-speaking children on the reading, language, and memory tasks. However, bilingual English Arabic children who had reading problems in English had higher scores on English pseudo-word reading and spelling tasks than monolingual English-speaking children with reading disabilities, probably because of positive transfer from the regular nature of Arabic orthography. In this case, bilingualism does not appear to have negative consequences for the development of language reading skills in both languages--Arabic and English--despite the different nature of the two orthographies.

Activation of extrastriate and frontal cortical areas by visual words and word-like stimuli

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Petersen, S.E.; Fox, P.T.; Snyder, A.Z.; Raichle, M.E.

1990-01-01

Visual presentation of words activates extrastriate regions of the occipital lobes of the brain. When analyzed by positron emission tomography (PET), certain areas in the left, medial extrastriate visual cortex were activated by visually presented pseudowords that obey English spelling rules, as well as by actual words. These areas were not activated by nonsense strings of letters or letter-like forms. Thus visual word form computations are based on learned distinctions between words and nonwords. In addition, during passive presentation of words, but not pseudowords, activation occurred in a left frontal area that is related to semantic processing. These findings support distinctions made in cognitive psychology and computational modeling between high-level visual and semantic computations on single words and describe the anatomy that may underlie these distinctions

The influence of bilingualism on statistical word learning.

Science.gov (United States)

Poepsel, Timothy J; Weiss, Daniel J

2016-07-01

Statistical learning is a fundamental component of language acquisition, yet to date, relatively few studies have examined whether these abilities differ in bilinguals. In the present study, we examine this issue by comparing English monolinguals with Chinese-English and English-Spanish bilinguals in a cross-situational statistical learning (CSSL) task. In Experiment 1, we assessed the ability of both monolinguals and bilinguals on a basic CSSL task that contained only one-to-one mappings. In Experiment 2, learners were asked to form both one-to-one and two-to-one mappings, and were tested at three points during familiarization. Overall, monolinguals and bilinguals did not differ in their learning of one-to-one mappings. However, bilinguals more quickly acquired two-to-one mappings, while also exhibiting greater proficiency than monolinguals. We conclude that the fundamental SL mechanism may not be affected by language experience, in accord with previous studies. However, when the input contains greater variability, bilinguals may be more prone to detecting the presence of multiple structures. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

On national flags and language tags: Effects of flag-language congruency in bilingual word recognition.

Science.gov (United States)

Grainger, Jonathan; Declerck, Mathieu; Marzouki, Yousri

2017-07-01

French-English bilinguals performed a generalized lexical decision experiment with mixed lists of French and English words and pseudo-words. In Experiment 1, each word/pseudo-word was superimposed on the picture of the French or UK flag, and flag-word congruency was manipulated. The flag was not informative with respect to either the lexical decision response or the language of the word. Nevertheless, lexical decisions to word stimuli were faster following the congruent flag compared with the incongruent flag, but only for French (L1) words. Experiment 2 replicated this flag-language congruency effect in a priming paradigm, where the word and pseudo-word targets followed the brief presentation of the flag prime, and this time effects were seen in both languages. We take these findings as evidence for a mechanism that automatically processes linguistic and non-linguistic information concerning the presence or not of a given language. Language membership information can then modulate lexical processing, in line with the architecture of the BIA model, but not the BIA+ model. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Monolingual and Bilingual Infants’ Ability to Use Non-native Tone for Word Learning Deteriorates by the Second Year After Birth

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Liquan Liu

2018-03-01

Full Text Available Previous studies reported a non-native word learning advantage for bilingual infants at around 18 months. We investigated developmental changes in infant interpretation of sounds that aid in object mapping. Dutch monolingual and bilingual (exposed to Dutch and a second non-tone-language infants’ word learning ability was examined on two novel label–object pairings using syllables differing in Mandarin tones as labels (flat vs. falling. Infants aged 14–15 months, regardless of language backgrounds, were sensitive to violations in the label–objects pairings when lexical tones were switched compared to when they were the same as habituated. Conversely at 17–18 months, neither monolingual nor bilingual infants demonstrated learning. Linking with existing literature, infants’ ability to associate non-native tones with meanings may be related to tonal acoustic properties and/or perceptual assimilation to native prosodic categories. These findings provide new insights into the relation between infant tone perception, learning, and interpretative narrowing from a developmental perspective.

From word superiority to word inferiority: Visual processing of letters and words in pure alexia

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Habekost, Thomas; Petersen, Anders; Behrmann, Marlene

2014-01-01

Visual processing and naming of individual letters and short words were investigated in four patients with pure alexia. To test processing at different levels, the same stimuli were studied across a naming task and a visual perception task. The normal word superiority effect was eliminated in bot...

Bilingual Word Processing Curriculum Development Project. Final Report, November 1, 1979, to July 30, 1980. Proyecto de Desarollo Curricular en el Procesamiento de Comunicacion Escrita Bilingue.

Science.gov (United States)

Essex County Coll., Newark, NJ.

A project proposed to demonstrate that quality bilingual (Spanish/English) curriculum materials for word processing could be developed. There were six different, yet interrelated elements or stages in this curriculum effort: (1) identification of competencies and materials; (2) translation, adaptation, and development of materials; (3)…

Visual word recognition across the adult lifespan.

Science.gov (United States)

Cohen-Shikora, Emily R; Balota, David A

2016-08-01

The current study examines visual word recognition in a large sample (N = 148) across the adult life span and across a large set of stimuli (N = 1,187) in three different lexical processing tasks (pronunciation, lexical decision, and animacy judgment). Although the focus of the present study is on the influence of word frequency, a diverse set of other variables are examined as the word recognition system ages and acquires more experience with language. Computational models and conceptual theories of visual word recognition and aging make differing predictions for age-related changes in the system. However, these have been difficult to assess because prior studies have produced inconsistent results, possibly because of sample differences, analytic procedures, and/or task-specific processes. The current study confronts these potential differences by using 3 different tasks, treating age and word variables as continuous, and exploring the influence of individual differences such as vocabulary, vision, and working memory. The primary finding is remarkable stability in the influence of a diverse set of variables on visual word recognition across the adult age spectrum. This pattern is discussed in reference to previous inconsistent findings in the literature and implications for current models of visual word recognition. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

Age of acquisition and naming performance in Frisian-Dutch bilingual speakers with dementia.

Science.gov (United States)

Veenstra, Wencke S; Huisman, Mark; Miller, Nick

2014-01-01

Age of acquisition (AoA) of words is a recognised variable affecting language processing in speakers with and without language disorders. For bi- and multilingual speakers their languages can be differentially affected in neurological illness. Study of language loss in bilingual speakers with dementia has been relatively neglected. We investigated whether AoA of words was associated with level of naming impairment in bilingual speakers with probable Alzheimer's dementia within and across their languages. Twenty-six Frisian-Dutch bilinguals with mild to moderate dementia named 90 pictures in each language, employing items with rated AoA and other word variable measures matched across languages. Quantitative (totals correct) and qualitative (error types and (in)appropriate switching) aspects were measured. Impaired retrieval occurred in Frisian (Language 1) and Dutch (Language 2), with a significant effect of AoA on naming in both languages. Earlier acquired words were better preserved and retrieved. Performance was identical across languages, but better in Dutch when controlling for covariates. However, participants demonstrated more inappropriate code switching within the Frisian test setting. On qualitative analysis, no differences in overall error distribution were found between languages for early or late acquired words. There existed a significantly higher percentage of semantically than visually-related errors. These findings have implications for understanding problems in lexical retrieval among bilingual individuals with dementia and its relation to decline in other cognitive functions which may play a role in inappropriate code switching. We discuss the findings in the light of the close relationship between Frisian and Dutch and the pattern of usage across the life-span.

Visual Word Recognition Across the Adult Lifespan

Science.gov (United States)

Cohen-Shikora, Emily R.; Balota, David A.

2016-01-01

The current study examines visual word recognition in a large sample (N = 148) across the adult lifespan and across a large set of stimuli (N = 1187) in three different lexical processing tasks (pronunciation, lexical decision, and animacy judgments). Although the focus of the present study is on the influence of word frequency, a diverse set of other variables are examined as the system ages and acquires more experience with language. Computational models and conceptual theories of visual word recognition and aging make differing predictions for age-related changes in the system. However, these have been difficult to assess because prior studies have produced inconsistent results, possibly due to sample differences, analytic procedures, and/or task-specific processes. The current study confronts these potential differences by using three different tasks, treating age and word variables as continuous, and exploring the influence of individual differences such as vocabulary, vision, and working memory. The primary finding is remarkable stability in the influence of a diverse set of variables on visual word recognition across the adult age spectrum. This pattern is discussed in reference to previous inconsistent findings in the literature and implications for current models of visual word recognition. PMID:27336629

On the importance of being bilingual: word stress processing in a context of segmental variability.

Science.gov (United States)

Abboub, Nawal; Bijeljac-Babic, Ranka; Serres, Josette; Nazzi, Thierry

2015-04-01

French-learning infants have language-specific difficulties in processing lexical stress due to the lack of lexical stress in French. These difficulties in discriminating between words with stress-initial (trochaic) and stress-final (iambic) patterns emerge by 10months of age in the easier context of low variability (using a single item pronounced with a trochaic pattern vs. an iambic pattern) as well as in the more challenging context of high segmental variability (using lists of segmentally different trochaic and iambic items). These findings raise the question of stress pattern perception in simultaneous bilinguals learning French and a second language using stress at the lexical level. Bijeljac-Babic, Serres, Höhle, and Nazzi (2012) established that at 10 months of age, in the simpler context of low variability, such bilinguals have better stress discrimination abilities than French-learning monolinguals. The current study explored whether this advantage extends to the more challenging context of high segmental variability. Results first establish stress pattern discrimination in a group of bilingual 10-month-olds learning French and one language with (variable) lexical stress, but not in French-learning 10-month-old monolinguals. Second, discrimination in bilinguals appeared not to be affected by the language balance of the infants, suggesting that sensitivity to stress patterns might be maintained in these bilingual infants provided that they hear at least 30% of a language with lexical stress. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Searching for the right word: Hybrid visual and memory search for words.

Science.gov (United States)

Boettcher, Sage E P; Wolfe, Jeremy M

2015-05-01

In "hybrid search" (Wolfe Psychological Science, 23(7), 698-703, 2012), observers search through visual space for any of multiple targets held in memory. With photorealistic objects as the stimuli, response times (RTs) increase linearly with the visual set size and logarithmically with the memory set size, even when over 100 items are committed to memory. It is well-established that pictures of objects are particularly easy to memorize (Brady, Konkle, Alvarez, & Oliva Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 105, 14325-14329, 2008). Would hybrid-search performance be similar if the targets were words or phrases, in which word order can be important, so that the processes of memorization might be different? In Experiment 1, observers memorized 2, 4, 8, or 16 words in four different blocks. After passing a memory test, confirming their memorization of the list, the observers searched for these words in visual displays containing two to 16 words. Replicating Wolfe (Psychological Science, 23(7), 698-703, 2012), the RTs increased linearly with the visual set size and logarithmically with the length of the word list. The word lists of Experiment 1 were random. In Experiment 2, words were drawn from phrases that observers reported knowing by heart (e.g., "London Bridge is falling down"). Observers were asked to provide four phrases, ranging in length from two words to no less than 20 words (range 21-86). All words longer than two characters from the phrase, constituted the target list. Distractor words were matched for length and frequency. Even with these strongly ordered lists, the results again replicated the curvilinear function of memory set size seen in hybrid search. One might expect to find serial position effects, perhaps reducing the RTs for the first (primacy) and/or the last (recency) members of a list (Atkinson & Shiffrin, 1968; Murdock Journal of Experimental Psychology, 64, 482-488, 1962). Surprisingly, we showed no reliable effects of word order

Dyslexia in a French-Spanish bilingual girl: behavioural and neural modulations following a visual attention span intervention.

Science.gov (United States)

Valdois, Sylviane; Peyrin, Carole; Lassus-Sangosse, Delphine; Lallier, Marie; Démonet, Jean-François; Kandel, Sonia

2014-04-01

We report the case study of a French-Spanish bilingual dyslexic girl, MP, who exhibited a severe visual attention (VA) span deficit but preserved phonological skills. Behavioural investigation showed a severe reduction of reading speed for both single items (words and pseudo-words) and texts in the two languages. However, performance was more affected in French than in Spanish. MP was administered an intensive VA span intervention programme. Pre-post intervention comparison revealed a positive effect of intervention on her VA span abilities. The intervention further transferred to reading. It primarily resulted in faster identification of the regular and irregular words in French. The effect of intervention was rather modest in Spanish that only showed a tendency for faster word reading. Text reading improved in the two languages with a stronger effect in French but pseudo-word reading did not improve in either French or Spanish. The overall results suggest that VA span intervention may primarily enhance the fast global reading procedure, with stronger effects in French than in Spanish. MP underwent two fMRI sessions to explore her brain activations before and after VA span training. Prior to the intervention, fMRI assessment showed that the striate and extrastriate visual cortices alone were activated but none of the regions typically involved in VA span. Post-training fMRI revealed increased activation of the superior and inferior parietal cortices. Comparison of pre- and post-training activations revealed significant activation increase of the superior parietal lobes (BA 7) bilaterally. Thus, we show that a specific VA span intervention not only modulates reading performance but further results in increased brain activity within the superior parietal lobes known to housing VA span abilities. Furthermore, positive effects of VA span intervention on reading suggest that the ability to process multiple visual elements simultaneously is one cause of successful

Do handwritten words magnify lexical effects in visual word recognition?

Science.gov (United States)

Perea, Manuel; Gil-López, Cristina; Beléndez, Victoria; Carreiras, Manuel

2016-01-01

An examination of how the word recognition system is able to process handwritten words is fundamental to formulate a comprehensive model of visual word recognition. Previous research has revealed that the magnitude of lexical effects (e.g., the word-frequency effect) is greater with handwritten words than with printed words. In the present lexical decision experiments, we examined whether the quality of handwritten words moderates the recruitment of top-down feedback, as reflected in word-frequency effects. Results showed a reading cost for difficult-to-read and easy-to-read handwritten words relative to printed words. But the critical finding was that difficult-to-read handwritten words, but not easy-to-read handwritten words, showed a greater word-frequency effect than printed words. Therefore, the inherent physical variability of handwritten words does not necessarily boost the magnitude of lexical effects.

Teach yourself visually complete WordPress

CERN Document Server

Majure, Janet

2013-01-01

Take your WordPress skills to the next level with these tips, tricks, and tasks Congratulations on getting your blog up and running with WordPress! Now are you ready to take it to the next level? Teach Yourself VISUALLY Complete WordPress takes you beyond the blogging basics with expanded tips, tricks, and techniques with clear, step-by-step instructions accompanied by screen shots. This visual book shows you how to incorporate forums, use RSS, obtain and review analytics, work with tools like Google AdSense, and much more.Shows you how to use mobile tools to edit a

What Spelling Tells Us about the Orthographic Development and Word Study Instruction with Emergent Bilingual Secondary Students

Science.gov (United States)

Kiernan, Darl; Bear, Donald R.

2018-01-01

Educators need ways to assess orthographic knowledge and differentiate word study instruction for secondary, emergent bilingual learners. In this study, the spelling of 199 students in grades 7-12 across eight features and four spelling stages was examined to understand students' orthographic development; all but two were learning Spanish and…

Temporal features of word-initial /s/+stop clusters in bilingual Mandarin-English children and monolingual English children and adults.

Science.gov (United States)

Yang, Jing

2018-03-01

This study investigated the durational features of English word-initial /s/+stop clusters produced by bilingual Mandarin (L1)-English (L2) children and monolingual English children and adults. The participants included two groups of five- to six-year-old bilingual children: low proficiency in the L2 (Bi-low) and high proficiency in the L2 (Bi-high), one group of age-matched English children, and one group of English adults. Each participant produced a list of English words containing /sp, st, sk/ at the word-initial position followed by /a, i, u/, respectively. The absolute durations of the clusters and cluster elements and the durational proportions of elements to the overall cluster were measured. The results revealed that Bi-high children behaved similarly to the English monolinguals whereas Bi-low children used a different strategy of temporal organization to coordinate the cluster components in comparison to the English monolinguals and Bi-high children. The influence of language experience and continuing development of temporal features in children were discussed.

Age of acquisition and naming performance in Frisian-Dutch bilingual speakers with dementia

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Wencke S. Veenstra

Full Text Available Age of acquisition (AoA of words is a recognised variable affecting language processing in speakers with and without language disorders. For bi- and multilingual speakers their languages can be differentially affected in neurological illness. Study of language loss in bilingual speakers with dementia has been relatively neglected.OBJECTIVE:We investigated whether AoA of words was associated with level of naming impairment in bilingual speakers with probable Alzheimer's dementia within and across their languages.METHODS:Twenty-six Frisian-Dutch bilinguals with mild to moderate dementia named 90 pictures in each language, employing items with rated AoA and other word variable measures matched across languages. Quantitative (totals correct and qualitative (error types and (inappropriate switching aspects were measured.RESULTSImpaired retrieval occurred in Frisian (Language 1 and Dutch (Language 2, with a significant effect of AoA on naming in both languages. Earlier acquired words were better preserved and retrieved. Performance was identical across languages, but better in Dutch when controlling for covariates. However, participants demonstrated more inappropriate code switching within the Frisian test setting. On qualitative analysis, no differences in overall error distribution were found between languages for early or late acquired words. There existed a significantly higher percentage of semantically than visually-related errors.CONCLUSIONThese findings have implications for understanding problems in lexical retrieval among bilingual individuals with dementia and its relation to decline in other cognitive functions which may play a role in inappropriate code switching. We discuss the findings in the light of the close relationship between Frisian and Dutch and the pattern of usage across the life-span.

The Concreteness Effect and the Bilingual Lexicon: The Impact of Visual Stimuli Attachment on Meaning Recall of Abstract L2 Words

Science.gov (United States)

Farley, Andrew P.; Ramonda, Kris; Liu, Xun

2012-01-01

According to the Dual-Coding Theory (Paivio & Desrochers, 1980), words that are associated with rich visual imagery are more easily learned than abstract words due to what is termed the concreteness effect (Altarriba & Bauer, 2004; de Groot, 1992, de Groot et al., 1994; ter Doest & Semin, 2005). The present study examined the effects of attaching…

Visual word form familiarity and attention in lateral difference during processing Japanese Kana words.

Science.gov (United States)

Nakagawa, A; Sukigara, M

2000-09-01

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between familiarity and laterality in reading Japanese Kana words. In two divided-visual-field experiments, three- or four-character Hiragana or Katakana words were presented in both familiar and unfamiliar scripts, to which subjects performed lexical decisions. Experiment 1, using three stimulus durations (40, 100, 160 ms), suggested that only in the unfamiliar script condition was increased stimulus presentation time differently affected in each visual field. To examine this lateral difference during the processing of unfamiliar scripts as related to attentional laterality, a concurrent auditory shadowing task was added in Experiment 2. The results suggested that processing words in an unfamiliar script requires attention, which could be left-hemisphere lateralized, while orthographically familiar kana words can be processed automatically on the basis of their word-level orthographic representations or visual word form. Copyright 2000 Academic Press.

Effects of visual familiarity for words on interhemispheric cooperation for lexical processing.

Science.gov (United States)

Yoshizaki, K

2001-12-01

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of visual familiarity of words on interhemispheric lexical processing. Words and pseudowords were tachistoscopically presented in a left, a right, or bilateral visual fields. Two types of words, Katakana-familiar-type and Hiragana-familiar-type, were used as the word stimuli. The former refers to the words which are more frequently written with Katakana script, and the latter refers to the words which are written predominantly in Hiragana script. Two conditions for the words were set up in terms of visual familiarity for a word. In visually familiar condition, words were presented in familiar script form and in visually unfamiliar condition, words were presented in less familiar script form. The 32 right-handed Japanese students were asked to make a lexical decision. Results showed that a bilateral gain, which indicated that the performance in the bilateral visual fields was superior to that in the unilateral visual field, was obtained only in the visually familiar condition, not in the visually unfamiliar condition. These results suggested that the visual familiarity for a word had an influence on the interhemispheric lexical processing.

Why do pictures, but not visual words, reduce older adults' false memories?

Science.gov (United States)

Smith, Rebekah E; Hunt, R Reed; Dunlap, Kathryn R

2015-09-01

Prior work shows that false memories resulting from the study of associatively related lists are reduced for both young and older adults when the auditory presentation of study list words is accompanied by related pictures relative to when auditory word presentation is combined with visual presentation of the word. In contrast, young adults, but not older adults, show a reduction in false memories when presented with the visual word along with the auditory word relative to hearing the word only. In both cases of pictures relative to visual words and visual words relative to auditory words alone, the benefit of picture and visual words in reducing false memories has been explained in terms of monitoring for perceptual information. In our first experiment, we provide the first simultaneous comparison of all 3 study presentation modalities (auditory only, auditory plus visual word, and auditory plus picture). Young and older adults show a reduction in false memories in the auditory plus picture condition, but only young adults show a reduction in the visual word condition relative to the auditory only condition. A second experiment investigates whether older adults fail to show a reduction in false memory in the visual word condition because they do not encode perceptual information in the visual word condition. In addition, the second experiment provides evidence that the failure of older adults to show the benefits of visual word presentation is related to reduced cognitive resources. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).

Dictionary Pruning with Visual Word Significance for Medical Image Retrieval.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Fan; Song, Yang; Cai, Weidong; Hauptmann, Alexander G; Liu, Sidong; Pujol, Sonia; Kikinis, Ron; Fulham, Michael J; Feng, David Dagan; Chen, Mei

2016-02-12

Content-based medical image retrieval (CBMIR) is an active research area for disease diagnosis and treatment but it can be problematic given the small visual variations between anatomical structures. We propose a retrieval method based on a bag-of-visual-words (BoVW) to identify discriminative characteristics between different medical images with Pruned Dictionary based on Latent Semantic Topic description. We refer to this as the PD-LST retrieval. Our method has two main components. First, we calculate a topic-word significance value for each visual word given a certain latent topic to evaluate how the word is connected to this latent topic. The latent topics are learnt, based on the relationship between the images and words, and are employed to bridge the gap between low-level visual features and high-level semantics. These latent topics describe the images and words semantically and can thus facilitate more meaningful comparisons between the words. Second, we compute an overall-word significance value to evaluate the significance of a visual word within the entire dictionary. We designed an iterative ranking method to measure overall-word significance by considering the relationship between all latent topics and words. The words with higher values are considered meaningful with more significant discriminative power in differentiating medical images. We evaluated our method on two public medical imaging datasets and it showed improved retrieval accuracy and efficiency.

Metalinguistic Aspects of Bilingual Processing.

Science.gov (United States)

Bialystok, Ellen

2001-01-01

Examines differences in metalinguistic development between monolingual and bilingual children in terms of three subcategories: word awareness, syntactic awareness, and phonological awareness. In each case, some studies have reported advantages for bilingual children, while others have found either no difference between the groups or monolingual…

Emotion Word Processing: Effects of Word Type and Valence in Spanish-English Bilinguals

Science.gov (United States)

Kazanas, Stephanie A.; Altarriba, Jeanette

2016-01-01

Previous studies comparing emotion and emotion-laden word processing have used various cognitive tasks, including an Affective Simon Task (Altarriba and Basnight-Brown in "Int J Billing" 15(3):310-328, 2011), lexical decision task (LDT; Kazanas and Altarriba in "Am J Psychol", in press), and rapid serial visual processing…

Adult Word Recognition and Visual Sequential Memory

Science.gov (United States)

Holmes, V. M.

2012-01-01

Two experiments were conducted investigating the role of visual sequential memory skill in the word recognition efficiency of undergraduate university students. Word recognition was assessed in a lexical decision task using regularly and strangely spelt words, and nonwords that were either standard orthographically legal strings or items made from…

Number word structure in first and second language influences arithmetic skills

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Anat ePrior

2015-03-01

Full Text Available Languages differ in how they represent numerical information, and specifically whether the verbal notation of numbers follows the same order as the symbolic notation (in non-inverted languages, e.g. Hebrew, 25, twenty-five or whether the two notations diverge (in inverted languages, e.g. Arabic, 25, five-and-twenty. We examined how the structure of number-words affects how arithmetic operations are processed by bilingual speakers of an inverted and a non-inverted language. We examined Arabic-Hebrew bilinguals' performance in the first language, L1 (inverted and in the second language, L2 (non-inverted. Their performance was compared to that of Hebrew L1 speakers, who do not speak an inverted language. Participants judged the accuracy of addition problems presented aurally in L1, aurally in L2 or in visual symbolic notation. Problems were presented such that they matched or did not match the structure of number words in the language. Arabic-Hebrew bilinguals demonstrated both flexibility in processing and adaptation to the language of aural-verbal presentation – they were more accurate for the inverted order of presentation in Arabic, but more accurate for non-inverted order of presentation in Hebrew, thus exhibiting the same pattern found for native Hebrew speakers. In addition, whereas native Hebrew speakers preferred the non-inverted order in visual symbolic presentation as well, the Arabic-Hebrew bilinguals showed enhanced flexibility, without a significant preference for one order over the other, in either speed or accuracy. These findings suggest that arithmetic processing is sensitive to the linguistic representations of number words. Moreover, bilinguals exposed to inverted and non-inverted languages showed influence of both systems, and enhanced flexibility in processing. Thus, the L1 does not seem to have exclusive power in shaping numerical mental representations, but rather the system remains open to influences from a later learned

Teach yourself visually Word 2013

CERN Document Server

Marmel, Elaine

2013-01-01

Get up to speed on the newest version of Word with visual instruction Microsoft Word is the standard for word processing programs, and the newest version offers additional functionality you'll want to use. Get up to speed quickly and easily with the step-by-step instructions and full-color screen shots in this popular guide! You'll see how to perform dozens of tasks, including how to set up and format documents and text; work with diagrams, charts, and pictures; use Mail Merge; post documents online; and much more. Easy-to-follow, two-page lessons make learning a snap.Full-

Longitudinal effects of bilingualism on dual-tasking.

Science.gov (United States)

Sörman, Daniel Eriksson; Josefsson, Maria; Marsh, John E; Hansson, Patrik; Ljungberg, Jessica K

2017-01-01

An ongoing debate surrounds whether bilinguals outperform monolinguals in tests of executive processing. The aim of this study was to investigate if there are long-term (10 year) bilingual advantages in executive processing, as indexed by dual-task performance, in a sample that were 40-65 years at baseline. The bilingual (n = 24) and monolingual (n = 24) participants were matched on age, sex, education, fluid intelligence, and study sample. Participants performed free-recall for a 12-item list in three dual-task settings wherein they sorted cards either during encoding, retrieval, or during both encoding and retrieval of the word-list. Free recall without card sorting was used as a reference to compute dual-task costs. The results showed that bilinguals significantly outperformed monolinguals when they performed card-sorting during both encoding and retrieval of the word-list, the condition that presumably placed the highest demands on executive functioning. However, dual-task costs increased over time for bilinguals relative to monolinguals, a finding that is possibly influenced by retirement age and limited use of second language in the bilingual group.

Comparing Bilingual to Monolingual Learners on English Spelling: A Meta-analytic Review.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhao, Jing; Quiroz, Blanca; Dixon, L Quentin; Joshi, R Malatesha

2016-08-01

This study reports on a meta-analysis to examine how bilingual learners compare with English monolingual learners on two English spelling outcomes: real-word spelling and pseudo-word spelling. Eighteen studies published in peer-reviewed journals between 1990 and 2014 were retrieved. The study-level variables and characteristics (e.g. sample size, study design and research instruments) were coded, and 29 independent effect sizes across the 18 retrieved studies were analysed. We found that bilinguals outperformed monolinguals on real-word spelling overall and more so in early grades, but monolinguals outperformed bilinguals on pseudo-word spelling. Further, bilinguals at risk for reading difficulties did better on real-word spelling than monolinguals at risk for reading difficulties. Having investigated systematic sources of variability in effect sizes, we conclude that in comparison with their monolingual peers, bilingual learners, especially those from alphabetic L1 backgrounds, are able to master constrained skills, such as English spelling, in the current instructional context. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Translation and associative priming with cross-lingual pseudohomophones: evidence for nonselective phonological activation in bilinguals.

Science.gov (United States)

Duyck, Wouter

2005-11-01

Using a lexical-decision task performed by Dutch-English bilinguals, the author showed that the recognition of visually presented first language (L1; e.g., touw) and second language (L2; e.g., back) targets is facilitated by L2 and L1 masked primes, respectively, which are pseudohomophones (roap and ruch) of the target's translation equivalent (rope and rug). Moreover, recognition of L2 targets (e.g., church) was also facilitated by L1 pseudohomophones (pous) of related words (paus [pope]). Contrastingly, no priming was observed for L1 targets (e.g., been [leg]) and L2 pseudohomophone associative primes (knea). Finally, the author found that an L2 target word (e.g., corner) is facilitated by a more frequent L2 (intralingual) homophone (e.g., hook) of its L1 translation equivalent (hoek). These findings strongly suggest language-independent activation of phonological representations in bilinguals and are compatible with the temporal delay assumption of the bilingual interactive activation plus model (A. Dijkstra & W. Van Heuven, 2002).

To electrify bilingualism: Electrophysiological insights into bilingual metaphor comprehension.

Science.gov (United States)

Jankowiak, Katarzyna; Rataj, Karolina; Naskręcki, Ryszard

2017-01-01

Though metaphoric language comprehension has previously been investigated with event-related potentials, little attention has been devoted to extending this research from the monolingual to the bilingual context. In the current study, late proficient unbalanced Polish (L1)-English (L2) bilinguals performed a semantic decision task to novel metaphoric, conventional metaphoric, literal, and anomalous word pairs presented in L1 and L2. The results showed more pronounced P200 amplitudes to L2 than L1, which can be accounted for by differences in the subjective frequency of the native and non-native lexical items. Within the early N400 time window (300-400 ms), L2 word dyads evoked delayed and attenuated amplitudes relative to L1 word pairs, possibly indicating extended lexical search during foreign language processing, and weaker semantic interconnectivity for L2 compared to L1 words within the memory system. The effect of utterance type was observed within the late N400 time window (400-500 ms), with smallest amplitudes evoked by literal, followed by conventional metaphoric, novel metaphoric, and anomalous word dyads. Such findings are interpreted as reflecting more resource intensive cognitive mechanisms governing novel compared to conventional metaphor comprehension in both the native and non-native language. Within the late positivity time window (500-800 ms), Polish novel metaphors evoked reduced amplitudes relative to literal utterances. In English, on the other hand, this effect was observed for both novel and conventional metaphoric word dyads. This finding might indicate continued effort in information retrieval or access to the non-literal route during novel metaphor comprehension in L1, and during novel and conventional metaphor comprehension in L2. Altogether, the present results point to decreased automaticity of cognitive mechanisms engaged in non-native and non-dominant language processing, and suggest a decreased sensitivity to the levels of

Manual for Bilingual Dictionaries. Textbook, Word List A-L, and Word List LL-Z.

Science.gov (United States)

Robinson, Dow F.

Volume One of this handbook for the preparation of bilingual dictionaries deals with (1) the purpose and structure of the bilingual dictionary for which this manual is designed; (2) the grammatical form of a main entry; (3) the grammatical designation of vernacular entries; (4) gloss in Spanish and vernacular; (5) sense discriminations; (6)…

L1 and L2 Spoken Word Processing: Evidence from Divided Attention Paradigm.

Science.gov (United States)

Shafiee Nahrkhalaji, Saeedeh; Lotfi, Ahmad Reza; Koosha, Mansour

2016-10-01

The present study aims to reveal some facts concerning first language (L 1 ) and second language (L 2 ) spoken-word processing in unbalanced proficient bilinguals using behavioral measures. The intention here is to examine the effects of auditory repetition word priming and semantic priming in first and second languages of these bilinguals. The other goal is to explore the effects of attention manipulation on implicit retrieval of perceptual and conceptual properties of spoken L 1 and L 2 words. In so doing, the participants performed auditory word priming and semantic priming as memory tests in their L 1 and L 2 . In a half of the trials of each experiment, they carried out the memory test while simultaneously performing a secondary task in visual modality. The results revealed that effects of auditory word priming and semantic priming were present when participants processed L 1 and L 2 words in full attention condition. Attention manipulation could reduce priming magnitude in both experiments in L 2 . Moreover, L 2 word retrieval increases the reaction times and reduces accuracy on the simultaneous secondary task to protect its own accuracy and speed.

Effects of auditory and visual modalities in recall of words.

Science.gov (United States)

Gadzella, B M; Whitehead, D A

1975-02-01

Ten experimental conditions were used to study the effects of auditory and visual (printed words, uncolored and colored pictures) modalities and their various combinations with college students. A recall paradigm was employed in which subjects responded in a written test. Analysis of data showed the auditory modality was superior to visual (pictures) ones but was not significantly different from visual (printed words) modality. In visual modalities, printed words were superior to colored pictures. Generally, conditions with multiple modes of representation of stimuli were significantly higher than for conditions with single modes. Multiple modalities, consisting of two or three modes, did not differ significantly from each other. It was concluded that any two modalities of the stimuli presented simultaneously were just as effective as three in recall of stimulus words.

Macrostructural Treatment of Multi-word Lexical Items

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Alenka Vrbinc

2011-05-01

Full Text Available The paper discusses the macrostructural treatment of multi-word lexical items in mono- and bilingual dictionaries. First, the classification of multi-word lexical items is presented, and special attention is paid to the discussion of compounds – a specific group of multi-word lexical items that is most commonly afforded headword status but whose inclusion in the headword list may also depend on spelling. Then the inclusion of multi-word lexical items in monolingual dictionaries is dealt with in greater detail, while the results of a short survey on the inclusion of five randomly chosen multi-word lexical items in seven English monolingual dictionaries are presented. The proposals as to how to treat these five multi-word lexical items in bilingual dictionaries are presented in the section about the inclusion of multi-word lexical items in bilingual dictionaries. The conclusion is that it is most important to take the users’ needs into consideration and to make any dictionary as user friendly as possible.

Bilingualism and increased attention to speech: Evidence from event-related potentials.

Science.gov (United States)

Kuipers, Jan Rouke; Thierry, Guillaume

2015-10-01

A number of studies have shown that from an early age, bilinguals outperform their monolingual peers on executive control tasks. We previously found that bilingual children and adults also display greater attention to unexpected language switches within speech. Here, we investigated the effect of a bilingual upbringing on speech perception in one language. We recorded monolingual and bilingual toddlers' event-related potentials (ERPs) to spoken words preceded by pictures. Words matching the picture prime elicited an early frontal positivity in bilingual participants only, whereas later ERP amplitudes associated with semantic processing did not differ between groups. These results add to the growing body of evidence that bilingualism increases overall attention during speech perception whilst semantic integration is unaffected. Copyright © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Effects of Auditory and Visual Priming on the Identification of Spoken Words.

Science.gov (United States)

Shigeno, Sumi

2017-04-01

This study examined the effects of preceding contextual stimuli, either auditory or visual, on the identification of spoken target words. Fifty-one participants (29% males, 71% females; mean age = 24.5 years, SD = 8.5) were divided into three groups: no context, auditory context, and visual context. All target stimuli were spoken words masked with white noise. The relationships between the context and target stimuli were as follows: identical word, similar word, and unrelated word. Participants presented with context experienced a sequence of six context stimuli in the form of either spoken words or photographs. Auditory and visual context conditions produced similar results, but the auditory context aided word identification more than the visual context in the similar word relationship. We discuss these results in the light of top-down processing, motor theory, and the phonological system of language.

Does Temporal Integration Occur for Unrecognizable Words in Visual Crowding?

Science.gov (United States)

Zhou, Jifan; Lee, Chia-Lin; Li, Kuei-An; Tien, Yung-Hsuan; Yeh, Su-Ling

2016-01-01

Visual crowding—the inability to see an object when it is surrounded by flankers in the periphery—does not block semantic activation: unrecognizable words due to visual crowding still generated robust semantic priming in subsequent lexical decision tasks. Based on the previous finding, the current study further explored whether unrecognizable crowded words can be temporally integrated into a phrase. By showing one word at a time, we presented Chinese four-word idioms with either a congruent or incongruent ending word in order to examine whether the three preceding crowded words can be temporally integrated to form a semantic context so as to affect the processing of the ending word. Results from both behavioral (Experiment 1) and Event-Related Potential (Experiment 2 and 3) measures showed congruency effect in only the non-crowded condition, which does not support the existence of unconscious multi-word integration. Aside from four-word idioms, we also found that two-word (modifier + adjective combination) integration—the simplest kind of temporal semantic integration—did not occur in visual crowding (Experiment 4). Our findings suggest that integration of temporally separated words might require conscious awareness, at least under the timing conditions tested in the current study. PMID:26890366

Effect of word familiarity on visually evoked magnetic fields.

Science.gov (United States)

Harada, N; Iwaki, S; Nakagawa, S; Yamaguchi, M; Tonoike, M

2004-11-30

This study investigated the effect of word familiarity of visual stimuli on the word recognizing function of the human brain. Word familiarity is an index of the relative ease of word perception, and is characterized by facilitation and accuracy on word recognition. We studied the effect of word familiarity, using "Hiragana" (phonetic characters in Japanese orthography) characters as visual stimuli, on the elicitation of visually evoked magnetic fields with a word-naming task. The words were selected from a database of lexical properties of Japanese. The four "Hiragana" characters used were grouped and presented in 4 classes of degree of familiarity. The three components were observed in averaged waveforms of the root mean square (RMS) value on latencies at about 100 ms, 150 ms and 220 ms. The RMS value of the 220 ms component showed a significant positive correlation (F=(3/36); 5.501; p=0.035) with the value of familiarity. ECDs of the 220 ms component were observed in the intraparietal sulcus (IPS). Increments in the RMS value of the 220 ms component, which might reflect ideographical word recognition, retrieving "as a whole" were enhanced with increments of the value of familiarity. The interaction of characters, which increased with the value of familiarity, might function "as a large symbol"; and enhance a "pop-out" function with an escaping character inhibiting other characters and enhancing the segmentation of the character (as a figure) from the ground.

The Cultured Word: Cultural Background, Bilingualism, and the School Library.

Science.gov (United States)

Agosto, Denise E.

2001-01-01

Presents major research related to cultural background as a framework for textual meaning-making, bilingualism, and literacy development. Discusses bilingualism, literacy, and social context; considers why these issues are important to school librarians; and offers suggestions for making multicultural materials central aspects of school library…

Bilinguals' Existing Languages Benefit Vocabulary Learning in a Third Language.

Science.gov (United States)

Bartolotti, James; Marian, Viorica

2017-03-01

Learning a new language involves substantial vocabulary acquisition. Learners can accelerate this process by relying on words with native-language overlap, such as cognates. For bilingual third language learners, it is necessary to determine how their two existing languages interact during novel language learning. A scaffolding account predicts transfer from either language for individual words, whereas an accumulation account predicts cumulative transfer from both languages. To compare these accounts, twenty English-German bilingual adults were taught an artificial language containing 48 novel written words that varied orthogonally in English and German wordlikeness (neighborhood size and orthotactic probability). Wordlikeness in each language improved word production accuracy, and similarity to one language provided the same benefit as dual-language overlap. In addition, participants' memory for novel words was affected by the statistical distributions of letters in the novel language. Results indicate that bilinguals utilize both languages during third language acquisition, supporting a scaffolding learning model.

Rapid modulation of spoken word recognition by visual primes.

Science.gov (United States)

Okano, Kana; Grainger, Jonathan; Holcomb, Phillip J

2016-02-01

In a masked cross-modal priming experiment with ERP recordings, spoken Japanese words were primed with words written in one of the two syllabary scripts of Japanese. An early priming effect, peaking at around 200ms after onset of the spoken word target, was seen in left lateral electrode sites for Katakana primes, and later effects were seen for both Hiragana and Katakana primes on the N400 ERP component. The early effect is thought to reflect the efficiency with which words in Katakana script make contact with sublexical phonological representations involved in spoken language comprehension, due to the particular way this script is used by Japanese readers. This demonstrates fast-acting influences of visual primes on the processing of auditory target words, and suggests that briefly presented visual primes can influence sublexical processing of auditory target words. The later N400 priming effects, on the other hand, most likely reflect cross-modal influences on activity at the level of whole-word phonology and semantics.

Visual attention shift to printed words during spoken word recognition in Chinese: The role of phonological information.

Science.gov (United States)

Shen, Wei; Qu, Qingqing; Tong, Xiuhong

2018-05-01

The aim of this study was to investigate the extent to which phonological information mediates the visual attention shift to printed Chinese words in spoken word recognition by using an eye-movement technique with a printed-word paradigm. In this paradigm, participants are visually presented with four printed words on a computer screen, which include a target word, a phonological competitor, and two distractors. Participants are then required to select the target word using a computer mouse, and the eye movements are recorded. In Experiment 1, phonological information was manipulated at the full-phonological overlap; in Experiment 2, phonological information at the partial-phonological overlap was manipulated; and in Experiment 3, the phonological competitors were manipulated to share either fulloverlap or partial-overlap with targets directly. Results of the three experiments showed that the phonological competitor effects were observed at both the full-phonological overlap and partial-phonological overlap conditions. That is, phonological competitors attracted more fixations than distractors, which suggested that phonological information mediates the visual attention shift during spoken word recognition. More importantly, we found that the mediating role of phonological information varies as a function of the phonological similarity between target words and phonological competitors.

L1 and L2 Picture Naming in Mandarin-English Bilinguals: A Test of Bilingual Dual Coding Theory

Science.gov (United States)

Jared, Debra; Poh, Rebecca Pei Yun; Paivio, Allan

2013-01-01

This study examined the nature of bilinguals' conceptual representations and the links from these representations to words in L1 and L2. Specifically, we tested an assumption of the Bilingual Dual Coding Theory that conceptual representations include image representations, and that learning two languages in separate contexts can result in…

A dual-route perspective on brain activation in response to visual words: evidence for a length by lexicality interaction in the visual word form area (VWFA).

Science.gov (United States)

Schurz, Matthias; Sturm, Denise; Richlan, Fabio; Kronbichler, Martin; Ladurner, Gunther; Wimmer, Heinz

2010-02-01

Based on our previous work, we expected the Visual Word Form Area (VWFA) in the left ventral visual pathway to be engaged by both whole-word recognition and by serial sublexical coding of letter strings. To examine this double function, a phonological lexical decision task (i.e., "Does xxx sound like an existing word?") presented short and long letter strings of words, pseudohomophones, and pseudowords (e.g., Taxi, Taksi and Tazi). Main findings were that the length effect for words was limited to occipital regions and absent in the VWFA. In contrast, a marked length effect for pseudowords was found throughout the ventral visual pathway including the VWFA, as well as in regions presumably engaged by visual attention and silent-articulatory processes. The length by lexicality interaction on brain activation corresponds to well-established behavioral findings of a length by lexicality interaction on naming latencies and speaks for the engagement of the VWFA by both lexical and sublexical processes. Copyright (c) 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Non-Selective Lexical Access in Late Arabic-English Bilinguals: Evidence from Gating.

Science.gov (United States)

Boudelaa, Sami

2018-02-07

Previous research suggests that late bilinguals who speak typologically distant languages are the least likely to show evidence of non-selective lexical access processes. This study puts this claim to test by using the gating task to determine whether words beginning with speech sounds that are phonetically similar in Arabic and English (e.g., [b,d,m,n]) give rise to selective or non-selective lexical access processes in late Arabic-English bilinguals. The results show that an acoustic-phonetic input (e.g., [bæ]) that is consistent with words in Arabic (e.g., [bædrun] "moon") and English (e.g., [bæd] "bad") activates lexical representations in both languages of the bilingual. This non-selective activation holds equally well for mixed lists with words from both Arabic and English and blocked lists consisting only of Arabic or English words. These results suggest that non-selective lexical access processes are the default mechanism even in late bilinguals of typologically distant languages.

Visual recognition of permuted words

Science.gov (United States)

Rashid, Sheikh Faisal; Shafait, Faisal; Breuel, Thomas M.

2010-02-01

In current study we examine how letter permutation affects in visual recognition of words for two orthographically dissimilar languages, Urdu and German. We present the hypothesis that recognition or reading of permuted and non-permuted words are two distinct mental level processes, and that people use different strategies in handling permuted words as compared to normal words. A comparison between reading behavior of people in these languages is also presented. We present our study in context of dual route theories of reading and it is observed that the dual-route theory is consistent with explanation of our hypothesis of distinction in underlying cognitive behavior for reading permuted and non-permuted words. We conducted three experiments in lexical decision tasks to analyze how reading is degraded or affected by letter permutation. We performed analysis of variance (ANOVA), distribution free rank test, and t-test to determine the significance differences in response time latencies for two classes of data. Results showed that the recognition accuracy for permuted words is decreased 31% in case of Urdu and 11% in case of German language. We also found a considerable difference in reading behavior for cursive and alphabetic languages and it is observed that reading of Urdu is comparatively slower than reading of German due to characteristics of cursive script.

The Influence of Orthographic Neighborhood Density and Word Frequency on Visual Word Recognition: Insights from RT Distributional Analyses

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Stephen Wee Hun eLim

2016-03-01

Full Text Available The effects of orthographic neighborhood density and word frequency in visual word recognition were investigated using distributional analyses of response latencies in visual lexical decision. Main effects of density and frequency were observed in mean latencies. Distributional analyses, in addition, revealed a density x frequency interaction: for low-frequency words, density effects were mediated predominantly by distributional shifting whereas for high-frequency words, density effects were absent except at the slower RTs, implicating distributional skewing. The present findings suggest that density effects in low-frequency words reflect processes involved in early lexical access, while the effects observed in high-frequency words reflect late postlexical checking processes.

Syllabic Length Effect in Visual Word Recognition

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Roya Ranjbar Mohammadi

2014-07-01

Full Text Available Studies on visual word recognition have resulted in different and sometimes contradictory proposals as Multi-Trace Memory Model (MTM, Dual-Route Cascaded Model (DRC, and Parallel Distribution Processing Model (PDP. The role of the number of syllables in word recognition was examined by the use of five groups of English words and non-words. The reaction time of the participants to these words was measured using reaction time measuring software. The results indicated that there was syllabic effect on recognition of both high and low frequency words. The pattern was incremental in terms of syllable number. This pattern prevailed in high and low frequency words and non-words except in one syllable words. In general, the results are in line with the PDP model which claims that a single processing mechanism is used in both words and non-words recognition. In other words, the findings suggest that lexical items are mainly processed via a lexical route.  A pedagogical implication of the findings would be that reading in English as a foreign language involves analytical processing of the syllable of the words.

Words, Shape, Visual Search and Visual Working Memory in 3-Year-Old Children

Science.gov (United States)

Vales, Catarina; Smith, Linda B.

2015-01-01

Do words cue children's visual attention, and if so, what are the relevant mechanisms? Across four experiments, 3-year-old children (N = 163) were tested in visual search tasks in which targets were cued with only a visual preview versus a visual preview and a spoken name. The experiments were designed to determine whether labels facilitated…

[The early expressive vocabulary size in simultaneous bilingual growing-up infants - a diagnostic relevant criterion?].

Science.gov (United States)

Kiese-Himmel, C; Sellner, L; Bockmann, A-K

2013-08-01

Bilingual young children's early expressive vocabulary size and its composition (as one domain of the language development) should be examined to find out whether children with a risk for delayed language development may be identified in this way. 30 bilingual kindergarten infants from Berlin (with simultaneous language acquisition; second language German) and 30 monolingual German infants from the greater areas of Stuttgart and Heidelberg were pair matched (mean chronological age 22.5 [SD 3.1] months; min 16; max 26). The German expressive vocabulary checklist Elternfragebogen zur Wort-schatzentwicklung im frühen Kindesalter (ELAN; Bockmann & Kiese-Himmel, 2006) was filled out by all parents. In addition, parents of bilingual infants completed the adaption of the German vocabulary checklist Sprachbeurteilung durch Eltern (SBE-2-KT; v. Suchodoletz & Sachse, 2008) for the second mother tongue. The monolinguals' word sum in the ELAN (145.7; SD 75.8) differed significantly (p=0.001) from the bilinguals' word sum (78.3; SD 78.9 words). In contrast, bilinguals did not significantly differ in their overall expressive vocabulary size (ELAN+SBE-2-KT: 101.2; SD 77.0 words) from their monolingual counterparts (ELAN). Because bilinguals had a similar sized overall early vocabulary (both languages) like monolingual German-learning infants, the diagnostic criterion to identify late talkers with 24 months of age (less than 50 German words and no word combinations) should not be applied to bilingually infants with simultaneously double language acquisition. © Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart · New York.

Functions of graphemic and phonemic codes in visual word-recognition.

Science.gov (United States)

Meyer, D E; Schvaneveldt, R W; Ruddy, M G

1974-03-01

Previous investigators have argued that printed words are recognized directly from visual representations and/or phonological representations obtained through phonemic recoding. The present research tested these hypotheses by manipulating graphemic and phonemic relations within various pairs of letter strings. Ss in two experiments classified the pairs as words or nonwords. Reaction times and error rates were relatively small for word pairs (e.g., BRIBE-TRIBE) that were both graphemically, and phonemically similar. Graphemic similarity alone inhibited performance on other word pairs (e.g., COUCH-TOUCH). These and other results suggest that phonological representations play a significant role in visual word recognition and that there is a dependence between successive phonemic-encoding operations. An encoding-bias model is proposed to explain the data.

The role of visual acuity and segmentation cues in compound word identification

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jukka eHyönä

2012-06-01

Full Text Available Studies are reviewed that demonstrate how the foveal area of the eye constrains how compound words are identified during reading. When compound words are short, their letters can be identified during a single fixation, leading to the whole-word route dominating word recognition from early on. Hence, visually marking morpheme boundaries by hyphens slows down processing by encouraging morphological decomposition when holistic processing is a feasible option. In contrast, the decomposition route dominates the early stages of identifying long compound words. Thus, visual marking of morpheme boundaries facilitates processing of long compound words, unless the initial fixation made on the word lands very close to the morpheme boundary. The reviewed pattern of results is explained by the visual acuity principle (Bertram & Hyönä, 2003 and the dual-route framework of morphological processing.

Lexical storage and retrieval in bilinguals

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Dijkstra, A.F.J.; Hout, R.W.N.M. van; Hulk, A.; Kuiken, F.; Towell, R.

2003-01-01

A review of recent studies on the recognition of isolated words by bilinguals shows that this process is automatic and profoundly language non-selective. For example, upon the presentation of an ambiguous word form such as LIST, which exists in both English and Dutch (where it means "cream"), the

Stuttering Characteristics of German-English Bilingual Speakers

Science.gov (United States)

Schafer, Martina; Robb, Michael P.

2012-01-01

The purpose of this study was to examine stuttering behavior in German-English bilingual people who stutter (PWS), with particular reference to the frequency of stuttering on content and function words. Fifteen bilingual PWS were sampled who spoke German as the first language (L1) and English as a second language (L2). Conversational speech was…

The impact of task demand on visual word recognition.

Science.gov (United States)

Yang, J; Zevin, J

2014-07-11

The left occipitotemporal cortex has been found sensitive to the hierarchy of increasingly complex features in visually presented words, from individual letters to bigrams and morphemes. However, whether this sensitivity is a stable property of the brain regions engaged by word recognition is still unclear. To address the issue, the current study investigated whether different task demands modify this sensitivity. Participants viewed real English words and stimuli with hierarchical word-likeness while performing a lexical decision task (i.e., to decide whether each presented stimulus is a real word) and a symbol detection task. General linear model and independent component analysis indicated strong activation in the fronto-parietal and temporal regions during the two tasks. Furthermore, the bilateral inferior frontal gyrus and insula showed significant interaction effects between task demand and stimulus type in the pseudoword condition. The occipitotemporal cortex showed strong main effects for task demand and stimulus type, but no sensitivity to the hierarchical word-likeness was found. These results suggest that different task demands on semantic, phonological and orthographic processes can influence the involvement of the relevant regions during visual word recognition. Copyright © 2014 IBRO. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Words, shape, visual search and visual working memory in 3-year-old children.

Science.gov (United States)

Vales, Catarina; Smith, Linda B

2015-01-01

Do words cue children's visual attention, and if so, what are the relevant mechanisms? Across four experiments, 3-year-old children (N = 163) were tested in visual search tasks in which targets were cued with only a visual preview versus a visual preview and a spoken name. The experiments were designed to determine whether labels facilitated search times and to examine one route through which labels could have their effect: By influencing the visual working memory representation of the target. The targets and distractors were pictures of instances of basic-level known categories and the labels were the common name for the target category. We predicted that the label would enhance the visual working memory representation of the target object, guiding attention to objects that better matched the target representation. Experiments 1 and 2 used conjunctive search tasks, and Experiment 3 varied shape discriminability between targets and distractors. Experiment 4 compared the effects of labels to repeated presentations of the visual target, which should also influence the working memory representation of the target. The overall pattern fits contemporary theories of how the contents of visual working memory interact with visual search and attention, and shows that even in very young children heard words affect the processing of visual information. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Does viotin activate violin more than viocin? On the use of visual cues during visual-word recognition.

Science.gov (United States)

Perea, Manuel; Panadero, Victoria

2014-01-01

The vast majority of neural and computational models of visual-word recognition assume that lexical access is achieved via the activation of abstract letter identities. Thus, a word's overall shape should play no role in this process. In the present lexical decision experiment, we compared word-like pseudowords like viotín (same shape as its base word: violín) vs. viocín (different shape) in mature (college-aged skilled readers), immature (normally reading children), and immature/impaired (young readers with developmental dyslexia) word-recognition systems. Results revealed similar response times (and error rates) to consistent-shape and inconsistent-shape pseudowords for both adult skilled readers and normally reading children - this is consistent with current models of visual-word recognition. In contrast, young readers with developmental dyslexia made significantly more errors to viotín-like pseudowords than to viocín-like pseudowords. Thus, unlike normally reading children, young readers with developmental dyslexia are sensitive to a word's visual cues, presumably because of poor letter representations.

Development of the Visual Word Form Area Requires Visual Experience: Evidence from Blind Braille Readers.

Science.gov (United States)

Kim, Judy S; Kanjlia, Shipra; Merabet, Lotfi B; Bedny, Marina

2017-11-22

Learning to read causes the development of a letter- and word-selective region known as the visual word form area (VWFA) within the human ventral visual object stream. Why does a reading-selective region develop at this anatomical location? According to one hypothesis, the VWFA develops at the nexus of visual inputs from retinotopic cortices and linguistic input from the frontotemporal language network because reading involves extracting linguistic information from visual symbols. Surprisingly, the anatomical location of the VWFA is also active when blind individuals read Braille by touch, suggesting that vision is not required for the development of the VWFA. In this study, we tested the alternative prediction that VWFA development is in fact influenced by visual experience. We predicted that in the absence of vision, the "VWFA" is incorporated into the frontotemporal language network and participates in high-level language processing. Congenitally blind ( n = 10, 9 female, 1 male) and sighted control ( n = 15, 9 female, 6 male), male and female participants each took part in two functional magnetic resonance imaging experiments: (1) word reading (Braille for blind and print for sighted participants), and (2) listening to spoken sentences of different grammatical complexity (both groups). We find that in blind, but not sighted participants, the anatomical location of the VWFA responds both to written words and to the grammatical complexity of spoken sentences. This suggests that in blindness, this region takes on high-level linguistic functions, becoming less selective for reading. More generally, the current findings suggest that experience during development has a major effect on functional specialization in the human cortex. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT The visual word form area (VWFA) is a region in the human cortex that becomes specialized for the recognition of written letters and words. Why does this particular brain region become specialized for reading? We

Bilingualism and Musicianship Enhance Cognitive Control

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Scott R. Schroeder

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Learning how to speak a second language (i.e., becoming a bilingual and learning how to play a musical instrument (i.e., becoming a musician are both thought to increase executive control through experience-dependent plasticity. However, evidence supporting this effect is mixed for bilingualism and limited for musicianship. In addition, the combined effects of bilingualism and musicianship on executive control are unknown. To determine whether bilingualism, musicianship, and combined bilingualism and musicianship improve executive control, we tested 219 young adults belonging to one of four groups (bilinguals, musicians, bilingual musicians, and controls on a nonlinguistic, nonmusical, visual-spatial Simon task that measured the ability to ignore an irrelevant and misinformative cue. Results revealed that bilinguals, musicians, and bilingual musicians showed an enhanced ability to ignore a distracting cue relative to controls, with similar levels of superior performance among bilinguals, musicians, and bilingual musicians. These results indicate that bilingualism and musicianship improve executive control and have implications for educational and rehabilitation programs that use music and foreign language instruction to boost cognitive performance.

Bilingualism and Musicianship Enhance Cognitive Control.

Science.gov (United States)

Schroeder, Scott R; Marian, Viorica; Shook, Anthony; Bartolotti, James

2016-01-01

Learning how to speak a second language (i.e., becoming a bilingual) and learning how to play a musical instrument (i.e., becoming a musician) are both thought to increase executive control through experience-dependent plasticity. However, evidence supporting this effect is mixed for bilingualism and limited for musicianship. In addition, the combined effects of bilingualism and musicianship on executive control are unknown. To determine whether bilingualism, musicianship, and combined bilingualism and musicianship improve executive control, we tested 219 young adults belonging to one of four groups (bilinguals, musicians, bilingual musicians, and controls) on a nonlinguistic, nonmusical, visual-spatial Simon task that measured the ability to ignore an irrelevant and misinformative cue. Results revealed that bilinguals, musicians, and bilingual musicians showed an enhanced ability to ignore a distracting cue relative to controls, with similar levels of superior performance among bilinguals, musicians, and bilingual musicians. These results indicate that bilingualism and musicianship improve executive control and have implications for educational and rehabilitation programs that use music and foreign language instruction to boost cognitive performance.

Visual word representation in the brain

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Ramakrishnan, K.; Groen, I.; Scholte, S.; Smeulders, A.; Ghebreab, S.

2013-01-01

The human visual system is thought to use features of intermediate complexity for scene representation. How the brain computationally represents intermediate features is unclear, however. To study this, we tested the Bag of Words (BoW) model in computer vision against human brain activity. This

The automatic visual simulation of words: A memory reactivated mask slows down conceptual access.

Science.gov (United States)

Rey, Amandine E; Riou, Benoit; Vallet, Guillaume T; Versace, Rémy

2017-03-01

How do we represent the meaning of words? The present study assesses whether access to conceptual knowledge requires the reenactment of the sensory components of a concept. The reenactment-that is, simulation-was tested in a word categorisation task using an innovative masking paradigm. We hypothesised that a meaningless reactivated visual mask should interfere with the simulation of the visual dimension of concrete words. This assumption was tested in a paradigm in which participants were not aware of the link between the visual mask and the words to be processed. In the first phase, participants created a tone-visual mask or tone-control stimulus association. In the test phase, they categorised words that were presented with 1 of the tones. Results showed that words were processed more slowly when they were presented with the reactivated mask. This interference effect was only correlated with and explained by the value of the visual perceptual strength of the words (i.e., our experience with the visual dimensions associated with concepts) and not with other characteristics. We interpret these findings in terms of word access, which may involve the simulation of sensory features associated with the concept, even if participants were not explicitly required to access visual properties. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

An ERP investigation of visual word recognition in syllabary scripts.

Science.gov (United States)

Okano, Kana; Grainger, Jonathan; Holcomb, Phillip J

2013-06-01

The bimodal interactive-activation model has been successfully applied to understanding the neurocognitive processes involved in reading words in alphabetic scripts, as reflected in the modulation of ERP components in masked repetition priming. In order to test the generalizability of this approach, in the present study we examined word recognition in a different writing system, the Japanese syllabary scripts hiragana and katakana. Native Japanese participants were presented with repeated or unrelated pairs of Japanese words in which the prime and target words were both in the same script (within-script priming, Exp. 1) or were in the opposite script (cross-script priming, Exp. 2). As in previous studies with alphabetic scripts, in both experiments the N250 (sublexical processing) and N400 (lexical-semantic processing) components were modulated by priming, although the time course was somewhat delayed. The earlier N/P150 effect (visual feature processing) was present only in "Experiment 1: Within-script priming", in which the prime and target words shared visual features. Overall, the results provide support for the hypothesis that visual word recognition involves a generalizable set of neurocognitive processes that operate in similar manners across different writing systems and languages, as well as pointing to the viability of the bimodal interactive-activation framework for modeling such processes.

Breaking down the Bilingual Cost in Speech Production

Science.gov (United States)

Sadat, Jasmin; Martin, Clara D.; Magnuson, James S.; Alario, François-Xavier; Costa, Albert

2016-01-01

Bilinguals have been shown to perform worse than monolinguals in a variety of verbal tasks. This study investigated this bilingual verbal cost in a large-scale picture-naming study conducted in Spanish. We explored how individual characteristics of the participants and the linguistic properties of the words being spoken influence this performance…

Escaping Capture: Bilingualism Modulates Distraction from Working Memory

Science.gov (United States)

Hernandez, Mireia; Costa, Albert; Humphreys, Glyn W.

2012-01-01

We ask whether bilingualism aids cognitive control over the inadvertent guidance of visual attention from working memory and from bottom-up cueing. We compare highly-proficient Catalan-Spanish bilinguals with Spanish monolinguals in three visual search conditions. In the working memory (WM) condition, attention was driven in a top-down fashion by…

Sensory experience ratings (SERs) for 1,659 French words: Relationships with other psycholinguistic variables and visual word recognition.

Science.gov (United States)

Bonin, Patrick; Méot, Alain; Ferrand, Ludovic; Bugaïska, Aurélia

2015-09-01

We collected sensory experience ratings (SERs) for 1,659 French words in adults. Sensory experience for words is a recently introduced variable that corresponds to the degree to which words elicit sensory and perceptual experiences (Juhasz & Yap Behavior Research Methods, 45, 160-168, 2013; Juhasz, Yap, Dicke, Taylor, & Gullick Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 64, 1683-1691, 2011). The relationships of the sensory experience norms with other psycholinguistic variables (e.g., imageability and age of acquisition) were analyzed. We also investigated the degree to which SER predicted performance in visual word recognition tasks (lexical decision, word naming, and progressive demasking). The analyses indicated that SER reliably predicted response times in lexical decision, but not in word naming or progressive demasking. The findings are discussed in relation to the status of SER, the role of semantic code activation in visual word recognition, and the embodied view of cognition.

Predictors of Processing-Based Task Performance in Bilingual and Monolingual Children

Science.gov (United States)

Buac, Milijana; Gross, Megan; Kaushanskaya, Margarita

2016-01-01

In the present study we examined performance of bilingual Spanish-English-speaking and monolingual English-speaking school-age children on a range of processing-based measures within the framework of Baddeley’s working memory model. The processing-based measures included measures of short-term memory, measures of working memory, and a novel word-learning task. Results revealed that monolinguals outperformed bilinguals on the short-term memory tasks but not the working memory and novel word-learning tasks. Further, children’s vocabulary skills and socioeconomic status (SES) were more predictive of processing-based task performance in the bilingual group than the monolingual group. Together, these findings indicate that processing-based tasks that engage verbal working memory rather than short-term memory may be better-suited for diagnostic purposes with bilingual children. However, even verbal working memory measures are sensitive to bilingual children’s language-specific knowledge and demographic characteristics, and therefore may have limited clinical utility. PMID:27179914

Cognate costs in bilingual speech production: Evidence from language switching

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mirjam Broersma

2016-09-01

Full Text Available This study investigates cross-language lexical competition in the bilingual mental lexicon. It provides evidence for the occurrence of inhibition as well as the commonly reported facilitation during the production of cognates (words with similar phonological form and meaning in two languages in a mixed picture naming task by highly proficient Welsh-English bilinguals. Previous studies have typically found cognate facilitation. It has previously been proposed (with respect to non-cognates that cross-language inhibition is limited to low-proficient bilinguals; therefore, we tested highly proficient, early bilinguals. In a mixed naming experiment (i.e., picture naming with language switching, 48 highly proficient, early Welsh-English bilinguals named pictures in Welsh and English, including cognate and non-cognate targets. Participants were English-dominant, Welsh-dominant, or had equal language dominance. The results showed evidence for cognate inhibition in to ways. First, both facilitation and inhibition were found on the cognate trials themselves, compared to non-cognate controls, modulated by the participants’ language dominance. The English-dominant group showed cognate inhibition when naming in Welsh (and no difference between cognates and controls when naming in English, and the Welsh-dominant and equal dominance groups generally showed cognate facilitation. Second, cognate inhibition was found as a behavioral adaptation effect, with slower naming for non-cognate filler words in trials after cognates than after non-cognate controls. This effect was consistent across all language dominance groups and both target languages, suggesting that cognate production involved cognitive control even if this was not measurable in the cognate trials themselves. Finally, the results replicated patterns of symmetrical switch costs, as commonly reported for balanced bilinguals. We propose that cognate processing might be affected by two different

Core vocabulary in the narratives of bilingual children with and without language impairment.

Science.gov (United States)

Shivabasappa, Prarthana; Peña, Elizabeth D; Bedore, Lisa M

2017-09-22

Children with primary language impairment (PLI) demonstrate deficits in morphosyntax and vocabulary. We studied how these deficits may manifest in the core vocabulary use of bilingual children with PLI. Thirty bilingual children with and without PLI who were matched pairwise (experimental group) narrated two Spanish and two English stories in kindergarten and first grade. Core vocabulary was derived from the 30 most frequently used words in the stories of 65 and 37 typically developing (TD) first graders (normative group) for Spanish and English, respectively. The number of words each child in the experimental group produced out of the 30 identified core vocabulary words and frequency of each of the core words produced each year were analysed. Children with PLI produced fewer core vocabulary words compared to their TD peers after controlling for total words produced. This difference was more pronounced in first grade. They produced core vocabulary words less frequently in kindergarten than their TD peers. Both groups produced core vocabulary words more frequently in English than Spanish. Bilingual children with PLI demonstrate a less productive core vocabulary use compared to their TD peers in both their languages illustrating the nature of their grammatical and lexical-semantic deficits.

Vocabulary Instruction and Mexican-American Bilingual Students: How Two High School Teachers Integrate Multiple Strategies to Build Word Consciousness in English Language Arts Classrooms

Science.gov (United States)

Ajayi, Lasisi

2015-01-01

Despite the significance of vocabulary knowledge to student learning, limited studies have examined English language arts (ELA) teachers' skills and practices that may be effective for building word consciousness in high school Mexican-American bilingual students. The research objective of the present study is to examine how two high school ELA…

Monolingual and Bilingual Learners' Dictionaries*

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rufus H. Gouws

2011-10-01

Full Text Available

Abstract: When deciding on the best learners' dictionary for a specific user and a specificsituation of usage one often has to make a choice between a monolingual and a bilingual learners'dictionary. This article discusses some aspects of the user-driven approach so prevalent in moderndaylexicographic thought, focuses broadly on dictionary typology and takes a closer look at monolingualand bilingual learners' dictionaries. Some problems users experience when learning a newlanguage, e.g. language distortion and problems related to the phenomenon of false friends, especiallyin closely related languages, are mentioned. It is indicated that a typological hybrid dictionarycould assist certain users. The importance of an unambiguous identification of the relevantlexicographic functions is emphasised and the notions of function condensation and function mergingare introduced. It is shown that the typological choice should be determined by a function-basedapproach to dictionary usage.

Keywords: BILINGUAL DICTIONARY, FALSE FRIENDS, FUNCTION CONDENSATION,FUNCTION MERGING, GENUINE PURPOSE, LEARNERS' DICTIONARY, LEXICOGRAPHICFUNCTIONS, MONOLINGUAL DICTIONARY, TEXT PRODUCTION, TEXT RECEPTION,TYPOLOGICAL HYBRID, TYPOLOGY.

Opsomming: Eentalige en tweetalige aanleerderwoordeboeke. Wanneerbesluit moet word oor die beste aanleerderwoordeboek vir 'n spesifieke gebruiker en 'n spesifiekegebruiksituasie moet daar dikwels gekies word tussen 'n eentalige en 'n tweetalige aanleerderwoordeboek.Hierdie artikel bespreek bepaalde aspekte van die gebruikersgedrewe benaderingwat kenmerkend is van die moderne leksikografiese denke, fokus breedweg op woordeboektipologieen gee in meer besonderhede aandag aan sekere aspekte van eentalige en tweetalige aanleerderwoordeboeke.Bepaalde probleme wat gebruikers ervaar by die aanleer van 'n vreemde taal,bv. taalversteuring en probleme verwant aan die verskynsel van valse vriende, veral in nou verwantetale, kry aandag

Neural correlates of visualizations of concrete and abstract words in preschool children: A developmental embodied approach

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Amedeo eD'angiulli

2015-06-01

Full Text Available The neural correlates of visualization underlying word comprehension were examined in preschool children. On each trial, a concrete or abstract word was delivered binaurally (part 1: post-auditory visualization, followed by a four-picture array (a target plus three distractors (part 2: matching visualization. Children were to select the picture matching the word they heard in part 1. Event-Related Potentials (ERPs locked to each stimulus presentation and task interval were averaged over sets of trials of increasing word abstractness. ERP time-course during both parts of the task showed that early activity (i.e. < 300 ms was predominant in response to concrete words, while activity in response to abstract words became evident only at intermediate (i.e. 300-699 ms and late (i.e. 700-1000 ms ERP intervals. Specifically, ERP topography showed that while early activity during post-auditory visualization was linked to left temporo-parietal areas for concrete words, early activity during matching visualization occurred mostly in occipito-parietal areas for concrete words, but more anteriorly in centro-parietal areas for abstract words. In intermediate ERPs, post-auditory visualization coincided with parieto-occipital and parieto-frontal activity in response to both concrete and abstract words, while in matching visualization a parieto-central activity was common to both types of words. In the late ERPs for both types of words, the post-auditory visualization involved right-hemispheric activity following a post-anterior pathway sequence: occipital, parietal and temporal areas; conversely, matching visualization involved left-hemispheric activity following an ant-posterior pathway sequence: frontal, temporal, parietal and occipital areas. These results suggest that, similarly for concrete and abstract words, meaning in young children depends on variably complex visualization processes integrating visuo-auditory experiences and supramodal embodying

DEEP LEARNING MODEL FOR BILINGUAL SENTIMENT CLASSIFICATION OF SHORT TEXTS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Y. B. Abdullin

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Sentiment analysis of short texts such as Twitter messages and comments in news portals is challenging due to the lack of contextual information. We propose a deep neural network model that uses bilingual word embeddings to effectively solve sentiment classification problem for a given pair of languages. We apply our approach to two corpora of two different language pairs: English-Russian and Russian-Kazakh. We show how to train a classifier in one language and predict in another. Our approach achieves 73% accuracy for English and 74% accuracy for Russian. For Kazakh sentiment analysis, we propose a baseline method, that achieves 60% accuracy; and a method to learn bilingual embeddings from a large unlabeled corpus using a bilingual word pairs.

Teaching the Meaning of Words to Children with Visual Impairments

Science.gov (United States)

Vervloed, Mathijs P. J.; Loijens, Nancy E. A.; Waller, Sarah E.

2014-01-01

In the report presented here, the authors describe a pilot intervention study that was intended to teach children with visual impairments the meaning of far-away words, and that used their mothers as mediators. The aim was to teach both labels and deep word knowledge, which is the comprehension of the full meaning of words, illustrated through…

Selective visual attention to emotional words: Early parallel frontal and visual activations followed by interactive effects in visual cortex.

Science.gov (United States)

Schindler, Sebastian; Kissler, Johanna

2016-10-01

Human brains spontaneously differentiate between various emotional and neutral stimuli, including written words whose emotional quality is symbolic. In the electroencephalogram (EEG), emotional-neutral processing differences are typically reflected in the early posterior negativity (EPN, 200-300 ms) and the late positive potential (LPP, 400-700 ms). These components are also enlarged by task-driven visual attention, supporting the assumption that emotional content naturally drives attention. Still, the spatio-temporal dynamics of interactions between emotional stimulus content and task-driven attention remain to be specified. Here, we examine this issue in visual word processing. Participants attended to negative, neutral, or positive nouns while high-density EEG was recorded. Emotional content and top-down attention both amplified the EPN component in parallel. On the LPP, by contrast, emotion and attention interacted: Explicit attention to emotional words led to a substantially larger amplitude increase than did explicit attention to neutral words. Source analysis revealed early parallel effects of emotion and attention in bilateral visual cortex and a later interaction of both in right visual cortex. Distinct effects of attention were found in inferior, middle and superior frontal, paracentral, and parietal areas, as well as in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). Results specify separate and shared mechanisms of emotion and attention at distinct processing stages. Hum Brain Mapp 37:3575-3587, 2016. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

[Representation of letter position in visual word recognition process].

Science.gov (United States)

Makioka, S

1994-08-01

Two experiments investigated the representation of letter position in visual word recognition process. In Experiment 1, subjects (12 undergraduates and graduates) were asked to detect a target word in a briefly-presented probe. Probes consisted of two kanji words. The latters which formed targets (critical letters) were always contained in probes. (e.g. target: [symbol: see text] probe: [symbol: see text]) High false alarm rate was observed when critical letters occupied the same within-word relative position (left or right within the word) in the probe words as in the target word. In Experiment 2 (subject were ten undergraduates and graduates), spaces adjacent to probe words were replaced by randomly chosen hiragana letters (e.g. [symbol: see text]), because spaces are not used to separate words in regular Japanese sentences. In addition to the effect of within-word relative position as in Experiment 1, the effect of between-word relative position (left or right across the probe words) was observed. These results suggest that information about within-word relative position of a letter is used in word recognition process. The effect of within-word relative position was explained by a connectionist model of word recognition.

The impact of inverted text on visual word processing: An fMRI study.

Science.gov (United States)

Sussman, Bethany L; Reddigari, Samir; Newman, Sharlene D

2018-06-01

Visual word recognition has been studied for decades. One question that has received limited attention is how different text presentation orientations disrupt word recognition. By examining how word recognition processes may be disrupted by different text orientations it is hoped that new insights can be gained concerning the process. Here, we examined the impact of rotating and inverting text on the neural network responsible for visual word recognition focusing primarily on a region of the occipto-temporal cortex referred to as the visual word form area (VWFA). A lexical decision task was employed in which words and pseudowords were presented in one of three orientations (upright, rotated or inverted). The results demonstrate that inversion caused the greatest disruption of visual word recognition processes. Both rotated and inverted text elicited increased activation in spatial attention regions within the right parietal cortex. However, inverted text recruited phonological and articulatory processing regions within the left inferior frontal and left inferior parietal cortices. Finally, the VWFA was found to not behave similarly to the fusiform face area in that unusual text orientations resulted in increased activation and not decreased activation. It is hypothesized here that the VWFA activation is modulated by feedback from linguistic processes. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Visual information constrains early and late stages of spoken-word recognition in sentence context.

Science.gov (United States)

Brunellière, Angèle; Sánchez-García, Carolina; Ikumi, Nara; Soto-Faraco, Salvador

2013-07-01

Audiovisual speech perception has been frequently studied considering phoneme, syllable and word processing levels. Here, we examined the constraints that visual speech information might exert during the recognition of words embedded in a natural sentence context. We recorded event-related potentials (ERPs) to words that could be either strongly or weakly predictable on the basis of the prior semantic sentential context and, whose initial phoneme varied in the degree of visual saliency from lip movements. When the sentences were presented audio-visually (Experiment 1), words weakly predicted from semantic context elicited a larger long-lasting N400, compared to strongly predictable words. This semantic effect interacted with the degree of visual saliency over a late part of the N400. When comparing audio-visual versus auditory alone presentation (Experiment 2), the typical amplitude-reduction effect over the auditory-evoked N100 response was observed in the audiovisual modality. Interestingly, a specific benefit of high- versus low-visual saliency constraints occurred over the early N100 response and at the late N400 time window, confirming the result of Experiment 1. Taken together, our results indicate that the saliency of visual speech can exert an influence over both auditory processing and word recognition at relatively late stages, and thus suggest strong interactivity between audio-visual integration and other (arguably higher) stages of information processing during natural speech comprehension. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Suprasegmental lexical stress cues in visual speech can guide spoken-word recognition

OpenAIRE

Jesse, A.; McQueen, J.

2014-01-01

Visual cues to the individual segments of speech and to sentence prosody guide speech recognition. The present study tested whether visual suprasegmental cues to the stress patterns of words can also constrain recognition. Dutch listeners use acoustic suprasegmental cues to lexical stress (changes in duration, amplitude, and pitch) in spoken-word recognition. We asked here whether they can also use visual suprasegmental cues. In two categorization experiments, Dutch participants saw a speaker...

Repetition and masked form priming within and between languages using word and nonword neighbors

OpenAIRE

Dijkstra, A.F.J.; Hilberink-Schulpen, B.J.H.; Heuven, W.J.B. van

2010-01-01

If access to the bilingual lexicon takes place in a language independent way, monolingual repetition and masked form, priming accounts should be directly applicable to bilinguals. We tested such an account (Grainger and Jacobs, 1999) and extended it to explain bilingual ejects from L2 to L1. Dutch English bilinguals made a lexical decision on a Dutch target word preceded by a briefly presented word or nonword prime from Dutch (L1; Exp. I) or English (L2; Exp. 2). The prime was an orthographic...

Music and words in the visual cortex: The impact of musical expertise.

Science.gov (United States)

Mongelli, Valeria; Dehaene, Stanislas; Vinckier, Fabien; Peretz, Isabelle; Bartolomeo, Paolo; Cohen, Laurent

2017-01-01

How does the human visual system accommodate expertise for two simultaneously acquired symbolic systems? We used fMRI to compare activations induced in the visual cortex by musical notation, written words and other classes of objects, in professional musicians and in musically naïve controls. First, irrespective of expertise, selective activations for music were posterior and lateral to activations for words in the left occipitotemporal cortex. This indicates that symbols characterized by different visual features engage distinct cortical areas. Second, musical expertise increased the volume of activations for music and led to an anterolateral displacement of word-related activations. In musicians, there was also a dramatic increase of the brain-scale networks connected to the music-selective visual areas. Those findings reveal that acquiring a double visual expertise involves an expansion of category-selective areas, the development of novel long-distance functional connectivity, and possibly some competition between categories for the colonization of cortical space. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Crossmodal Activation of Visual Object Regions for Auditorily Presented Concrete Words

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jasper J F van den Bosch

2011-10-01

Full Text Available Dual-coding theory (Paivio, 1986 postulates that the human mind represents objects not just with an analogous, or semantic code, but with a perceptual representation as well. Previous studies (eg, Fiebach & Friederici, 2004 indicated that the modality of this representation is not necessarily the one that triggers the representation. The human visual cortex contains several regions, such as the Lateral Occipital Complex (LOC, that respond specifically to object stimuli. To investigate whether these principally visual representations regions are also recruited for auditory stimuli, we presented subjects with spoken words with specific, concrete meanings (‘car’ as well as words with abstract meanings (‘hope’. Their brain activity was measured with functional magnetic resonance imaging. Whole-brain contrasts showed overlap between regions differentially activated by words for concrete objects compared to words for abstract concepts with visual regions activated by a contrast of object versus non-object visual stimuli. We functionally localized LOC for individual subjects and a preliminary analysis showed a trend for a concreteness effect in this region-of-interest on the group level. Appropriate further analysis might include connectivity and classification measures. These results can shed light on the role of crossmodal representations in cognition.

Syntactic mixing across generations in an environment of community-wide bilingualism

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sabine eStoll

2015-02-01

Full Text Available A quantitative analysis of a trans-generational, conversational corpus of Chintang (Tibeto-Burman speakers with community-wide bilingualism in Nepali (Indo-European reveals that children show more code-switching into Nepali than older speakers. This confirms earlier proposals in the literature that code-switching in bilingual children decreases when they gain proficiency in their dominant language, especially in vocabulary. Contradicting expectations from other studies, our corpus data also reveal that for adults, multi-word insertions of Nepali into Chintang are just as likely to undergo full syntactic integration as single-word insertions. Speakers of younger generations show less syntactic integration. We propose that this reflects a change between generations, from strongly asymmetrical, Chintang-dominated bilingualism in older generations to more balanced bilingualism where Chintang and Nepali operate as clearly separate systems in younger generations. This change is likely to have been triggered by the increase of Nepali presence over the past few decades.

Suprasegmental lexical stress cues in visual speech can guide spoken-word recognition.

Science.gov (United States)

Jesse, Alexandra; McQueen, James M

2014-01-01

Visual cues to the individual segments of speech and to sentence prosody guide speech recognition. The present study tested whether visual suprasegmental cues to the stress patterns of words can also constrain recognition. Dutch listeners use acoustic suprasegmental cues to lexical stress (changes in duration, amplitude, and pitch) in spoken-word recognition. We asked here whether they can also use visual suprasegmental cues. In two categorization experiments, Dutch participants saw a speaker say fragments of word pairs that were segmentally identical but differed in their stress realization (e.g., 'ca-vi from cavia "guinea pig" vs. 'ka-vi from kaviaar "caviar"). Participants were able to distinguish between these pairs from seeing a speaker alone. Only the presence of primary stress in the fragment, not its absence, was informative. Participants were able to distinguish visually primary from secondary stress on first syllables, but only when the fragment-bearing target word carried phrase-level emphasis. Furthermore, participants distinguished fragments with primary stress on their second syllable from those with secondary stress on their first syllable (e.g., pro-'jec from projector "projector" vs. 'pro-jec from projectiel "projectile"), independently of phrase-level emphasis. Seeing a speaker thus contributes to spoken-word recognition by providing suprasegmental information about the presence of primary lexical stress.

EFL Students' "Yahoo!" Online Bilingual Dictionary Use Behavior

Science.gov (United States)

Tseng, Fan-ping

2009-01-01

This study examined 38 EFL senior high school students' "Yahoo!" online dictionary look-up behavior. In a language laboratory, the participants read an article on a reading sheet, underlined any words they did not know, looked up their unknown words in "Yahoo!" online bilingual dictionary, and wrote down the definitions of…

Bilingual Children's Lexical Strategies in a Narrative Task

Science.gov (United States)

Barbosa, Poliana; Nicoladis, Elena; Keith, Margaux

2017-01-01

We investigated how bilinguals choose words in a narrative task, contrasting the possibilities of a developmental delay vs. compensatory strategies. To characterize a developmental delay, we compared younger (three to five years) and older (seven to ten years) children's lexicalization of target words (Study 1). The younger children told shorter…

Reading laterally: the cerebral hemispheric use of spatial frequencies in visual word recognition.

Science.gov (United States)

Tadros, Karine; Dupuis-Roy, Nicolas; Fiset, Daniel; Arguin, Martin; Gosselin, Frédéric

2013-01-04

It is generally accepted that the left hemisphere (LH) is more capable for reading than the right hemisphere (RH). Left hemifield presentations (initially processed by the RH) lead to a globally higher error rate, slower word identification, and a significantly stronger word length effect (i.e., slower reaction times for longer words). Because the visuo-perceptual mechanisms of the brain for word recognition are primarily localized in the LH (Cohen et al., 2003), it is possible that this part of the brain possesses better spatial frequency (SF) tuning for processing the visual properties of words than the RH. The main objective of this study is to determine the SF tuning functions of the LH and RH for word recognition. Each word image was randomly sampled in the SF domain using the SF bubbles method (Willenbockel et al., 2010) and was presented laterally to the left or right visual hemifield. As expected, the LH requires less visual information than the RH to reach the same level of performance, illustrating the well-known LH advantage for word recognition. Globally, the SF tuning of both hemispheres is similar. However, these seemingly identical tuning functions hide important differences. Most importantly, we argue that the RH requires higher SFs to identify longer words because of crowding.

Effects of Marathi-Hindi Bilingualism on Neuropsychological Performance

Science.gov (United States)

Kamat, Rujvi; Ghate, Manisha; Gollan, Tamar H.; Meyer, Rachel; Vaida, Florin; Heaton, Robert K.; Letendre, Scott; Franklin, Donald; Alexander, Terry; Grant, Igor; Mehendale, Sanjay; Marcotte, Thomas D.

2013-01-01

The present study aimed to examine if bilingualism affects executive functions and verbal fluency in Marathi and Hindi, two major languages in India, with a considerable cognate (e.g., activity is actividad in Spanish) overlap. A total of 174 native Marathi speakers from Pune, India, with varying levels of Hindi proficiency were administered tests of executive functioning and verbal performance in Marathi. A bilingualism index was generated using self-reported Hindi and Marathi proficiency. After controlling for demographic variables, the association between bilingualism and cognitive performance was examined. Degree of bilingualism predicted better performance on the switching (Color Trails-2) and inhibition (Stroop Color-Word) components of executive functioning; but not for the abstraction component (Halstead Category Test). In the verbal domain, bilingualism was more closely associated with noun generation (where the languages share many cognates) than verb generation (which are more disparate across these languages), as predicted. However, contrary to our hypothesis that the bilingualism “disadvantage” would be attenuated on noun generation, bilingualism was associated with an advantage on these measures. These findings suggest distinct patterns of bilingualism effects on cognition for this previously unexamined language pair, and that the rate of cognates may modulate the association between bilingualism and verbal performance on neuropsychological tests. PMID:22206622

Effects of Marathi-Hindi bilingualism on neuropsychological performance.

Science.gov (United States)

Kamat, Rujvi; Ghate, Manisha; Gollan, Tamar H; Meyer, Rachel; Vaida, Florin; Heaton, Robert K; Letendre, Scott; Franklin, Donald; Alexander, Terry; Grant, Igor; Mehendale, Sanjay; Marcotte, Thomas D

2012-03-01

The present study aimed to examine if bilingualism affects executive functions and verbal fluency in Marathi and Hindi, two major languages in India, with a considerable cognate (e.g., activity is actividad in Spanish) overlap. A total of 174 native Marathi speakers from Pune, India, with varying levels of Hindi proficiency were administered tests of executive functioning and verbal performance in Marathi. A bilingualism index was generated using self-reported Hindi and Marathi proficiency. After controlling for demographic variables, the association between bilingualism and cognitive performance was examined. Degree of bilingualism predicted better performance on the switching (Color Trails-2) and inhibition (Stroop Color-Word) components of executive functioning; but not for the abstraction component (Halstead Category Test). In the verbal domain, bilingualism was more closely associated with noun generation (where the languages share many cognates) than verb generation (which are more disparate across these languages), as predicted. However, contrary to our hypothesis that the bilingualism "disadvantage" would be attenuated on noun generation, bilingualism was associated with an advantage on these measures. These findings suggest distinct patterns of bilingualism effects on cognition for this previously unexamined language pair, and that the rate of cognates may modulate the association between bilingualism and verbal performance on neuropsychological tests.

Modulation of brain activity by multiple lexical and word form variables in visual word recognition: A parametric fMRI study.

Science.gov (United States)

Hauk, Olaf; Davis, Matthew H; Pulvermüller, Friedemann

2008-09-01

Psycholinguistic research has documented a range of variables that influence visual word recognition performance. Many of these variables are highly intercorrelated. Most previous studies have used factorial designs, which do not exploit the full range of values available for continuous variables, and are prone to skewed stimulus selection as well as to effects of the baseline (e.g. when contrasting words with pseudowords). In our study, we used a parametric approach to study the effects of several psycholinguistic variables on brain activation. We focussed on the variable word frequency, which has been used in numerous previous behavioural, electrophysiological and neuroimaging studies, in order to investigate the neuronal network underlying visual word processing. Furthermore, we investigated the variable orthographic typicality as well as a combined variable for word length and orthographic neighbourhood size (N), for which neuroimaging results are still either scarce or inconsistent. Data were analysed using multiple linear regression analysis of event-related fMRI data acquired from 21 subjects in a silent reading paradigm. The frequency variable correlated negatively with activation in left fusiform gyrus, bilateral inferior frontal gyri and bilateral insulae, indicating that word frequency can affect multiple aspects of word processing. N correlated positively with brain activity in left and right middle temporal gyri as well as right inferior frontal gyrus. Thus, our analysis revealed multiple distinct brain areas involved in visual word processing within one data set.

Evaluating the Performance of a Visually Guided Hearing Aid Using a Dynamic Auditory-Visual Word Congruence Task.

Science.gov (United States)

Roverud, Elin; Best, Virginia; Mason, Christine R; Streeter, Timothy; Kidd, Gerald

2017-12-15

The "visually guided hearing aid" (VGHA), consisting of a beamforming microphone array steered by eye gaze, is an experimental device being tested for effectiveness in laboratory settings. Previous studies have found that beamforming without visual steering can provide significant benefits (relative to natural binaural listening) for speech identification in spatialized speech or noise maskers when sound sources are fixed in location. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the performance of the VGHA in listening conditions in which target speech could switch locations unpredictably, requiring visual steering of the beamforming. To address this aim, the present study tested an experimental simulation of the VGHA in a newly designed dynamic auditory-visual word congruence task. Ten young normal-hearing (NH) and 11 young hearing-impaired (HI) adults participated. On each trial, three simultaneous spoken words were presented from three source positions (-30, 0, and 30 azimuth). An auditory-visual word congruence task was used in which participants indicated whether there was a match between the word printed on a screen at a location corresponding to the target source and the spoken target word presented acoustically from that location. Performance was compared for a natural binaural condition (stimuli presented using impulse responses measured on KEMAR), a simulated VGHA condition (BEAM), and a hybrid condition that combined lowpass-filtered KEMAR and highpass-filtered BEAM information (BEAMAR). In some blocks, the target remained fixed at one location across trials, and in other blocks, the target could transition in location between one trial and the next with a fixed but low probability. Large individual variability in performance was observed. There were significant benefits for the hybrid BEAMAR condition relative to the KEMAR condition on average for both NH and HI groups when the targets were fixed. Although not apparent in the averaged data, some

Foundations of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism. Fifth Edition. Bilingual Education & Bilingualism

Science.gov (United States)

Baker, Colin

2011-01-01

The fifth edition of this bestselling book provides a comprehensive introduction to bilingualism and bilingual education. In a compact and clear style, its 19 chapters cover all the crucial issues in bilingualism at individual, group and national levels. These include: (1) defining who is bilingual and multilingual; (2) testing language abilities…

Differential Language Functioning of Monolinguals and Bilinguals on Positive-Negative Emotional Expression

Science.gov (United States)

Kheirzadeh, Shiela; Hajiabed, Mohammadreza

2016-01-01

The present interdisciplinary research investigates the differential emotional expression between Persian monolinguals and Persian-English bilinguals. In other words, the article was an attempt to answer the questions whether bilinguals and monolinguals differ in the expression of positive and negative emotions elicited through sad and happy…

The what, when, where, and how of visual word recognition.

Science.gov (United States)

Carreiras, Manuel; Armstrong, Blair C; Perea, Manuel; Frost, Ram

2014-02-01

A long-standing debate in reading research is whether printed words are perceived in a feedforward manner on the basis of orthographic information, with other representations such as semantics and phonology activated subsequently, or whether the system is fully interactive and feedback from these representations shapes early visual word recognition. We review recent evidence from behavioral, functional magnetic resonance imaging, electroencephalography, magnetoencephalography, and biologically plausible connectionist modeling approaches, focusing on how each approach provides insight into the temporal flow of information in the lexical system. We conclude that, consistent with interactive accounts, higher-order linguistic representations modulate early orthographic processing. We also discuss how biologically plausible interactive frameworks and coordinated empirical and computational work can advance theories of visual word recognition and other domains (e.g., object recognition). Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Cross-Linguistic Interactions Influence Reading Development in Bilinguals: A Comparison between Early Balanced French-Basque and Spanish-Basque Bilingual Children

Science.gov (United States)

Lallier, Marie; Acha, Joana; Carreiras, Manuel

2016-01-01

This study investigates whether orthographic consistency and transparency of languages have an impact on the development of reading strategies and reading sub-skills (i.e. phonemic awareness and visual attention span) in bilingual children. We evaluated 21 French (opaque)-Basque (transparent) bilingual children and 21 Spanish (transparent)-Basque…

Bilingual Phonological Awareness: Multilevel Construct Validation among Spanish-Speaking Kindergarteners in Transitional Bilingual Education Classrooms

Science.gov (United States)

Branum-Martin, Lee; Mehta, Paras D.; Fletcher, Jack M.; Carlson, Coleen D.; Ortiz, Alba; Carlo, Maria; Francis, David J.

2006-01-01

The construct validity of English and Spanish phonological awareness (PA) tasks was examined with a sample of 812 kindergarten children from 71 transitional bilingual education program classrooms located in 3 different types of geographic regions in California and Texas. Tasks of PA, including blending nonwords, segmenting words, and phoneme…

In Few Words: Linguistic Gap but Adequate Narrative Structure in Preschool Bilingual Children

Science.gov (United States)

Bonifacci, Paola; Barbieri, Margherita; Tomassini, Marta; Roch, Maja

2018-01-01

The aim of this study was to compare linguistic and narrative skills of monolingual and bilingual preschoolers and to estimate linguistic predictors of the macro-structural level of narratives. A battery of linguistic measures in Italian was administered to sixty-four Monolinguals and sixty-four Early Bilinguals; it included Vocabulary,…

INTERCULTURAL FEATURES AND THE THEME OF TRAVELLING IN BILINGUAL MATHEMATICS LESSONS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Zuzana Naštická

2016-08-01

Full Text Available The present qualitative research is focused on bilingual mathematics education. The research presents findings of a case study of one bilingual Slovak and English mathematics 40-minute lesson within an after school elective bilingual mathematics course running weekly since October, 2015. The lesson took place in March, 2016, and was attended by nine learners aged 12-13, eight boys and one girl. The learners are cases of successive school additive bilingual education. The elective course as a whole is a case of immerse bilingual educational programme. In terms of sociolinguistic settings, the course lessons are cases of bilingual education with external second language. The researcher designed and realized the course lessons in terms of CLIL approach, i.e. Content and Language Integrated Learning. The main aim of the case study was to examine if bilingual mathematics instruction does or does not prevent learners from solving math word problems. Secondly, the analysis of transcription of the lesson audio-record served for identification of intercultural features which might hinder the learning process. The analysis of the transcribed audio-record indicates that the bilingual context did not prevent students from solving math word problems, although each of the students worked at their individual rate. On the other hand, some students were confused by the comma as a thousands-separator in multi-digit numbers, and this actually hindered their learning and problem solving process. This fact has been identified as an intercultural difference which had to be explicitly explained to the students. In order to lessen the possible negative influences of bilingual context on mathematics education, teachers need to predict students’ responses to various intercultural differences which students are unfamiliar with.

Effects of primary and secondary morphological family size in monolingual and bilingual word processing

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Mulder, K.; Dijkstra, A.F.J.; Schreuder, R.; Baayen, Harald

2014-01-01

This study investigated primary and secondary morphological family size effects in monolingual and bilingual processing, combining experimentation with computational modeling. Family size effects were investigated in an English lexical decision task for Dutch-English bilinguals and English

Hierarchical levels of representation in language prediction: The influence of first language acquisition in highly proficient bilinguals.

Science.gov (United States)

Molinaro, Nicola; Giannelli, Francesco; Caffarra, Sendy; Martin, Clara

2017-07-01

Language comprehension is largely supported by predictive mechanisms that account for the ease and speed with which communication unfolds. Both native and proficient non-native speakers can efficiently handle contextual cues to generate reliable linguistic expectations. However, the link between the variability of the linguistic background of the speaker and the hierarchical format of the representations predicted is still not clear. We here investigate whether native language exposure to typologically highly diverse languages (Spanish and Basque) affects the way early balanced bilingual speakers carry out language predictions. During Spanish sentence comprehension, participants developed predictions of words the form of which (noun ending) could be either diagnostic of grammatical gender values (transparent) or totally ambiguous (opaque). We measured electrophysiological prediction effects time-locked both to the target word and to its determiner, with the former being expected or unexpected. Event-related (N200-N400) and oscillatory activity in the low beta-band (15-17Hz) frequency channel showed that both Spanish and Basque natives optimally carry out lexical predictions independently of word transparency. Crucially, in contrast to Spanish natives, Basque natives displayed visual word form predictions for transparent words, in consistency with the relevance that noun endings (post-nominal suffixes) play in their native language. We conclude that early language exposure largely shapes prediction mechanisms, so that bilinguals reading in their second language rely on the distributional regularities that are highly relevant in their first language. More importantly, we show that individual linguistic experience hierarchically modulates the format of the predicted representation. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Novel word retention in sequential bilingual children.

Science.gov (United States)

Kan, Pui Fong

2014-03-01

Children's ability to learn and retain new words is fundamental to their vocabulary development. This study examined word retention in children learning a home language (L1) from birth and a second language (L2) in preschool settings. Participants were presented with sixteen novel words in L1 and in L2 and were tested for retention after either a 2-month or a 4-month delay. Results showed that children retained more words in L1 than in L2 for both of the retention interval conditions. In addition, children's word retention was associated with their existing language knowledge and their fast-mapping performance within and across language. The patterns of association, however, were different between L1 and L2. These findings suggest that children's word retention might be related to the interactions of various components that are operating within a dynamic system.

Training by visual identification and writing leads to different visual word expertise N170 effects in preliterate Chinese children

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Pei Zhao

2015-10-01

Full Text Available The N170 component of EEG evoked by visual words is an index of perceptual expertise for the visual word across different writing systems. In the present study, we investigated whether these N170 markers for Chinese, a very complex script, could emerge quickly after short-term learning (∼100 min in young Chinese children, and whether early writing experience can enhance the acquisition of these neural markers for expertise. Two groups of preschool children received visual identification and free writing training respectively. Short-term character training resulted in selective enhancement of the N170 to characters, consistent with normal expert processing. Visual identification training resulted in increased N170 amplitude to characters in the right hemisphere, and N170 amplitude differences between characters and faces were decreased; whereas the amplitude difference between characters and tools increased. Writing training led to the disappearance of an initial amplitude difference between characters and faces in the right hemisphere. These results show that N170 markers for visual expertise emerge rapidly in young children after word learning, independent of the type of script young children learn; and visual identification and writing produce different effects.

Artful terms: A study on aesthetic word usage for visual art versus film and music

Science.gov (United States)

Augustin, M Dorothee; Carbon, Claus-Christian; Wagemans, Johan

2012-01-01

Despite the importance of the arts in human life, psychologists still know relatively little about what characterises their experience for the recipient. The current research approaches this problem by studying people's word usage in aesthetics, with a focus on three important art forms: visual art, film, and music. The starting point was a list of 77 words known to be useful to describe aesthetic impressions of visual art (Augustin et al 2012, Acta Psychologica 139 187–201). Focusing on ratings of likelihood of use, we examined to what extent word usage in aesthetic descriptions of visual art can be generalised to film and music. The results support the claim of an interplay of generality and specificity in aesthetic word usage. Terms with equal likelihood of use for all art forms included beautiful, wonderful, and terms denoting originality. Importantly, emotion-related words received higher ratings for film and music than for visual art. To our knowledge this is direct evidence that aesthetic experiences of visual art may be less affectively loaded than, for example, experiences of music. The results render important information about aesthetic word usage in the realm of the arts and may serve as a starting point to develop tailored measurement instruments for different art forms. PMID:23145287

Artful terms: A study on aesthetic word usage for visual art versus film and music.

Science.gov (United States)

Augustin, M Dorothee; Carbon, Claus-Christian; Wagemans, Johan

2012-01-01

Despite the importance of the arts in human life, psychologists still know relatively little about what characterises their experience for the recipient. The current research approaches this problem by studying people's word usage in aesthetics, with a focus on three important art forms: visual art, film, and music. The starting point was a list of 77 words known to be useful to describe aesthetic impressions of visual art (Augustin et al 2012, Acta Psychologica139 187-201). Focusing on ratings of likelihood of use, we examined to what extent word usage in aesthetic descriptions of visual art can be generalised to film and music. The results support the claim of an interplay of generality and specificity in aesthetic word usage. Terms with equal likelihood of use for all art forms included beautiful, wonderful, and terms denoting originality. Importantly, emotion-related words received higher ratings for film and music than for visual art. To our knowledge this is direct evidence that aesthetic experiences of visual art may be less affectively loaded than, for example, experiences of music. The results render important information about aesthetic word usage in the realm of the arts and may serve as a starting point to develop tailored measurement instruments for different art forms.

Artful Terms: A Study on Aesthetic Word Usage for Visual Art versus Film and Music

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

M Dorothee Augustin

2012-06-01

Full Text Available Despite the importance of the arts in human life, psychologists still know relatively little about what characterises their experience for the recipient. The current research approaches this problem by studying people's word usage in aesthetics, with a focus on three important art forms: visual art, film, and music. The starting point was a list of 77 words known to be useful to describe aesthetic impressions of visual art (Augustin et al 2012, Acta Psychologica 139 187–201. Focusing on ratings of likelihood of use, we examined to what extent word usage in aesthetic descriptions of visual art can be generalised to film and music. The results support the claim of an interplay of generality and specificity in aesthetic word usage. Terms with equal likelihood of use for all art forms included beautiful, wonderful, and terms denoting originality. Importantly, emotion-related words received higher ratings for film and music than for visual art. To our knowledge this is direct evidence that aesthetic experiences of visual art may be less affectively loaded than, for example, experiences of music. The results render important information about aesthetic word usage in the realm of the arts and may serve as a starting point to develop tailored measurement instruments for different art forms.

Bilingual processing of ASL-English code-blends: The consequences of accessing two lexical representations simultaneously

OpenAIRE

Emmorey, Karen; Petrich, Jennifer; Gollan, Tamar H.

2012-01-01

Bilinguals who are fluent in American Sign Language (ASL) and English often produce code-blends - simultaneously articulating a sign and a word while conversing with other ASL-English bilinguals. To investigate the cognitive mechanisms underlying code-blend processing, we compared picture-naming times (Experiment 1) and semantic categorization times (Experiment 2) for code-blends versus ASL signs and English words produced alone. In production, code-blending did not slow lexical retrieval for...

A Switch Is Not a Switch: Syntactically-Driven Bilingual Language Control

Science.gov (United States)

Gollan, Tamar H.; Goldrick, Matthew

2018-01-01

The current study investigated the possibility that language switches could be relatively automatically triggered by context. "Single-word switches," in which bilinguals switched languages on a single word in midsentence and then immediately switched back, were contrasted with more complete "whole-language switches," in which…

Encoding in the visual word form area: an fMRI adaptation study of words versus handwriting.

Science.gov (United States)

Barton, Jason J S; Fox, Christopher J; Sekunova, Alla; Iaria, Giuseppe

2010-08-01

Written texts are not just words but complex multidimensional stimuli, including aspects such as case, font, and handwriting style, for example. Neuropsychological reports suggest that left fusiform lesions can impair the reading of text for word (lexical) content, being associated with alexia, whereas right-sided lesions may impair handwriting recognition. We used fMRI adaptation in 13 healthy participants to determine if repetition-suppression occurred for words but not handwriting in the left visual word form area (VWFA) and the reverse in the right fusiform gyrus. Contrary to these expectations, we found adaptation for handwriting but not for words in both the left VWFA and the right VWFA homologue. A trend to adaptation for words but not handwriting was seen only in the left middle temporal gyrus. An analysis of anterior and posterior subdivisions of the left VWFA also failed to show any adaptation for words. We conclude that the right and the left fusiform gyri show similar patterns of adaptation for handwriting, consistent with a predominantly perceptual contribution to text processing.

Two measures of bilingualism in the memories of immigrants and indigenous minorities: crossover memories and codeswitching.

Science.gov (United States)

Altman, Carmit

2015-04-01

Two indices of bilingualism, crossover memories and codeswitching (CS), were explored in five groups of immigrant (English-Hebrew, Georgian-Hebrew Russian-Hebrew) and indigenous bilinguals (Arabic-Hebrew, Hebrew-English). Participants recalled memories in response to cue words and then were asked to report the language of retrieval and provide a more elaborate narrative. More memories were 'same language' memories, recalled in the language of the experimental session/cue word, but as many as 48 % of the memories were crossovers, i.e. memories reported in a language other than the language of the session/cue word. In an effort to examine the ecological validity of the self-reported language of the memories, the frequency of CS in the elaborated narratives was investigated. For the entire sample, more CS was found for self-reported crossover memories in L2 sessions. In a further analysis of CS in crossover memories, collapsed across L1 and L2 sessions, significant differences emerged between immigrants and indigenous bilinguals. Differences between immigrant and non-immigrant bilinguals are discussed in terms of the role of activation in crossover memories.

Early Language and Reading Development of Bilingual Preschoolers From Low-Income Families.

Science.gov (United States)

Hammer, Carol Scheffner; Miccio, Adele W

2006-01-01

Learning to read is a complex process and a number of factors affect a child's success in beginning reading. This complexity increases when a child's home language differs from that of the school and when the child comes from a home with limited economic resources. This article discusses factors that have been shown to contribute to children's success in early reading, namely-phonological awareness, letter-word identification, oral language, and the home literacy environment. Preliminary evidence suggests that bilingual children from low-income backgrounds initially perform poorly on phonological awareness and letter identification tasks, but appear to acquire these abilities quickly in kindergarten once these abilities are emphasized in early reading instruction. In addition, the findings show that bilingual preschoolers' receptive language abilities in English and Spanish positively impact their early letter-word identification abilities at the end of kindergarten. A positive relationship between bilingual preschoolers' home literacy environment and early reading outcomes has not been found to date. Educational implications for serving young, bilingual children from programs such as Head Start are discussed.

Bilingual Language Switching: Production vs. Recognition

Science.gov (United States)

Mosca, Michela; de Bot, Kees

2017-01-01

This study aims at assessing how bilinguals select words in the appropriate language in production and recognition while minimizing interference from the non-appropriate language. Two prominent models are considered which assume that when one language is in use, the other is suppressed. The Inhibitory Control (IC) model suggests that, in both production and recognition, the amount of inhibition on the non-target language is greater for the stronger compared to the weaker language. In contrast, the Bilingual Interactive Activation (BIA) model proposes that, in language recognition, the amount of inhibition on the weaker language is stronger than otherwise. To investigate whether bilingual language production and recognition can be accounted for by a single model of bilingual processing, we tested a group of native speakers of Dutch (L1), advanced speakers of English (L2) in a bilingual recognition and production task. Specifically, language switching costs were measured while participants performed a lexical decision (recognition) and a picture naming (production) task involving language switching. Results suggest that while in language recognition the amount of inhibition applied to the non-appropriate language increases along with its dominance as predicted by the IC model, in production the amount of inhibition applied to the non-relevant language is not related to language dominance, but rather it may be modulated by speakers' unconscious strategies to foster the weaker language. This difference indicates that bilingual language recognition and production might rely on different processing mechanisms and cannot be accounted within one of the existing models of bilingual language processing. PMID:28638361

A Novel Image Retrieval Based on Visual Words Integration of SIFT and SURF.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nouman Ali

Full Text Available With the recent evolution of technology, the number of image archives has increased exponentially. In Content-Based Image Retrieval (CBIR, high-level visual information is represented in the form of low-level features. The semantic gap between the low-level features and the high-level image concepts is an open research problem. In this paper, we present a novel visual words integration of Scale Invariant Feature Transform (SIFT and Speeded-Up Robust Features (SURF. The two local features representations are selected for image retrieval because SIFT is more robust to the change in scale and rotation, while SURF is robust to changes in illumination. The visual words integration of SIFT and SURF adds the robustness of both features to image retrieval. The qualitative and quantitative comparisons conducted on Corel-1000, Corel-1500, Corel-2000, Oliva and Torralba and Ground Truth image benchmarks demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed visual words integration.

Bilingual language control and general purpose cognitive control among individuals with bilingual aphasia: evidence based on negative priming and flanker tasks.

Science.gov (United States)

Dash, Tanya; Kar, Bhoomika R

2014-01-01

Bilingualism results in an added advantage with respect to cognitive control. The interaction between bilingual language control and general purpose cognitive control systems can also be understood by studying executive control among individuals with bilingual aphasia. objectives: The current study examined the subcomponents of cognitive control in bilingual aphasia. A case study approach was used to investigate whether cognitive control and language control are two separate systems and how factors related to bilingualism interact with control processes. Four individuals with bilingual aphasia performed a language background questionnaire, picture description task, and two experimental tasks (nonlinguistic negative priming task and linguistic and nonlinguistic versions of flanker task). A descriptive approach was used to analyse the data using reaction time and accuracy measures. The cumulative distribution function plots were used to visualize the variations in performance across conditions. The results highlight the distinction between general purpose cognitive control and bilingual language control mechanisms. All participants showed predominant use of the reactive control mechanism to compensate for the limited resources system. Independent yet interactive systems for bilingual language control and general purpose cognitive control were postulated based on the experimental data derived from individuals with bilingual aphasia.

Recall of short word lists presented visually at fast rates: effects of phonological similarity and word length.

Science.gov (United States)

Coltheart, V; Langdon, R

1998-03-01

Phonological similarity of visually presented list items impairs short-term serial recall. Lists of long words are also recalled less accurately than are lists of short words. These results have been attributed to phonological recoding and rehearsal. If subjects articulate irrelevant words during list presentation, both phonological similarity and word length effects are abolished. Experiments 1 and 2 examined effects of phonological similarity and recall instructions on recall of lists shown at fast rates (from one item per 0.114-0.50 sec), which might not permit phonological encoding and rehearsal. In Experiment 3, recall instructions and word length were manipulated using fast presentation rates. Both phonological similarity and word length effects were observed, and they were not dependent on recall instructions. Experiments 4 and 5 investigated the effects of irrelevant concurrent articulation on lists shown at fast rates. Both phonological similarity and word length effects were removed by concurrent articulation, as they were with slow presentation rates.

Cross-Linguistic Influence in the Bilingual Mental Lexicon: Evidence of Cognate Effects in the Phonetic Production and Processing of a Vowel Contrast.

Science.gov (United States)

Amengual, Mark

2016-01-01

The present study examines cognate effects in the phonetic production and processing of the Catalan back mid-vowel contrast (/o/-/ɔ/) by 24 early and highly proficient Spanish-Catalan bilinguals in Majorca (Spain). Participants completed a picture-naming task and a forced-choice lexical decision task in which they were presented with either words (e.g., /bɔsk/ "forest") or non-words based on real words, but with the alternate mid-vowel pair in stressed position ((*)/bosk/). The same cognate and non-cognate lexical items were included in the production and lexical decision experiments. The results indicate that even though these early bilinguals maintained the back mid-vowel contrast in their productions, they had great difficulties identifying non-words and real words based on the identity of the Catalan mid-vowel. The analyses revealed language dominance and cognate effects: Spanish-dominants exhibited higher error rates than Catalan-dominants, and production and lexical decision accuracy were also affected by cognate status. The present study contributes to the discussion of the organization of early bilinguals' dominant and non-dominant sound systems, and proposes that exemplar theoretic approaches can be extended to include bilingual lexical connections that account for the interactions between the phonetic and lexical levels of early bilingual individuals.

Script identification in printed bilingual documents

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

R. Narasimhan (Krishtel eMaging) 1461 1996 Oct 15 13:05:22

and lower zones, together with the character density, is used to identify the script. ... our work, we assume bilingual documents which require script recognition at word level. ... Thus, all the reported studies accomplish script recognition either at the line level ... In this paper, we make an attempt to separate the English and.

Cognitive and electrophysiological correlates of the bilingual Stroop effect

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Lavelda J. Naylor

2012-04-01

Full Text Available The bilingual color-word Stroop effect is commonly half the magnitude when naming and reading languages are different than the same. This between-within language Stroop difference (BWLS is likened to a response set effect, with greater response conflict for response relevant than irrelevant words. The BWLS was analyzed in 2 experiments. Color congruent and incongruent words (Exp 1 appeared in the naming language or not (single, or randomly in both languages (mixed. The BWLS effect was observed in both balanced and unbalanced bilinguals. However, color congruent trials during mixed-language blocks led to slower times between than within languages, indicating that response irrelevant stimuli interfered with processing. To investigate the neural timing of the BWLS effect (Exp 2, event related potentials were recorded while balanced bilinguals named silently. Replicating monolingual findings, an N450 effect was observed with larger negative amplitude for color incongruent than congruent trials (350-550 ms post stimulus onset. This effect was equivalent within and between languages, indicating that color words from both languages created response conflict, contrary to a response set effect. A sustained negativity followed with larger amplitude for color incongruent than congruent trials, resolving earlier for between than within language Stroop. The effect shared timing (550-700 ms, but not morphology or distribution with a previously reported sustained potential. Finally, a larger early negativity (200-350 ms was observed for between than within languages independent of color congruence. This no-go N2-like negativity may reflect processes of inhibitory control that facilitate the resolution of conflict at the sustained negativity, while the N450 reflects parallel processing of distracter words, independent of response set. In sum, the BWLS reflects brain activity over time with contributions from language and color conflict at different points.

Lexical processing and organization in bilingual first language acquisition: Guiding future research.

Science.gov (United States)

DeAnda, Stephanie; Poulin-Dubois, Diane; Zesiger, Pascal; Friend, Margaret

2016-06-01

A rich body of work in adult bilinguals documents an interconnected lexical network across languages, such that early word retrieval is language independent. This literature has yielded a number of influential models of bilingual semantic memory. However, extant models provide limited predictions about the emergence of lexical organization in bilingual first language acquisition (BFLA). Empirical evidence from monolingual infants suggests that lexical networks emerge early in development as children integrate phonological and semantic information. These findings tell us little about the interaction between 2 languages in early bilingual memory. To date, an understanding of when and how languages interact in early bilingual development is lacking. In this literature review, we present research documenting lexical-semantic development across monolingual and bilingual infants. This is followed by a discussion of current models of bilingual language representation and organization and their ability to account for the available empirical evidence. Together, these theoretical and empirical accounts inform and highlight unexplored areas of research and guide future work on early bilingual memory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

Words Versus Pictures: Leveraging the Research on Visual Communication

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Pauline Dewan

2015-06-01

Full Text Available Librarians, like many other occupations, tend to rely on text and underutilize graphics. Research on visual communication shows that pictures have a number of advantages over words. We can interact more effectively with colleagues and patrons by incorporating ideas from this research.

Language and mathematical problem solving among bilinguals.

Science.gov (United States)

Bernardo, Allan B I

2002-05-01

Does using a bilingual's 1st or 2nd language have an effect on problem solving in semantically rich domains like school mathematics? The author conducted a study to determine whether Filipino-English bilingual students' understanding and solving of word problems in arithmetic differed when the problems were in the students' 1st and 2nd languages. Two groups participated-students whose 1st language was Filipino and students whose 1st language was English-and easy and difficult arithmetic problems were used. The author used a recall paradigm to assess how students understood the word problems and coded the solution accuracy to assess problem solving. The results indicated a 1st-language advantage; that is, the students were better able to understand and solve problems in their 1st language, whether the 1st language was English or Filipino. Moreover, the advantage was more marked with the easy problems. The theoretical and practical implications of the results are discussed.

Bilingual Language Control and General Purpose Cognitive Control among Individuals with Bilingual Aphasia: Evidence Based on Negative Priming and Flanker Tasks

Science.gov (United States)

Dash, Tanya; Kar, Bhoomika R.

2014-01-01

Background. Bilingualism results in an added advantage with respect to cognitive control. The interaction between bilingual language control and general purpose cognitive control systems can also be understood by studying executive control among individuals with bilingual aphasia. Objectives. The current study examined the subcomponents of cognitive control in bilingual aphasia. A case study approach was used to investigate whether cognitive control and language control are two separate systems and how factors related to bilingualism interact with control processes. Methods. Four individuals with bilingual aphasia performed a language background questionnaire, picture description task, and two experimental tasks (nonlinguistic negative priming task and linguistic and nonlinguistic versions of flanker task). Results. A descriptive approach was used to analyse the data using reaction time and accuracy measures. The cumulative distribution function plots were used to visualize the variations in performance across conditions. The results highlight the distinction between general purpose cognitive control and bilingual language control mechanisms. Conclusion. All participants showed predominant use of the reactive control mechanism to compensate for the limited resources system. Independent yet interactive systems for bilingual language control and general purpose cognitive control were postulated based on the experimental data derived from individuals with bilingual aphasia. PMID:24982591

How a hobby can shape cognition: visual word recognition in competitive Scrabble players.

Science.gov (United States)

Hargreaves, Ian S; Pexman, Penny M; Zdrazilova, Lenka; Sargious, Peter

2012-01-01

Competitive Scrabble is an activity that involves extraordinary word recognition experience. We investigated whether that experience is associated with exceptional behavior in the laboratory in a classic visual word recognition paradigm: the lexical decision task (LDT). We used a version of the LDT that involved horizontal and vertical presentation and a concreteness manipulation. In Experiment 1, we presented this task to a group of undergraduates, as these participants are the typical sample in word recognition studies. In Experiment 2, we compared the performance of a group of competitive Scrabble players with a group of age-matched nonexpert control participants. The results of a series of cognitive assessments showed that the Scrabble players and control participants differed only in Scrabble-specific skills (e.g., anagramming). Scrabble expertise was associated with two specific effects (as compared to controls): vertical fluency (relatively less difficulty judging lexicality for words presented in the vertical orientation) and semantic deemphasis (smaller concreteness effects for word responses). These results suggest that visual word recognition is shaped by experience, and that with experience there are efficiencies to be had even in the adult word recognition system.

Modulation of human extrastriate visual processing by selective attention to colours and words.

Science.gov (United States)

Nobre, A C; Allison, T; McCarthy, G

1998-07-01

The present study investigated the effect of visual selective attention upon neural processing within functionally specialized regions of the human extrastriate visual cortex. Field potentials were recorded directly from the inferior surface of the temporal lobes in subjects with epilepsy. The experimental task required subjects to focus attention on words from one of two competing texts. Words were presented individually and foveally. Texts were interleaved randomly and were distinguishable on the basis of word colour. Focal field potentials were evoked by words in the posterior part of the fusiform gyrus. Selective attention strongly modulated long-latency potentials evoked by words. The attention effect co-localized with word-related potentials in the posterior fusiform gyrus, and was independent of stimulus colour. The results demonstrated that stimuli receive differential processing within specialized regions of the extrastriate cortex as a function of attention. The late onset of the attention effect and its co-localization with letter string-related potentials but not with colour-related potentials recorded from nearby regions of the fusiform gyrus suggest that the attention effect is due to top-down influences from downstream regions involved in word processing.

Individual Differences in Visual Word Recognition: Insights from the English Lexicon Project

Science.gov (United States)

Yap, Melvin J.; Balota, David A.; Sibley, Daragh E.; Ratcliff, Roger

2012-01-01

Empirical work and models of visual word recognition have traditionally focused on group-level performance. Despite the emphasis on the prototypical reader, there is clear evidence that variation in reading skill modulates word recognition performance. In the present study, we examined differences among individuals who contributed to the English…

Is Syntactic-Category Processing Obligatory in Visual Word Recognition? Evidence from Chinese

Science.gov (United States)

Wong, Andus Wing-Kuen; Chen, Hsuan-Chih

2012-01-01

Three experiments were conducted to investigate how syntactic-category and semantic information is processed in visual word recognition. The stimuli were two-character Chinese words in which semantic and syntactic-category ambiguities were factorially manipulated. A lexical decision task was employed in Experiment 1, whereas a semantic relatedness…

Verbal fluency in bilingual Spanish/English Alzheimer's disease patients.

Science.gov (United States)

Salvatierra, Judy; Rosselli, Monica; Acevedo, Amarilis; Duara, Ranjan

2007-01-01

Studies have demonstrated that in verbal fluency tests, monolinguals with Alzheimer's disease (AD) show greater difficulties retrieving words based on semantic rather than phonemic rules. The present study aimed to determine whether this difficulty was reproduced in both languages of Spanish/English bilinguals with mild to moderate AD whose primary language was Spanish. Performance on semantic and phonemic verbal fluency of 11 bilingual AD patients was compared to the performance of 11 cognitively normal, elderly bilingual individuals matched for gender, age, level of education, and degree of bilingualism. Cognitively normal subjects retrieved significantly more items under the semantic condition compared to the phonemic, whereas the performance of AD patients was similar under both conditions, suggesting greater decline in semantic verbal fluency tests. This pattern was produced in both languages, implying a related semantic decline in both languages. Results from this study should be considered preliminary because of the small sample size.

Illustrative examples in a bilingual decoding dictionary: An (un ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Keywords: Illustrative Examples, Bilingual Decoding Dictionary, Semantic Differences Between Source Language (Sl) And Target Language (Tl), Grammatical Differences Between Sl And Tl, Translation Of Examples, Transposition, Context-Dependent Translation, One-Word Equivalent, Zero Equivalent, Idiomatic ...

Chinese translation norms for 1,429 English words.

Science.gov (United States)

Wen, Yun; van Heuven, Walter J B

2017-06-01

We present Chinese translation norms for 1,429 English words. Chinese-English bilinguals (N = 28) were asked to provide the first Chinese translation that came to mind for 1,429 English words. The results revealed that 71 % of the English words received more than one correct translation indicating the large amount of translation ambiguity when translating from English to Chinese. The relationship between translation ambiguity and word frequency, concreteness and language proficiency was investigated. Although the significant correlations were not strong, results revealed that English word frequency was positively correlated with the number of alternative translations, whereas English word concreteness was negatively correlated with the number of translations. Importantly, regression analyses showed that the number of Chinese translations was predicted by word frequency and concreteness. Furthermore, an interaction between these predictors revealed that the number of translations was more affected by word frequency for more concrete words than for less concrete words. In addition, mixed-effects modelling showed that word frequency, concreteness and English language proficiency were all significant predictors of whether or not a dominant translation was provided. Finally, correlations between the word frequencies of English words and their Chinese dominant translations were higher for translation-unambiguous pairs than for translation-ambiguous pairs. The translation norms are made available in a database together with lexical information about the words, which will be a useful resource for researchers investigating Chinese-English bilingual language processing.

Morphological Family Size Effects in Young First and Second Language Learners: Evidence of Cross-Language Semantic Activation in Visual Word Recognition

Science.gov (United States)

de Zeeuw, Marlies; Verhoeven, Ludo; Schreuder, Robert

2012-01-01

This study examined to what extent young second language (L2) learners showed morphological family size effects in L2 word recognition and whether the effects were grade-level related. Turkish-Dutch bilingual children (L2) and Dutch (first language, L1) children from second, fourth, and sixth grade performed a Dutch lexical decision task on words…

Suprasegmental lexical stress cues in visual speech can guide spoken-word recognition

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Jesse, A.; McQueen, J.M.

2014-01-01

Visual cues to the individual segments of speech and to sentence prosody guide speech recognition. The present study tested whether visual suprasegmental cues to the stress patterns of words can also constrain recognition. Dutch listeners use acoustic suprasegmental cues to lexical stress (changes

English as a Foreign Language in Bilingual Language-minority Children, Children with Dyslexia and Monolingual Typical Readers.

Science.gov (United States)

Bonifacci, Paola; Canducci, Elisa; Gravagna, Giulia; Palladino, Paola

2017-05-01

The present study was aimed at investigating literacy skills in English as a foreign language in three different groups of children: monolinguals with dyslexia (n = 19), typically developing bilinguals (language-minority) (n = 19) and a control group of monolinguals (Italian) (n = 76). Bilinguals were not expected to fail in English measures, and their gap with monolinguals would be expected to be limited to the instructional language, owing to underexposure. All participants were enrolled in Italian primary schools (fourth and fifth grades). A non-verbal reasoning task and Italian and English literacy tasks were administered. The Italian battery included word and non-word reading (speed and accuracy), word and non-word writing, and reading comprehension; the English battery included similar tasks, except for the non-word writing. Bilingual children performed similarly to typical readers in English tasks, whereas in Italian tasks, their performance was similar to that of typical readers in reading speed but not in reading accuracy and writing. Children with dyslexia underperformed compared with typically developing children in all English and Italian tasks, except for reading comprehension in Italian. Profile analysis and correlational analyses were further discussed. These results suggest that English as a foreign language might represent a challenge for students with dyslexia but a strength for bilingual language-minority children. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Translation norms for English and Spanish: The role of lexical variables, word class, and L2 proficiency in negotiating translation ambiguity

Science.gov (United States)

Prior, Anat; MacWhinney, Brian; Kroll, Judith F.

2014-01-01

We present a set of translation norms for 670 English and 760 Spanish nouns, verbs and class ambiguous items that varied in their lexical properties in both languages, collected from 80 bilingual participants. Half of the words in each language received more than a single translation across participants. Cue word frequency and imageability were both negatively correlated with number of translations. Word class predicted number of translations: Nouns had fewer translations than did verbs, which had fewer translations than class-ambiguous items. The translation probability of specific responses was positively correlated with target word frequency and imageability, and with its form overlap with the cue word. Translation choice was modulated by L2 proficiency: Less proficient bilinguals tended to produce lower probability translations than more proficient bilinguals, but only in forward translation, from L1 to L2. These findings highlight the importance of translation ambiguity as a factor influencing bilingual representation and performance. The norms can also provide an important resource to assist researchers in the selection of experimental materials for studies of bilingual and monolingual language performance. These norms may be downloaded from www.psychonomic.org/archive. PMID:18183923

Bilingual Mothers' Language Choice in Child-directed Speech: Continuity and Change

OpenAIRE

De Houwer, Annick; Bornstein, Marc H.

2016-01-01

An important aspect of Family Language Policy in bilingual families is parental language choice. Little is known about the continuity in parental language choice and the factors affecting it. This longitudinal study explores maternal language choice over time. Thirty-one bilingual mothers provided reports of what language(s) they spoke with their children. Mother-child interactions were videotaped when children were pre-verbal (5M), producing words in two languages (20M), and fluent speakers ...

Bedding down new words: Sleep promotes the emergence of lexical competition in visual word recognition.

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Hua-Chen; Savage, Greg; Gaskell, M Gareth; Paulin, Tamara; Robidoux, Serje; Castles, Anne

2017-08-01

Lexical competition processes are widely viewed as the hallmark of visual word recognition, but little is known about the factors that promote their emergence. This study examined for the first time whether sleep may play a role in inducing these effects. A group of 27 participants learned novel written words, such as banara, at 8 am and were tested on their learning at 8 pm the same day (AM group), while 29 participants learned the words at 8 pm and were tested at 8 am the following day (PM group). Both groups were retested after 24 hours. Using a semantic categorization task, we showed that lexical competition effects, as indexed by slowed responses to existing neighbor words such as banana, emerged 12 h later in the PM group who had slept after learning but not in the AM group. After 24 h the competition effects were evident in both groups. These findings have important implications for theories of orthographic learning and broader neurobiological models of memory consolidation.

The role of visual representations during the lexical access of spoken words.

Science.gov (United States)

Lewis, Gwyneth; Poeppel, David

2014-07-01

Do visual representations contribute to spoken word recognition? We examine, using MEG, the effects of sublexical and lexical variables at superior temporal (ST) areas and the posterior middle temporal gyrus (pMTG) compared with that of word imageability at visual cortices. Embodied accounts predict early modulation of visual areas by imageability--concurrently with or prior to modulation of pMTG by lexical variables. Participants responded to speech stimuli varying continuously in imageability during lexical decision with simultaneous MEG recording. We employed the linguistic variables in a new type of correlational time course analysis to assess trial-by-trial activation in occipital, ST, and pMTG regions of interest (ROIs). The linguistic variables modulated the ROIs during different time windows. Critically, visual regions reflected an imageability effect prior to effects of lexicality on pMTG. This surprising effect supports a view on which sensory aspects of a lexical item are not a consequence of lexical activation. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Bag-of-features based medical image retrieval via multiple assignment and visual words weighting

KAUST Repository

Wang, Jingyan

2011-11-01

Bag-of-features based approaches have become prominent for image retrieval and image classification tasks in the past decade. Such methods represent an image as a collection of local features, such as image patches and key points with scale invariant feature transform (SIFT) descriptors. To improve the bag-of-features methods, we first model the assignments of local descriptors as contribution functions, and then propose a novel multiple assignment strategy. Assuming the local features can be reconstructed by their neighboring visual words in a vocabulary, reconstruction weights can be solved by quadratic programming. The weights are then used to build contribution functions, resulting in a novel assignment method, called quadratic programming (QP) assignment. We further propose a novel visual word weighting method. The discriminative power of each visual word is analyzed by the sub-similarity function in the bin that corresponds to the visual word. Each sub-similarity function is then treated as a weak classifier. A strong classifier is learned by boosting methods that combine those weak classifiers. The weighting factors of the visual words are learned accordingly. We evaluate the proposed methods on medical image retrieval tasks. The methods are tested on three well-known data sets, i.e., the ImageCLEFmed data set, the 304 CT Set, and the basal-cell carcinoma image set. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed QP assignment outperforms the traditional nearest neighbor assignment, the multiple assignment, and the soft assignment, whereas the proposed boosting based weighting strategy outperforms the state-of-the-art weighting methods, such as the term frequency weights and the term frequency-inverse document frequency weights. © 2011 IEEE.

Bag-of-features based medical image retrieval via multiple assignment and visual words weighting

KAUST Repository

Wang, Jingyan; Li, Yongping; Zhang, Ying; Wang, Chao; Xie, Honglan; Chen, Guoling; Gao, Xin

2011-01-01

Bag-of-features based approaches have become prominent for image retrieval and image classification tasks in the past decade. Such methods represent an image as a collection of local features, such as image patches and key points with scale invariant feature transform (SIFT) descriptors. To improve the bag-of-features methods, we first model the assignments of local descriptors as contribution functions, and then propose a novel multiple assignment strategy. Assuming the local features can be reconstructed by their neighboring visual words in a vocabulary, reconstruction weights can be solved by quadratic programming. The weights are then used to build contribution functions, resulting in a novel assignment method, called quadratic programming (QP) assignment. We further propose a novel visual word weighting method. The discriminative power of each visual word is analyzed by the sub-similarity function in the bin that corresponds to the visual word. Each sub-similarity function is then treated as a weak classifier. A strong classifier is learned by boosting methods that combine those weak classifiers. The weighting factors of the visual words are learned accordingly. We evaluate the proposed methods on medical image retrieval tasks. The methods are tested on three well-known data sets, i.e., the ImageCLEFmed data set, the 304 CT Set, and the basal-cell carcinoma image set. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed QP assignment outperforms the traditional nearest neighbor assignment, the multiple assignment, and the soft assignment, whereas the proposed boosting based weighting strategy outperforms the state-of-the-art weighting methods, such as the term frequency weights and the term frequency-inverse document frequency weights. © 2011 IEEE.

A dual-task investigation of automaticity in visual word processing

Science.gov (United States)

McCann, R. S.; Remington, R. W.; Van Selst, M.

2000-01-01

An analysis of activation models of visual word processing suggests that frequency-sensitive forms of lexical processing should proceed normally while unattended. This hypothesis was tested by having participants perform a speeded pitch discrimination task followed by lexical decisions or word naming. As the stimulus onset asynchrony between the tasks was reduced, lexical-decision and naming latencies increased dramatically. Word-frequency effects were additive with the increase, indicating that frequency-sensitive processing was subject to postponement while attention was devoted to the other task. Either (a) the same neural hardware shares responsibility for lexical processing and central stages of choice reaction time task processing and cannot perform both computations simultaneously, or (b) lexical processing is blocked in order to optimize performance on the pitch discrimination task. Either way, word processing is not as automatic as activation models suggest.

CODE SWITCHING AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF LINGUISTIC SYSTEM OF SIMULTANEOUS BILINGUAL CHILDREN

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Leni Amelia Suek

2017-11-01

Full Text Available Code switching and code mixing are the phenomena commonly seen done by a bilingual. This behavior is influenced by several aspects such as the linguistic system, sociolinguistics, pragmatics, and language competence of the bilingual. If children are able to distinguish two different languages since early age, they will be considered simultaneous bilinguals. They show that they develop multiple, rather than single, linguistic systems. However, it was understood that code switching and code mixing were due to the failure in using proper words, language features, and sociolinguistic competence. Yet, recent studies have shown that bilingual children are able to use both languages proficiently with no signs of confusion or failure in language use. This ability also does not hinder their cognitive development.

Meaning discrimination in bilingual Venda dictionaries | Mafela ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

In most cases, the equivalents of the entry-words are provided without giving meaning discrimination. Without a good command of Venda and the provision of meaning discrimination, users will find it difficult to make a correct choice of the equivalent for which they are looking. Bilingual Venda dictionaries are therefore not ...

Bilingual Dictionary and Meaning Discrimination in Venda*

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Riette Ruthven

Page 1 ... The translation equivalents of entry-words in a bilingual dictionary are usually of two types, i.e. translational and explanatory. A translational equiva- lent is a lexical unit which can immediately be ... to express themselves in or translate into the foreign language. Venda, one of the languages which were previously ...

BILINGUALISM AMONG THE ADOLESCENTS IN BADUNG REGENCY, BALI

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

I Nyoman Muliana

2015-01-01

Full Text Available This paper presents a discussion of bilingualism among the adolescents in Badung Regency, the Province of Bali. It aims to explore the bilingualism situation and the existence of Balinese Language among them. The discussion is based on participant observation to the adolescents and it is based on Sociolinguistic Theory. The result of the discussion shows that the adolescents in Badung Regency are bilinguals of Balinese and Indonesian languages. They use Balinese language in all their communicative activities, except some females occasionally showed the use of Indonesian language. Their conversations both in Balinese and Indonesian languages are also followed by code mixing of the words and phrase of Indonesian, Balinese, and English languages.  The result of the discussion also indicates that Balinese language still used and maintained by the adolescents in Badung Regency.

Bilingual infants control their languages as they listen.

Science.gov (United States)

Byers-Heinlein, Krista; Morin-Lessard, Elizabeth; Lew-Williams, Casey

2017-08-22

Infants growing up in bilingual homes learn two languages simultaneously without apparent confusion or delay. However, the mechanisms that support this remarkable achievement remain unclear. Here, we demonstrate that infants use language-control mechanisms to preferentially activate the currently heard language during listening. In a naturalistic eye-tracking procedure, bilingual infants were more accurate at recognizing objects labeled in same-language sentences ("Find the dog!") than in switched-language sentences ("Find the chien !"). Measurements of infants' pupil size over time indicated that this resulted from increased cognitive load during language switches. However, language switches did not always engender processing difficulties: the switch cost was reduced or eliminated when the switch was from the nondominant to the dominant language, and when it crossed a sentence boundary. Adults showed the same patterns of performance as infants, even though target words were simple and highly familiar. Our results provide striking evidence from infancy to adulthood that bilinguals monitor their languages for efficient comprehension. Everyday practice controlling two languages during listening is likely to explain previously observed bilingual cognitive advantages across the lifespan.

Language Policy, Language Ideology, and Visual Art Education for Emergent Bilingual Students

Science.gov (United States)

Thomas, Beth A.

2017-01-01

In 1968 the Bilingual Education Act marked the first comprehensive federal intervention in the schooling of language minoritized students by creating financial incentives for bilingual education in an effort to address social and educational inequities created by poverty and linguistic isolation in schools. Since that time federal education…

Errors in the Production of Adult Early and Late Bilinguals

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Teresa Lee

2014-08-01

Full Text Available This study examines the grammatical knowledge of adult second language (L2 learners and heritage speakers. Given the differences in the mode and age of acquisition between L2 learners (late bilinguals and heritage speakers (early bilinguals, the question arises as to whether and how these groups differ from each other in their knowledge of Korean. To address this question, the present study looks at the production of Korean relative clauses by three groups of learners (26 L2 learners, 11 simultaneous bilinguals, and 38 early sequential bilinguals. The results of a written production task showed that all three groups made similar types of errors such as those involving the use of incorrect word order and case markers. Yet differences were also observed in the nature of errors made by these three groups. Based on the findings, pedagogical implications are drawn for classroom instruction.

Peer Commentaries on "New Approaches to Concepts in Bilingual Memory."

Science.gov (United States)

Appel, Rene; de Groot, Annette M. B.; Ervin-Tripp, Susan; Francis, Wendy S.; Green, David W.; Jarvis, Scott; Paradis, Michel; Roelofs, Ardi; Vaid, Jyotsna

2000-01-01

Responds to an article that argues that in the study of bilingualism, conceptual representations should be treated as related but not equivalent to word meanings, as knowledge-based, dynamic and language- and culture-specific. (Author/VWL)

Universal and Language-Specific Constraints on Phonemic Awareness: Evidence from Russian-Hebrew Bilingual Children

Science.gov (United States)

Saiegh-Haddad, Elinor; Kogan, Nadya; Walters, Joel

2010-01-01

The study tested phonemic awareness in the two languages of Russian (L1)-Hebrew (L2) sequential bilingual children (N = 20) using phoneme deletion tasks where the phoneme to be deleted occurred word initial, word final, as a singleton, or part of a cluster, in long and short words and stressed and unstressed syllables. The experiments were…

The bilingual Loch Ness Monster raises its non-asymmetric head again-or, why bother with such cumbersome notions as validity and reliability? Comments on Evans et al. (2000).

Science.gov (United States)

Paradis, Michel

2003-12-01

All of the experimental studies of the past 25 years combined and the meta-analyses of their findings have not advanced our knowledge of the lateralization of language in bilingual speakers one bit. We are left with a clutter of inherently uninterpretable contradictory results. Successive studies do not contribute a single brick to the edifice or a single piece to the puzzle-only more confusion. study is no exception. So far, there has been no demonstration of the validity of any experimental paradigm claiming to measure degree of language laterality in bilingual speakers. Experimentation is pointless unless the nature of what is alleged to be lateralized is clearly defined and the validity of the measures employed has been established. Because of the lack of validity of the paradigms used in bilingual laterality studies, experiments and meta-analyses of their findings cannot have any scientific significance. Like their predecessors, Evans et al. pay lip service to a number of methodological problems, but ignore their implications and simply carry on anyway. The authors ought to demonstrate, rather than assume, that degree of visual half-field advantage for single words corresponds to degree of lateralization of any component of language (even if only of words).

Grammatical encoding in bilingual language production: A focus on code switching

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

MEHDI ePURMOHAMMAD

2015-11-01

Full Text Available I report three experiments that examined whether words from one language of bilinguals can use the syntactic features form the other language and how such syntactic co-activation might influence syntactic processing. In other words, I examined whether there are any cases in which a lexical item inhibits its inherent syntactic feature and uses the syntactic feature(s that belongs to the other language, instead. In the non-switch condition in experiment 1 and 2, Persian-English bilinguals described pictures using an adjective-noun string from the same language requested. In the switch condition, they used the nouns and adjectives from the other language. In Experiment 3, in the switch condition participants used only the adjectives of noun phrases from the other language. The results showed that bilinguals may inhibit the activation of a word’s syntactic feature and use the syntactic property from the other language instead (e.g., pirāhane (N black. As the combinatorial node (the node that specify different kinds of syntactic structures in which a word can be used of a used adjective retains activation at least temporarily, bilinguals are more likely to use the same combinatorial node even for an adjective from the other language. Using the syntactic features from the other language increased in the switch conditions. Moreover, more inappropriate responses observed when switching from bilinguals’ L2 to L1. The results also revealed that different experimental contexts may lead to different patterns of the control mechanism. The results will be interpreted in terms of Hartsuiker and Pickering’s (2008 model of syntactic representation

The Influence of Semantic Neighbours on Visual Word Recognition

Science.gov (United States)

Yates, Mark

2012-01-01

Although it is assumed that semantics is a critical component of visual word recognition, there is still much that we do not understand. One recent way of studying semantic processing has been in terms of semantic neighbourhood (SN) density, and this research has shown that semantic neighbours facilitate lexical decisions. However, it is not clear…

Deep generative learning of location-invariant visual word recognition.

Science.gov (United States)

Di Bono, Maria Grazia; Zorzi, Marco

2013-01-01

It is widely believed that orthographic processing implies an approximate, flexible coding of letter position, as shown by relative-position and transposition priming effects in visual word recognition. These findings have inspired alternative proposals about the representation of letter position, ranging from noisy coding across the ordinal positions to relative position coding based on open bigrams. This debate can be cast within the broader problem of learning location-invariant representations of written words, that is, a coding scheme abstracting the identity and position of letters (and combinations of letters) from their eye-centered (i.e., retinal) locations. We asked whether location-invariance would emerge from deep unsupervised learning on letter strings and what type of intermediate coding would emerge in the resulting hierarchical generative model. We trained a deep network with three hidden layers on an artificial dataset of letter strings presented at five possible retinal locations. Though word-level information (i.e., word identity) was never provided to the network during training, linear decoding from the activity of the deepest hidden layer yielded near-perfect accuracy in location-invariant word recognition. Conversely, decoding from lower layers yielded a large number of transposition errors. Analyses of emergent internal representations showed that word selectivity and location invariance increased as a function of layer depth. Word-tuning and location-invariance were found at the level of single neurons, but there was no evidence for bigram coding. Finally, the distributed internal representation of words at the deepest layer showed higher similarity to the representation elicited by the two exterior letters than by other combinations of two contiguous letters, in agreement with the hypothesis that word edges have special status. These results reveal that the efficient coding of written words-which was the model's learning objective

Bilingual recognition memory: stronger performance but weaker levels-of-processing effects in the less fluent language.

Science.gov (United States)

Francis, Wendy S; Gutiérrez, Marisela

2012-04-01

The effects of bilingual proficiency on recognition memory were examined in an experiment with Spanish-English bilinguals. Participants learned lists of words in English and Spanish under shallow- and deep-encoding conditions. Overall, hit rates were higher, discrimination greater, and response times shorter in the nondominant language, consistent with effects previously observed for lower frequency words. Levels-of-processing effects in hit rates, discrimination, and response time were stronger in the dominant language. Specifically, with shallow encoding, the advantage for the nondominant language was larger than with deep encoding. The results support the idea that memory performance in the nondominant language is impacted by both the greater demand for cognitive resources and the lower familiarity of the words.

Could a Multimodal Dictionary Serve as a Learning Tool? An Examination of the Impact of Technologically Enhanced Visual Glosses on L2 Text Comprehension

Science.gov (United States)

Sato, Takeshi

2016-01-01

This study examines the efficacy of a multimodal online bilingual dictionary based on cognitive linguistics in order to explore the advantages and limitations of explicit multimodal L2 vocabulary learning. Previous studies have examined the efficacy of the verbal and visual representation of words while reading L2 texts, concluding that it…

Translation Ambiguity but Not Word Class Predicts Translation Performance

Science.gov (United States)

Prior, Anat; Kroll, Judith F.; Macwhinney, Brian

2013-01-01

We investigated the influence of word class and translation ambiguity on cross-linguistic representation and processing. Bilingual speakers of English and Spanish performed translation production and translation recognition tasks on nouns and verbs in both languages. Words either had a single translation or more than one translation. Translation…

The Development of Spatial Configuration Processing of Visual Word Forms

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Chienhui Kao

2011-05-01

Full Text Available The analysis of spatial relationship, or configuration, among the components of a character is important for visual word form recognition (Kao et al., 2010. We investigated such spatial configuration processing in dyslexics and developing populations. Four types of characters: real- and non-characters and their upside-down versions were used in this study. The task of the observers was to determine whether two characters presented on the display were identical. One group of dyslexic children (Dys and two groups of non-dyslexic controls, one (RL matched Dys in reading performance and the other (CA matched in age, were recruited in this study. Dys performed significantly worse than the control groups for all character types, suggesting a worse visual word form processing in dyslexics. For Dys and CA, the proportional correct response for the upright real characters was better than that for their upside-down versions. RL, (which was younger showed the same effect for the non-characters. Since the non-characters disrupts the global configuration while the inverted characters disrupted both local and global configurations, our results suggest that younger children recognize a word with an analysis of the local configuration while older children, regardless of whether they are dyslexics or not, analyze the global configuration.

Morphological Processing during Visual Word Recognition in Hebrew as a First and a Second Language

Science.gov (United States)

Norman, Tal; Degani, Tamar; Peleg, Orna

2017-01-01

The present study examined whether sublexical morphological processing takes place during visual word-recognition in Hebrew, and whether morphological decomposition of written words depends on lexical activation of the complete word. Furthermore, it examined whether morphological processing is similar when reading Hebrew as a first language (L1)…

Evidence for Separate Contributions of High and Low Spatial Frequencies during Visual Word Recognition.

Science.gov (United States)

Winsler, Kurt; Holcomb, Phillip J; Midgley, Katherine J; Grainger, Jonathan

2017-01-01

Previous studies have shown that different spatial frequency information processing streams interact during the recognition of visual stimuli. However, it is a matter of debate as to the contributions of high and low spatial frequency (HSF and LSF) information for visual word recognition. This study examined the role of different spatial frequencies in visual word recognition using event-related potential (ERP) masked priming. EEG was recorded from 32 scalp sites in 30 English-speaking adults in a go/no-go semantic categorization task. Stimuli were white characters on a neutral gray background. Targets were uppercase five letter words preceded by a forward-mask (#######) and a 50 ms lowercase prime. Primes were either the same word (repeated) or a different word (un-repeated) than the subsequent target and either contained only high, only low, or full spatial frequency information. Additionally within each condition, half of the prime-target pairs were high lexical frequency, and half were low. In the full spatial frequency condition, typical ERP masked priming effects were found with an attenuated N250 (sub-lexical) and N400 (lexical-semantic) for repeated compared to un-repeated primes. For HSF primes there was a weaker N250 effect which interacted with lexical frequency, a significant reversal of the effect around 300 ms, and an N400-like effect for only high lexical frequency word pairs. LSF primes did not produce any of the classic ERP repetition priming effects, however they did elicit a distinct early effect around 200 ms in the opposite direction of typical repetition effects. HSF information accounted for many of the masked repetition priming ERP effects and therefore suggests that HSFs are more crucial for word recognition. However, LSFs did produce their own pattern of priming effects indicating that larger scale information may still play a role in word recognition.

Deep generative learning of location-invariant visual word recognition

Science.gov (United States)

Di Bono, Maria Grazia; Zorzi, Marco

2013-01-01

It is widely believed that orthographic processing implies an approximate, flexible coding of letter position, as shown by relative-position and transposition priming effects in visual word recognition. These findings have inspired alternative proposals about the representation of letter position, ranging from noisy coding across the ordinal positions to relative position coding based on open bigrams. This debate can be cast within the broader problem of learning location-invariant representations of written words, that is, a coding scheme abstracting the identity and position of letters (and combinations of letters) from their eye-centered (i.e., retinal) locations. We asked whether location-invariance would emerge from deep unsupervised learning on letter strings and what type of intermediate coding would emerge in the resulting hierarchical generative model. We trained a deep network with three hidden layers on an artificial dataset of letter strings presented at five possible retinal locations. Though word-level information (i.e., word identity) was never provided to the network during training, linear decoding from the activity of the deepest hidden layer yielded near-perfect accuracy in location-invariant word recognition. Conversely, decoding from lower layers yielded a large number of transposition errors. Analyses of emergent internal representations showed that word selectivity and location invariance increased as a function of layer depth. Word-tuning and location-invariance were found at the level of single neurons, but there was no evidence for bigram coding. Finally, the distributed internal representation of words at the deepest layer showed higher similarity to the representation elicited by the two exterior letters than by other combinations of two contiguous letters, in agreement with the hypothesis that word edges have special status. These results reveal that the efficient coding of written words—which was the model's learning objective�

Deep generative learning of location-invariant visual word recognition

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Maria Grazia eDi Bono

2013-09-01

Full Text Available It is widely believed that orthographic processing implies an approximate, flexible coding of letter position, as shown by relative-position and transposition priming effects in visual word recognition. These findings have inspired alternative proposals about the representation of letter position, ranging from noisy coding across the ordinal positions to relative position coding based on open bigrams. This debate can be cast within the broader problem of learning location-invariant representations of written words, that is, a coding scheme abstracting the identity and position of letters (and combinations of letters from their eye-centred (i.e., retinal locations. We asked whether location-invariance would emerge from deep unsupervised learning on letter strings and what type of intermediate coding would emerge in the resulting hierarchical generative model. We trained a deep network with three hidden layers on an artificial dataset of letter strings presented at five possible retinal locations. Though word-level information (i.e., word identity was never provided to the network during training, linear decoding from the activity of the deepest hidden layer yielded near-perfect accuracy in location-invariant word recognition. Conversely, decoding from lower layers yielded a large number of transposition errors. Analyses of emergent internal representations showed that word selectivity and location invariance increased as a function of layer depth. Conversely, there was no evidence for bigram coding. Finally, the distributed internal representation of words at the deepest layer showed higher similarity to the representation elicited by the two exterior letters than by other combinations of two contiguous letters, in agreement with the hypothesis that word edges have special status. These results reveal that the efficient coding of written words – which was the model’s learning objective – is largely based on letter-level information.

Got Rhythm...For Better and for Worse. Cross-Modal Effects of Auditory Rhythm on Visual Word Recognition

Science.gov (United States)

Brochard, Renaud; Tassin, Maxime; Zagar, Daniel

2013-01-01

The present research aimed to investigate whether, as previously observed with pictures, background auditory rhythm would also influence visual word recognition. In a lexical decision task, participants were presented with bisyllabic visual words, segmented into two successive groups of letters, while an irrelevant strongly metric auditory…

Toddlers' language-mediated visual search: they need not have the words for it

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Johnson, E.K.; McQueen, J.M.; Hüttig, F.

2011-01-01

Eye movements made by listeners during language-mediated visual search reveal a strong link between visual processing and conceptual processing. For example, upon hearing the word for a missing referent with a characteristic colour (e.g., “strawberry”), listeners tend to fixate a colour-matched

Vernier But Not Grating Acuity Contributes to an Early Stage of Visual Word Processing.

Science.gov (United States)

Tan, Yufei; Tong, Xiuhong; Chen, Wei; Weng, Xuchu; He, Sheng; Zhao, Jing

2018-03-28

The process of reading words depends heavily on efficient visual skills, including analyzing and decomposing basic visual features. Surprisingly, previous reading-related studies have almost exclusively focused on gross aspects of visual skills, while only very few have investigated the role of finer skills. The present study filled this gap and examined the relations of two finer visual skills measured by grating acuity (the ability to resolve periodic luminance variations across space) and Vernier acuity (the ability to detect/discriminate relative locations of features) to Chinese character-processing as measured by character form-matching and lexical decision tasks in skilled adult readers. The results showed that Vernier acuity was significantly correlated with performance in character form-matching but not visual symbol form-matching, while no correlation was found between grating acuity and character processing. Interestingly, we found no correlation of the two visual skills with lexical decision performance. These findings provide for the first time empirical evidence that the finer visual skills, particularly as reflected in Vernier acuity, may directly contribute to an early stage of hierarchical word processing.

Unsupervised Word Mapping Using Structural Similarities in Monolingual Embeddings

OpenAIRE

Aldarmaki, Hanan; Mohan, Mahesh; Diab, Mona

2017-01-01

Most existing methods for automatic bilingual dictionary induction rely on prior alignments between the source and target languages, such as parallel corpora or seed dictionaries. For many language pairs, such supervised alignments are not readily available. We propose an unsupervised approach for learning a bilingual dictionary for a pair of languages given their independently-learned monolingual word embeddings. The proposed method exploits local and global structures in monolingual vector ...

CHILD COMPREHENSION OF ADULTS’ VERBAL INPUT: A CASE OF BILINGUAL ACQUISITION IN INFANCY

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ni Luh Putu Sri Adnyani

2017-05-01

Full Text Available Research concerning comprehension in early simultaneous bilingualism is still very limited. Thus, this study focuses on describing a bilingual infant’s comprehension of adults’ verbal input addressed to the child in an Indonesian-German language environment, and the child’s understanding of translation equivalents (TEs. The child, who was exposed to Indonesian and German simultaneously from birth, was observed from age 0;9 to age 1;3 using a diary supplemented with weekly video recordings. A “one parent-one language” system was applied in which the child received Indonesian language from the mother and German language from the father from birth. Since the family live in Indonesia and have regular contact to the collective family members, the child received dominant exposure in Indonesian compared to German. The data was transcribed and analysed using ELAN. The results show that the adults’ verbal inputs in the form of speech addressed to the child were in the form of short utterances which very often had a high-pitched sound and were rich in repetition. The adults’ speech was able to be discriminated by the child. In the pre-production stage, the child could understand approximately 6 (six proper nouns, 18 (eighteen Indonesian words and 14 (fourteen German words. The result reveals that the child could comprehend more words in Indonesian than in German. It was also found that the child could understand some bilingual synonyms, which implies that at the pre-production stage, the child already went through a process of bilingual development.

Short-Term and Long-Term Effects on Visual Word Recognition

Science.gov (United States)

Protopapas, Athanassios; Kapnoula, Efthymia C.

2016-01-01

Effects of lexical and sublexical variables on visual word recognition are often treated as homogeneous across participants and stable over time. In this study, we examine the modulation of frequency, length, syllable and bigram frequency, orthographic neighborhood, and graphophonemic consistency effects by (a) individual differences, and (b) item…

What can speech production errors tell us about cross-linguistic processing in bilingual aphasia? Evidence from four English/Afrikaans bilingual individuals with aphasia

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Diane Kendall

2015-06-01

Full Text Available Introduction: The aim of this study is contribute to clinical practice of bilinguals around the globe, as well as to add to our understanding of bilingual aphasia processing, by analysing confrontation naming data from four Afrikaans/English bilingual individuals with acquired aphasia due to a left hemisphere stroke. Methods: This is a case series analysis of four Afrikaans/English bilingual aphasic individuals following a left cerebrovascular accident. Error analysis of confrontation naming data in both languages was performed. Research questions were directed toward the between language differences in lexical retrieval abilities, types of errors produced and degree of cognate overlap. Results: Three of the four participants showed significantly higher naming accuracy in first acquired language (L1 relative to the second acquired language (L2 and the largest proportion of error type for those three participants in both L1 and L2 was omission. One of the four participants (linguistically balanced showed no between language accuracy difference. Regarding cognate overlap, there was a trend for higher accuracy for higher cognate words (compared to low. Discussion: This study showed that naming performance in these four individuals was reflective of their relative language proficiency and use patterns prior to their stroke. These findings are consistent with the hierarchical model, in normal bilingual speakers and with persons with bilingual aphasia.

Beneficial effect of bilingualism on Alzheimer's disease CSF biomarkers and cognition.

Science.gov (United States)

Estanga, Ainara; Ecay-Torres, Mirian; Ibañez, Almudena; Izagirre, Andrea; Villanua, Jorge; Garcia-Sebastian, Maite; Iglesias Gaspar, M Teresa; Otaegui-Arrazola, Ane; Iriondo, Ane; Clerigue, Monserrat; Martinez-Lage, Pablo

2017-02-01

Bilingualism as a component of cognitive reserve has been claimed to delay the onset of Alzheimer's disease (AD). However, its effect on cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) AD-biomarkers has not been investigated. We assessed cognitive performance and CSF AD-biomarkers, and potential moderation effect of bilingualism on the association between age, CSF AD-biomarkers, and cognition. Cognitively healthy middle-aged participants classified as monolinguals (n = 100, n CSF  = 59), early (n = 81, n CSF  = 55) and late bilinguals (n = 97, n CSF  = 52) were evaluated. Models adjusted for confounders showed that bilinguals performed better than monolinguals on digits backwards (early-bilinguals p = 0.003), Judgment of Line Orientation (JLO) (early-bilinguals p = 0.018; late-bilinguals p = 0.004), and Trail Making Test-B (late-bilinguals p = 0.047). Early bilingualism was associated with lower CSF total-tau (p = 0.019) and lower prevalence of preclinical AD (NIA-AA classification) (p = 0.02). Bilingualism showed a moderation effect on the relationship between age and CSF AD-biomarkers and the relationship between age and executive function. We conclude that bilingualism contributes to cognitive reserve enhancing executive and visual-spatial functions. For the first time, this study reveals that early bilingualism is associated with more favorable CSF AD-biomarker profile. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

MODULATION OF EVENT-RELATED POTENTIALS BY WORD REPETITION - THE ROLE OF VISUAL SELECTIVE ATTENTION

NARCIS (Netherlands)

OTTEN, LJ; RUGG, MD; DOYLE, MC

1993-01-01

Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded while subjects viewed visually presented words, some of which occurred twice. Each trial consisted of two colored letter strings, the requirement being to attend to and make a word/nonword discrimination for one of the strings. Attention was manipulated

Lexical and semantic representations of L2 cognate and noncognate words acquisition in children : evidence from two learning methods

OpenAIRE

Comesaña, Montserrat; Soares, Ana Paula; Sánchez-Casas, Rosa; Lima, Cátia

2012-01-01

How bilinguals represent words in two languages and which mechanisms are responsible for second language acquisition are important questions in the bilingual and vocabulary acquisition literature. This study aims to analyze the effect of two learning methods (picture-based vs. word-based method) and two types of words (cognates and noncognates) in early stages of children’s L2 acquisition. Forty-eight native speakers of European Portuguese, all sixth graders (mean age= 10.87 years; SD= 0....

Differential bilingual laterality: mythical monster found in Wales.

Science.gov (United States)

Evans, Judith; Workman, Lance; Mayer, Peter; Crowley, Kevin

2002-11-01

Paradis (1992) likens studies of bilingual laterality to reported sightings of the Loch Ness Monster, in that although some studies claim differential laterality much conflicting research evidence does not-and like the mythical Scottish monster, what reason have we to suspect that any such phenomenon might exist? This study reexamines differential bilingual laterality using four groups of English-Welsh bilinguals which differ in their age of acquisition and in their environment of acquisition. Using a split visual field paradigm we present evidence which, supports the notion of greater right hemisphere processing in a later learned language. Our findings also suggest the pattern of lateralization in bilinguals is strongly affected by the specific language environment during development such that the shift toward greater right hemisphere involvement for the later learned language will be more pronounced in individuals which are brought up in areas where that language is not regularly heard.

Visual Word Recognition in Deaf Readers: Lexicality Is Modulated by Communication Mode

Science.gov (United States)

Barca, Laura; Pezzulo, Giovanni; Castrataro, Marianna; Rinaldi, Pasquale; Caselli, Maria Cristina

2013-01-01

Evidence indicates that adequate phonological abilities are necessary to develop proficient reading skills and that later in life phonology also has a role in the covert visual word recognition of expert readers. Impairments of acoustic perception, such as deafness, can lead to atypical phonological representations of written words and letters, which in turn can affect reading proficiency. Here, we report an experiment in which young adults with different levels of acoustic perception (i.e., hearing and deaf individuals) and different modes of communication (i.e., hearing individuals using spoken language, deaf individuals with a preference for sign language, and deaf individuals using the oral modality with less or no competence in sign language) performed a visual lexical decision task, which consisted of categorizing real words and consonant strings. The lexicality effect was restricted to deaf signers who responded faster to real words than consonant strings, showing over-reliance on whole word lexical processing of stimuli. No effect of stimulus type was found in deaf individuals using the oral modality or in hearing individuals. Thus, mode of communication modulates the lexicality effect. This suggests that learning a sign language during development shapes visuo-motor representations of words, which are tuned to the actions used to express them (phono-articulatory movements vs. hand movements) and to associated perceptions. As these visuo-motor representations are elicited during on-line linguistic processing and can overlap with the perceptual-motor processes required to execute the task, they can potentially produce interference or facilitation effects. PMID:23554976

Visual word recognition in deaf readers: lexicality is modulated by communication mode.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Laura Barca

Full Text Available Evidence indicates that adequate phonological abilities are necessary to develop proficient reading skills and that later in life phonology also has a role in the covert visual word recognition of expert readers. Impairments of acoustic perception, such as deafness, can lead to atypical phonological representations of written words and letters, which in turn can affect reading proficiency. Here, we report an experiment in which young adults with different levels of acoustic perception (i.e., hearing and deaf individuals and different modes of communication (i.e., hearing individuals using spoken language, deaf individuals with a preference for sign language, and deaf individuals using the oral modality with less or no competence in sign language performed a visual lexical decision task, which consisted of categorizing real words and consonant strings. The lexicality effect was restricted to deaf signers who responded faster to real words than consonant strings, showing over-reliance on whole word lexical processing of stimuli. No effect of stimulus type was found in deaf individuals using the oral modality or in hearing individuals. Thus, mode of communication modulates the lexicality effect. This suggests that learning a sign language during development shapes visuo-motor representations of words, which are tuned to the actions used to express them (phono-articulatory movements vs. hand movements and to associated perceptions. As these visuo-motor representations are elicited during on-line linguistic processing and can overlap with the perceptual-motor processes required to execute the task, they can potentially produce interference or facilitation effects.

Visual word recognition in deaf readers: lexicality is modulated by communication mode.

Science.gov (United States)

Barca, Laura; Pezzulo, Giovanni; Castrataro, Marianna; Rinaldi, Pasquale; Caselli, Maria Cristina

2013-01-01

Evidence indicates that adequate phonological abilities are necessary to develop proficient reading skills and that later in life phonology also has a role in the covert visual word recognition of expert readers. Impairments of acoustic perception, such as deafness, can lead to atypical phonological representations of written words and letters, which in turn can affect reading proficiency. Here, we report an experiment in which young adults with different levels of acoustic perception (i.e., hearing and deaf individuals) and different modes of communication (i.e., hearing individuals using spoken language, deaf individuals with a preference for sign language, and deaf individuals using the oral modality with less or no competence in sign language) performed a visual lexical decision task, which consisted of categorizing real words and consonant strings. The lexicality effect was restricted to deaf signers who responded faster to real words than consonant strings, showing over-reliance on whole word lexical processing of stimuli. No effect of stimulus type was found in deaf individuals using the oral modality or in hearing individuals. Thus, mode of communication modulates the lexicality effect. This suggests that learning a sign language during development shapes visuo-motor representations of words, which are tuned to the actions used to express them (phono-articulatory movements vs. hand movements) and to associated perceptions. As these visuo-motor representations are elicited during on-line linguistic processing and can overlap with the perceptual-motor processes required to execute the task, they can potentially produce interference or facilitation effects.

Visual processing of words in a patient with visual form agnosia: a behavioural and fMRI study.

Science.gov (United States)

Cavina-Pratesi, Cristiana; Large, Mary-Ellen; Milner, A David

2015-03-01

Patient D.F. has a profound and enduring visual form agnosia due to a carbon monoxide poisoning episode suffered in 1988. Her inability to distinguish simple geometric shapes or single alphanumeric characters can be attributed to a bilateral loss of cortical area LO, a loss that has been well established through structural and functional fMRI. Yet despite this severe perceptual deficit, D.F. is able to "guess" remarkably well the identity of whole words. This paradoxical finding, which we were able to replicate more than 20 years following her initial testing, raises the question as to whether D.F. has retained specialized brain circuitry for word recognition that is able to function to some degree without the benefit of inputs from area LO. We used fMRI to investigate this, and found regions in the left fusiform gyrus, left inferior frontal gyrus, and left middle temporal cortex that responded selectively to words. A group of healthy control subjects showed similar activations. The left fusiform activations appear to coincide with the area commonly named the visual word form area (VWFA) in studies of healthy individuals, and appear to be quite separate from the fusiform face area (FFA). We hypothesize that there is a route to this area that lies outside area LO, and which remains relatively unscathed in D.F. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Processing advantage for emotional words in bilingual speakers.

Science.gov (United States)

Ponari, Marta; Rodríguez-Cuadrado, Sara; Vinson, David; Fox, Neil; Costa, Albert; Vigliocco, Gabriella

2015-10-01

Effects of emotion on word processing are well established in monolingual speakers. However, studies that have assessed whether affective features of words undergo the same processing in a native and nonnative language have provided mixed results: Studies that have found differences between native language (L1) and second language (L2) processing attributed the difference to the fact that L2 learned late in life would not be processed affectively, because affective associations are established during childhood. Other studies suggest that adult learners show similar effects of emotional features in L1 and L2. Differences in affective processing of L2 words can be linked to age and context of learning, proficiency, language dominance, and degree of similarity between L2 and L1. Here, in a lexical decision task on tightly matched negative, positive, and neutral words, highly proficient English speakers from typologically different L1s showed the same facilitation in processing emotionally valenced words as native English speakers, regardless of their L1, the age of English acquisition, or the frequency and context of English use. (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).

Impact of the linguistic environment on speech perception : comparing bilingual and monolingual populations

OpenAIRE

Roessler, Abeba, 1981-

2012-01-01

The present dissertation set out to investigate how the linguistic environment affects speech perception. Three sets of studies have explored effects of bilingualism on word recognition in adults and infants and the impact of first language linguistic knowledge on rule learning in adults. In the present work, we have found evidence in three auditory priming studies that bilingual adults, in contrast to monolinguals have developed mechanisms to effectively overcome interference from irrelevant...

Reading English with Japanese in mind: Effects of frequency, phonology, and meaning in different-script bilinguals

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Miwa, K.; Dijkstra, A.F.J.; Bolger, P.; Baayen, R.H.

2014-01-01

Previous priming studies suggest that, even for bilinguals of languages with different scripts, non-selective lexical activation arises. This lexical decision eye-tracking study examined contributions of frequency, phonology, and meaning of L1 Japanese words on L2 English word lexical decision

Conceptual representation of verbs in bilinguals: semantic field effects and a second-language performance paradox.

Science.gov (United States)

Segalowitz, Norman; de Almeida, Roberto G

2002-01-01

It is well known that bilinguals perform better in their first language (L1) than in their second lanaguage (L2) in a wide range of linguistic tasks. In recent studies, however, the authors have found that bilingual participants can demonstrate faster response times to L1 stimuli than to L2 stimuli in one classification task and the reverse in a different classification task. In the current study, they investigated the reasons for this "L2-better-than-L1" effect. English-French bilinguals performed one word relatedness and two categorization tasks with verbs of motion (e.g., run) and psychological verbs (e.g., admire) in both languages. In the word relatedness task, participants judged how closely related pairs of verbs from both categories were. In a speeded semantic categorization task, participants classified the verbs according to their semantic category (psychological or motion). In an arbitrary classification task, participants had to learn how verbs had been assigned to two arbitrary categories. Participants performed better in L1 in the semantic classification task but paradoxically better in L2 in the arbitrary classification task. To account for these effects, the authors used the ratings from the word relatedness task to plot three-dimensional "semantic fields" for the verbs. Cross-language field differences were found to be significantly related to the paradoxical performance and to fluency levels. The results have implications for understanding of how bilinguals represent verbs in the mental lexicon. Copyright 2002 Elsevier Science (USA).

Tracking the emergence of the consonant bias in visual-word recognition: evidence with developing readers.

Science.gov (United States)

Soares, Ana Paula; Perea, Manuel; Comesaña, Montserrat

2014-01-01

Recent research with skilled adult readers has consistently revealed an advantage of consonants over vowels in visual-word recognition (i.e., the so-called "consonant bias"). Nevertheless, little is known about how early in development the consonant bias emerges. This work aims to address this issue by studying the relative contribution of consonants and vowels at the early stages of visual-word recognition in developing readers (2(nd) and 4(th) Grade children) and skilled adult readers (college students) using a masked priming lexical decision task. Target words starting either with a consonant or a vowel were preceded by a briefly presented masked prime (50 ms) that could be the same as the target (e.g., pirata-PIRATA [pirate-PIRATE]), a consonant-preserving prime (e.g., pureto-PIRATA), a vowel-preserving prime (e.g., gicala-PIRATA), or an unrelated prime (e.g., bocelo -PIRATA). Results revealed significant priming effects for the identity and consonant-preserving conditions in adult readers and 4(th) Grade children, whereas 2(nd) graders only showed priming for the identity condition. In adult readers, the advantage of consonants was observed both for words starting with a consonant or a vowel, while in 4(th) graders this advantage was restricted to words with an initial consonant. Thus, the present findings suggest that a Consonant/Vowel skeleton should be included in future (developmental) models of visual-word recognition and reading.

Electrophysiological explorations of the bilingual advantage: evidence from a Stroop task.

Science.gov (United States)

Coderre, Emily L; van Heuven, Walter J B

2014-01-01

Bilinguals have been shown to exhibit a performance advantage on executive control tasks, outperforming their monolingual counterparts. Although a wealth of research has investigated this 'bilingual advantage' behaviourally, electrophysiological correlates are lacking. Using EEG with a Stroop task that manipulated the stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) of word and colour presentation, the current study addressed two facets of the bilingual advantage. The possibility that bilinguals experience superior conflict processing relative to monolinguals (a 'conflict-specific advantage') was investigated by comparing behavioural interference effects as well as the amplitude of the Ninc, a conflict-related ERP component occurring from approximately 300-500 ms after the onset of conflict. In contrast, the hypothesis that bilinguals experience domain-general, conflict-independent enhancements in executive processing (a 'non-conflict-specific advantage') was evaluated by comparing the control condition (symbol strings) between groups. There was some significant, but inconsistent, evidence for a conflict-specific bilingual advantage. In contrast, strong evidence emerged for a non-conflict-specific advantage, with bilinguals demonstrating faster RTs and reduced ERP amplitudes on control trials compared to monolinguals. Importantly, when the control stimulus was presented before the colour, ERPs to control trials revealed group differences before the onset of conflict, suggesting differences in the ability to ignore or suppress distracting irrelevant information. This indicates that bilinguals experience superior executive processing even in the absence of conflict and semantic salience, and suggests that the advantage extends to more efficient proactive management of the environment.

Electrophysiological explorations of the bilingual advantage: evidence from a Stroop task.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Emily L Coderre

Full Text Available Bilinguals have been shown to exhibit a performance advantage on executive control tasks, outperforming their monolingual counterparts. Although a wealth of research has investigated this 'bilingual advantage' behaviourally, electrophysiological correlates are lacking. Using EEG with a Stroop task that manipulated the stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA of word and colour presentation, the current study addressed two facets of the bilingual advantage. The possibility that bilinguals experience superior conflict processing relative to monolinguals (a 'conflict-specific advantage' was investigated by comparing behavioural interference effects as well as the amplitude of the Ninc, a conflict-related ERP component occurring from approximately 300-500 ms after the onset of conflict. In contrast, the hypothesis that bilinguals experience domain-general, conflict-independent enhancements in executive processing (a 'non-conflict-specific advantage' was evaluated by comparing the control condition (symbol strings between groups. There was some significant, but inconsistent, evidence for a conflict-specific bilingual advantage. In contrast, strong evidence emerged for a non-conflict-specific advantage, with bilinguals demonstrating faster RTs and reduced ERP amplitudes on control trials compared to monolinguals. Importantly, when the control stimulus was presented before the colour, ERPs to control trials revealed group differences before the onset of conflict, suggesting differences in the ability to ignore or suppress distracting irrelevant information. This indicates that bilinguals experience superior executive processing even in the absence of conflict and semantic salience, and suggests that the advantage extends to more efficient proactive management of the environment.

Lexical diversity and omission errors as predictors of language ability in the narratives of sequential Spanish-English bilinguals: a cross-language comparison.

Science.gov (United States)

Jacobson, Peggy F; Walden, Patrick R

2013-08-01

This study explored the utility of language sample analysis for evaluating language ability in school-age Spanish-English sequential bilingual children. Specifically, the relative potential of lexical diversity and word/morpheme omission as predictors of typical or atypical language status was evaluated. Narrative samples were obtained from 48 bilingual children in both of their languages using the suggested narrative retell protocol and coding conventions as per Systematic Analysis of Language Transcripts (SALT; Miller & Iglesias, 2008) software. An additional lexical diversity measure, VocD, was also calculated. A series of logistical hierarchical regressions explored the utility of the number of different words, VocD statistic, and word and morpheme omissions in each language for predicting language status. Omission errors turned out to be the best predictors of bilingual language impairment at all ages, and this held true across languages. Although lexical diversity measures did not predict typical or atypical language status, the measures were significantly related to oral language proficiency in English and Spanish. The results underscore the significance of omission errors in bilingual language impairment while simultaneously revealing the limitations of lexical diversity measures as indicators of impairment. The relationship between lexical diversity and oral language proficiency highlights the importance of considering relative language proficiency in bilingual assessment.

The effects of bilingual language proficiency on recall accuracy and semantic clustering in free recall output: evidence for shared semantic associations across languages.

Science.gov (United States)

Francis, Wendy S; Taylor, Randolph S; Gutiérrez, Marisela; Liaño, Mary K; Manzanera, Diana G; Penalver, Renee M

2018-05-19

Two experiments investigated how well bilinguals utilise long-standing semantic associations to encode and retrieve semantic clusters in verbal episodic memory. In Experiment 1, Spanish-English bilinguals (N = 128) studied and recalled word and picture sets. Word recall was equivalent in L1 and L2, picture recall was better in L1 than in L2, and the picture superiority effect was stronger in L1 than in L2. Semantic clustering in word and picture recall was equivalent in L1 and L2. In Experiment 2, Spanish-English bilinguals (N = 128) and English-speaking monolinguals (N = 128) studied and recalled word sequences that contained semantically related pairs. Data were analyzed using a multinomial processing tree approach, the pair-clustering model. Cluster formation was more likely for semantically organised than for randomly ordered word sequences. Probabilities of cluster formation, cluster retrieval, and retrieval of unclustered items did not differ across languages or language groups. Language proficiency has little if any impact on the utilisation of long-standing semantic associations, which are language-general.

L2-L1 Translation Priming Effects in a Lexical Decision Task: Evidence From Low Proficient Korean-English Bilinguals

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yoonhyoung Lee

2018-03-01

Full Text Available One of the key issues in bilingual lexical representation is whether L1 processing is facilitated by L2 words. In this study, we conducted two experiments using the masked priming paradigm to examine how L2-L1 translation priming effects emerge when unbalanced, low proficiency, Korean-English bilinguals performed a lexical decision task. In Experiment 1, we used a 150 ms SOA (50 ms prime duration followed by a blank interval of 100 ms and found a significant L2-L1 translation priming effect. In contrast, in Experiment 2, we used a 60 ms SOA (50 ms prime duration followed by a blank interval of 10 ms and found a null effect of L2-L1 translation priming. This finding is the first demonstration of a significant L2-L1 translation priming effect with unbalanced Korean-English bilinguals. Implications of this work are discussed with regard to bilingual word recognition models.

Neural Correlates of Task-Irrelevant First and Second Language Emotion Words — Evidence from the Face-Word Stroop Task

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Lin Fan

2016-11-01

Full Text Available Emotionally valenced words have thus far not been empirically examined in a bilingual population with the emotional face-word Stroop paradigm. Chinese-English bilinguals were asked to identify the facial expressions of emotion with their first (L1 or second (L2 language task-irrelevant emotion words superimposed on the face pictures. We attempted to examine how the emotional content of words modulates behavioral performance and cerebral functioning in the bilinguals’ two languages. The results indicated that there were significant congruency effects for both L1 and L2 emotion words, and that identifiable differences in the magnitude of Stroop effect between the two languages were also observed, suggesting L1 is more capable of activating the emotional response to word stimuli. For event-related potentials (ERPs data, an N350-550 effect was observed only in L1 task with greater negativity for incongruent than congruent trials. The size of N350-550 effect differed across languages, whereas no identifiable language distinction was observed in the effect of conflict slow potential (conflict SP. Finally, more pronounced negative amplitude at 230-330 ms was observed in L1 than in L2, but only for incongruent trials. This negativity, likened to an orthographic decoding N250, may reflect the extent of attention to emotion word processing at word-form level, while N350-550 reflects a complicated set of processes in the conflict processing. Overall, the face-word congruency effect has reflected identifiable language distinction at 230-330 and 350-550 ms, which provides supporting evidence for the theoretical proposals assuming attenuated emotionality of L2 processing.

The Embroidered Word: A Stitchery Overview for Visual Arts Education

Science.gov (United States)

Julian, June

2012-01-01

This historical research provides an examination of the embroidered word as a visual art piece, from early traditional examples to contemporary forms. It is intended to encourage appreciation of embroidery as an art form and to stimulate discussion about the role of historical contexts in the studio education of artists at the university level.…

Visual Similarity of Words Alone Can Modulate Hemispheric Lateralization in Visual Word Recognition: Evidence From Modeling Chinese Character Recognition.

Science.gov (United States)

Hsiao, Janet H; Cheung, Kit

2016-03-01

In Chinese orthography, the most common character structure consists of a semantic radical on the left and a phonetic radical on the right (SP characters); the minority, opposite arrangement also exists (PS characters). Recent studies showed that SP character processing is more left hemisphere (LH) lateralized than PS character processing. Nevertheless, it remains unclear whether this is due to phonetic radical position or character type frequency. Through computational modeling with artificial lexicons, in which we implement a theory of hemispheric asymmetry in perception but do not assume phonological processing being LH lateralized, we show that the difference in character type frequency alone is sufficient to exhibit the effect that the dominant type has a stronger LH lateralization than the minority type. This effect is due to higher visual similarity among characters in the dominant type than the minority type, demonstrating the modulation of visual similarity of words on hemispheric lateralization. Copyright © 2015 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

Sizing up the competition: quantifying the influence of the mental lexicon on auditory and visual spoken word recognition.

Science.gov (United States)

Strand, Julia F; Sommers, Mitchell S

2011-09-01

Much research has explored how spoken word recognition is influenced by the architecture and dynamics of the mental lexicon (e.g., Luce and Pisoni, 1998; McClelland and Elman, 1986). A more recent question is whether the processes underlying word recognition are unique to the auditory domain, or whether visually perceived (lipread) speech may also be sensitive to the structure of the mental lexicon (Auer, 2002; Mattys, Bernstein, and Auer, 2002). The current research was designed to test the hypothesis that both aurally and visually perceived spoken words are isolated in the mental lexicon as a function of their modality-specific perceptual similarity to other words. Lexical competition (the extent to which perceptually similar words influence recognition of a stimulus word) was quantified using metrics that are well-established in the literature, as well as a statistical method for calculating perceptual confusability based on the phi-square statistic. Both auditory and visual spoken word recognition were influenced by modality-specific lexical competition as well as stimulus word frequency. These findings extend the scope of activation-competition models of spoken word recognition and reinforce the hypothesis (Auer, 2002; Mattys et al., 2002) that perceptual and cognitive properties underlying spoken word recognition are not specific to the auditory domain. In addition, the results support the use of the phi-square statistic as a better predictor of lexical competition than metrics currently used in models of spoken word recognition. © 2011 Acoustical Society of America

Examining the direct and indirect effects of visual-verbal paired associate learning on Chinese word reading.

Science.gov (United States)

Georgiou, George; Liu, Cuina; Xu, Shiyang

2017-08-01

Associative learning, traditionally measured with paired associate learning (PAL) tasks, has been found to predict reading ability in several languages. However, it remains unclear whether it also predicts word reading in Chinese, which is known for its ambiguous print-sound correspondences, and whether its effects are direct or indirect through the effects of other reading-related skills such as phonological awareness and rapid naming. Thus, the purpose of this study was to examine the direct and indirect effects of visual-verbal PAL on word reading in an unselected sample of Chinese children followed from the second to the third kindergarten year. A sample of 141 second-year kindergarten children (71 girls and 70 boys; mean age=58.99months, SD=3.17) were followed for a year and were assessed at both times on measures of visual-verbal PAL, rapid naming, and phonological awareness. In the third kindergarten year, they were also assessed on word reading. The results of path analysis showed that visual-verbal PAL exerted a significant direct effect on word reading that was independent of the effects of phonological awareness and rapid naming. However, it also exerted significant indirect effects through phonological awareness. Taken together, these findings suggest that variations in cross-modal associative learning (as measured by visual-verbal PAL) place constraints on the development of word recognition skills irrespective of the characteristics of the orthography children are learning to read. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Differences in the Association between Segment and Language: Early Bilinguals Pattern with Monolinguals and Are Less Accurate than Late Bilinguals

Science.gov (United States)

Blanco, Cynthia P.; Bannard, Colin; Smiljanic, Rajka

2016-01-01

Early bilinguals often show as much sensitivity to L2-specific contrasts as monolingual speakers of the L2, but most work on cross-language speech perception has focused on isolated segments, and typically only on neighboring vowels or stop contrasts. In tasks that include sounds in context, listeners’ success is more variable, so segment discrimination in isolation may not adequately represent the phonetic detail in stored representations. The current study explores the relationship between language experience and sensitivity to segmental cues in context by comparing the categorization patterns of monolingual English listeners and early and late Spanish–English bilinguals. Participants categorized nonce words containing different classes of English- and Spanish-specific sounds as being more English-like or more Spanish-like; target segments included phonemic cues, cues for which there is no analogous sound in the other language, or phonetic cues, cues for which English and Spanish share the category but for which each language varies in its phonetic implementation. Listeners’ language categorization accuracy and reaction times were analyzed. Our results reveal a largely uniform categorization pattern across listener groups: Spanish cues were categorized more accurately than English cues, and phonemic cues were easier for listeners to categorize than phonetic cues. There were no differences in the sensitivity of monolinguals and early bilinguals to language-specific cues, suggesting that the early bilinguals’ exposure to Spanish did not fundamentally change their representations of English phonology. However, neither did the early bilinguals show more sensitivity than the monolinguals to Spanish sounds. The late bilinguals however, were significantly more accurate than either of the other groups. These findings indicate that listeners with varying exposure to English and Spanish are able to use language-specific cues in a nonce-word language categorization

Walk-related mimic word activates the extrastriate visual cortex in the human brain: an fMRI study.

Science.gov (United States)

Osaka, Naoyuki

2009-03-02

I present an fMRI study demonstrating that a mimic word highly suggestive of human walking, heard by the ear with eyes closed, significantly activates the visual cortex located in extrastriate occipital region (BA19, 18) and superior temporal sulcus (STS) while hearing non-sense words that do not imply walk under the same task does not activate these areas in humans. I concluded that BA19 and 18 would be a critical region for generating visual images of walking and related intentional stance, respectively, evoked by an onomatopoeia word that implied walking.

Developmental change in tone perception in Mandarin monolingual, English monolingual, and Mandarin-English bilingual infants: Divergences between monolingual and bilingual learners.

Science.gov (United States)

Singh, Leher; Fu, Charlene S L; Seet, Xian Hui; Tong, Ashley P Y; Wang, Joelle L; Best, Catherine T

2018-09-01

Most languages use lexical tone to discriminate the meanings of words. There has been recent interest in tracking the development of tone categories during infancy. These studies have focused largely on monolingual infants learning either a tone language or a non-tone language. It remains to be seen how bilingual infants learning one tone language (e.g., Mandarin) and one non-tone language (e.g., English) discriminate tones. Here, we examined infants' discrimination of two Mandarin tones pairs: one salient and one subtle. Discrimination was investigated in three groups: Mandarin-English bilinguals, English monolinguals, and Mandarin monolinguals at 6 months and 9 months of age in a cross-sectional design. Results demonstrated relatively strong Mandarin tone discrimination in Mandarin monolinguals, with salient tone discrimination at 6 months and both salient and subtle tone discrimination at 9 months. English monolinguals discriminated neither contrast at 6 months but discriminated the salient contrast at 9 months. Surprisingly, there was no evidence for tone discrimination in Mandarin-English bilingual infants. In a second experiment, 12- and 13-month-old Mandarin-English bilingual and English monolingual infants were tested to determine whether bilinguals would demonstrate tone sensitivity at a later age. Results revealed a lack of tone sensitivity at 12 or 13 months in bilingual infants, yet English monolingual infants were sensitive to both salient and subtle Mandarin tone contrasts at 12 or 13 months. Our findings provide evidence for age-related convergence in Mandarin tone discrimination in English and Mandarin monolingual infants and for a distinct pattern of tone discrimination in bilingual infants. Theoretical implications for phonetic category acquisition are discussed. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Processing of visual semantic information to concrete words: temporal dynamics and neural mechanisms indicated by event-related brain potentials( ).

Science.gov (United States)

van Schie, Hein T; Wijers, Albertus A; Mars, Rogier B; Benjamins, Jeroen S; Stowe, Laurie A

2005-05-01

Event-related brain potentials were used to study the retrieval of visual semantic information to concrete words, and to investigate possible structural overlap between visual object working memory and concreteness effects in word processing. Subjects performed an object working memory task that involved 5 s retention of simple 4-angled polygons (load 1), complex 10-angled polygons (load 2), and a no-load baseline condition. During the polygon retention interval subjects were presented with a lexical decision task to auditory presented concrete (imageable) and abstract (nonimageable) words, and pseudowords. ERP results are consistent with the use of object working memory for the visualisation of concrete words. Our data indicate a two-step processing model of visual semantics in which visual descriptive information of concrete words is first encoded in semantic memory (indicated by an anterior N400 and posterior occipital positivity), and is subsequently visualised via the network for object working memory (reflected by a left frontal positive slow wave and a bilateral occipital slow wave negativity). Results are discussed in the light of contemporary models of semantic memory.

Age of Bilingual Exposure Is Related to the Contribution of Phonological and Semantic Knowledge to Successful Reading Development.

Science.gov (United States)

Jasińska, Kaja K; Petitto, Laura-Ann

2018-01-01

Bilingual children's reading as a function of age of first bilingual language exposure (AoE) was examined. Bilingual (varied AoE) and monolingual children (N = 421) were compared in their English language and reading abilities (6-10 years) using phonological awareness, semantic knowledge, and reading tasks. Structural equation modeling was applied to determine how bilingual AoE predicts reading outcomes. Early exposed bilinguals outperformed monolinguals on phonological awareness and word reading. Phonology and semantic (vocabulary) knowledge differentially predicted reading depending on the bilingual experience and AoE. Understanding how bilingual experiences impact phonological awareness and semantic knowledge, and in turn, impact reading outcomes is relevant for our understanding of what language and reading skills are best to focus on, and when, to promote optimal reading success. © 2017 The Authors. Child Development © 2017 Society for Research in Child Development, Inc.

Don't words come easy? A psychophysical exploration of word superiority

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Starrfelt, Randi; Petersen, Anders; Vangkilde, Signe Allerup

2013-01-01

Words are made of letters, and yet sometimes it is easier to identify a word than a single letter. This word superiority effect (WSE) has been observed when written stimuli are presented very briefly or degraded by visual noise. We compare performance with letters and words in three experiments, ...... and visual short term memory capacity. So, even if single words come easy, there is a limit to the word superiority effect....

On the Functional Neuroanatomy of Visual Word Processing: Effects of Case and Letter Deviance

Science.gov (United States)

Kronbichler, Martin; Klackl, Johannes; Richlan, Fabio; Schurz, Matthias; Staffen, Wolfgang; Ladurner, Gunther; Wimmer, Heinz

2009-01-01

This functional magnetic resonance imaging study contrasted case-deviant and letter-deviant forms with familiar forms of the same phonological words (e.g., "TaXi" and "Taksi" vs. "Taxi") and found that both types of deviance led to increased activation in a left occipito-temporal region, corresponding to the visual word form area (VWFA). The…

Processing of visual semantic information to concrete words : temporal dynamics and neural mechanisms indicated by event-related brain potentials

NARCIS (Netherlands)

van Schie, Hein T.; Wijers, Albertus A.; Mars, Rogier B.; Benjamins, Jeroen S.; Stowe, Laurie A.

2005-01-01

Event-related brain potentials were used to study the retrieval of visual semantic information to concrete words, and to investigate possible structural overlap between visual object working memory and concreteness effects in word processing. Subjects performed an object working memory task that

Processing of visual semantic information to concrete words: temporal dynamics and neural mechanisms indicated by event-related brain potentials

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Schie, H.T. van; Wijers, A.A.; Mars, R.B.; Benjamins, J.S.; Stowe, L.A.

2005-01-01

Event-related brain potentials were used to study the retrieval of visual semantic information to concrete words, and to investigate possible structural overlap between visual object working memory and concreteness effects in word processing. Subjects performed an object working memory task that

Enhanced music sensitivity in 9-month-old bilingual infants.

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, Liquan; Kager, René

2017-02-01

This study explores the influence of bilingualism on the cognitive processing of language and music. Specifically, we investigate how infants learning a non-tone language perceive linguistic and musical pitch and how bilingualism affects cross-domain pitch perception. Dutch monolingual and bilingual infants of 8-9 months participated in the study. All infants had Dutch as one of the first languages. The other first languages, varying among bilingual families, were not tone or pitch accent languages. In two experiments, infants were tested on the discrimination of a lexical (N = 42) or a violin (N = 48) pitch contrast via a visual habituation paradigm. The two contrasts shared identical pitch contours but differed in timbre. Non-tone language learning infants did not discriminate the lexical contrast regardless of their ambient language environment. When perceiving the violin contrast, bilingual but not monolingual infants demonstrated robust discrimination. We attribute bilingual infants' heightened sensitivity in the musical domain to the enhanced acoustic sensitivity stemming from a bilingual environment. The distinct perceptual patterns between language and music and the influence of acoustic salience on perception suggest processing diversion and association in the first year of life. Results indicate that the perception of music may entail both shared neural network with language processing, and unique neural network that is distinct from other cognitive functions.

Does Top-Down Feedback Modulate the Encoding of Orthographic Representations During Visual-Word Recognition?

Science.gov (United States)

Perea, Manuel; Marcet, Ana; Vergara-Martínez, Marta

2016-09-01

In masked priming lexical decision experiments, there is a matched-case identity advantage for nonwords, but not for words (e.g., ERTAR-ERTAR words when top-down feedback is minimized. We employed a task that taps prelexical orthographic processes: the masked prime same-different task. For "same" trials, results showed faster response times for targets when preceded by a briefly presented matched-case identity prime than when preceded by a mismatched-case identity prime. Importantly, this advantage was similar in magnitude for nonwords and words. This finding constrains the interplay of bottom-up versus top-down mechanisms in models of visual-word identification.

The impact of late, non-balanced bilingualism on cognitive performance.

Science.gov (United States)

Vega-Mendoza, Mariana; West, Holly; Sorace, Antonella; Bak, Thomas H

2015-04-01

We present a study examining cognitive functions in late non-balanced bilinguals with different levels of second language proficiency. We examined in two experiments a total of 193 mono- and bilingual university students. We assessed different aspects of attention (sustained, selective and attentional switching), verbal fluency (letter and category) as well as picture-word association as a measure of language proficiency. In Experiment 2 we also compared students in their first/initial (Y1) and fourth/final (Y4) year of either language or literature studies. There were no differences between both groups in category fluency. In selective attention, bilinguals outperformed monolinguals in Y1 and this difference remained significant in Y4 despite overall improvement in both groups. Contrasting results were found in attentional switching and letter fluency: while no differences were found in Y1 in both tasks, in Y4 there was an advantage for bilinguals in attentional switching and for monolinguals in letter fluency. We conclude that overall late-acquisition non-balanced bilinguals experience similar cognitive effects as their early-acquisition balanced counterparts. However, different cognitive effects may appear at different stages of adult second language acquisition. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Caregiver talk to young Spanish-English bilinguals: Comparing direct observation and parent-report measures of dual-language exposure

Science.gov (United States)

Marchman, Virginia A.; Martínez, Lucía Z.; Hurtado, Nereyda; Grüter, Theres; Fernald, Anne

2016-01-01

In research on language development by bilingual children, the early language environment is commonly characterized in terms of the relative amount of exposure a child gets to each language based on parent report. Little is known about how absolute measures of child-directed speech in two languages relate to language growth. In this study of 3-year-old Spanish-English bilinguals (n = 18), traditional parent-report estimates of exposure were compared to measures of the number of Spanish and English words children heard during naturalistic audio recordings. While the two estimates were moderately correlated, observed numbers of child-directed words were more consistently predictive of children's processing speed and standardized test performance, even when controlling for reported proportion of exposure. These findings highlight the importance of caregiver engagement in bilingual children's language outcomes in both of the languages they are learning. PMID:27197746

Spelling pronunciation and visual preview both facilitate learning to spell irregular words.

Science.gov (United States)

Hilte, Maartje; Reitsma, Pieter

2006-12-01

Spelling pronunciations are hypothesized to be helpful in building up relatively stable phonologically underpinned orthographic representations, particularly for learning words with irregular phoneme-grapheme correspondences. In a four-week computer-based training, the efficacy of spelling pronunciations and previewing the spelling patterns on learning to spell loan words in Dutch, originating from French and English, was examined in skilled and less skilled spellers with varying ages. Reading skills were taken into account. Overall, compared to normal pronunciation, spelling pronunciation facilitated the learning of the correct spelling of irregular words, but it appeared to be no more effective than previewing. Differences between training conditions appeared to fade with older spellers. Less skilled young spellers seemed to profit more from visual examination of the word as compared to practice with spelling pronunciations. The findings appear to indicate that spelling pronunciation and allowing a preview can both be effective ways to learn correct spellings of orthographically unpredictable words, irrespective of age or spelling ability.

Crosslinguistic Transfer in the Acquisition of Compound Words in Persian-English Bilinguals

Science.gov (United States)

Foroodi-Nejad, Farzaneh; Paradis, Johanne

2009-01-01

Crosslinguistic transfer in bilingual language acquisition has been widely reported in various linguistic domains (e.g., Dopke, 1998; Nicoladis, 1999; Paradis, 2001). In this study we examined structural overlap (Dopke, 2000; Muller and Hulk, 2001) and dominance (Yip and Matthews, 2000) as explanatory factors for crosslinguistic transfer in…

Speech perception and vocabulary growth: A longitudinal study of Finnish-Russian bilinguals and Finnish monolinguals from infancy to three years

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Silvén, M.; Voeten, M.J.M.; Kouvo, A.M.; Lundén, M.

2014-01-01

Growth modeling was applied to monolingual (N = 26) and bilingual (N = 28) word learning from 14 to 36 months. Level and growth rate of vocabulary were lower for Finnish-Russian bilinguals than for Finnish monolinguals. Processing of Finnish speech sounds at 7 but not at 11 months predicted level,

"LITTLE TRAGEDIES": THE POLYPHONY OF MUSIC, WORDS AND VISUAL IMAGERY

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nikolaeva Julia E.

2015-01-01

Full Text Available The music for three-part television movie Little Tragedies (1979 on Pushkin’s literature works (directed by M.Schweitzer, music composed by A.Schnittke has been investigated. The trinity of music, poetic words and visual imagery, and their amazing consistency and reciprocal functioning has been considered in aspect of polyphony as the universal logical principle of building an art form. All the music of the TV movie grows out of two leitmotifs. And theirs varied implementation in the film is exemplified on examples of polyphonic analysis (music/words/images of fragments from the four main film sections, such as "Scene from Faust", "Mozart and Salieri", "The Covetous Knight", and "A Feast in Time of Plague".

Unconscious Cross-Modal Priming of Auditory Sound Localization by Visual Words

Science.gov (United States)

Ansorge, Ulrich; Khalid, Shah; Laback, Bernhard

2016-01-01

Little is known about the cross-modal integration of unconscious and conscious information. In the current study, we therefore tested whether the spatial meaning of an unconscious visual word, such as "up", influences the perceived location of a subsequently presented auditory target. Although cross-modal integration of unconscious…

The role of syllabic structure in French visual word recognition.

Science.gov (United States)

Rouibah, A; Taft, M

2001-03-01

Two experiments are reported in which the processing units involved in the reading of French polysyllabic words are examined. A comparison was made between units following the maximal onset principle (i.e., the spoken syllable) and units following the maximal coda principle (i.e., the basic orthographic syllabic structure [BOSS]). In the first experiment, it took longer to recognize that a syllable was the beginning of a word (e.g., the FOE of FOETUS) than to make the same judgment of a BOSS (e.g., FOET). The fact that a BOSS plus one letter (e.g., FOETU) also took longer to judge than the BOSS indicated that the maximal coda principle applies to the units of processing in French. The second experiment confirmed this, using a lexical decision task with the different units being demarcated on the basis of color. It was concluded that the syllabic structure that is so clearly manifested in the spoken form of French is not involved in visual word recognition.

Explaining first graders’ achievements in spelling and word separation in shallow orthographies

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Liliana Tolchinsky

2015-02-01

Full Text Available We examine the explanatory weight of child-related and contextual factors on first graders’ achievements in spelling and separation between words. The participants were 215 kindergartners, 113 boys and 102 girls (M = 5 years 4 months, SD = 4 months from both monolingual and bilingual communities in Spain. They were native speakers of Spanish in the monolingual communities and bilingual Spanish/Catalan or Spanish/Basque speakers in the bilingual communities and had Catalan and Basque, respectively, as the language of instruction. The three languages have shallow orthographies. Children were first examined in kindergarten in a number of literacy related abilities (e.g., knowledge of letters, writing to detect predictors of spelling and separation between words that were, in turn, evaluated at the end of first grade of elementary school. All the participants were assessed in their language of instruction. The best explanatory models were those including interactions among child-level factors and between these factors and contextual variables. Only knowledge of writing in kindergarten appeared as the common explanatory factor for first graders’ attainments. Attainments in spelling were predicted by children’s level of literacy and knowledge of letters moderated by parent’s education; performance in word separation was predicted by phonological awareness and vocabulary knowledge moderated by parental education. Teaching practices affected spelling performance but not learning to separate between words.

Phoneme Awareness, Vocabulary and Word Decoding in Monolingual and Bilingual Dutch Children

Science.gov (United States)

Janssen, Marije; Bosman, Anna M. T.; Leseman, Paul P. M.

2013-01-01

The aim of this study was to investigate whether bilingually raised children in the Netherlands, who receive literacy instruction in their second language only, show an advantage on Dutch phoneme-awareness tasks compared with monolingual Dutch-speaking children. Language performance of a group of 47 immigrant first-grade children with various…

Measuring, Predicting and Visualizing Short-Term Change in Word Representation and Usage in VKontakte Social Network

OpenAIRE

Stewart, Ian; Arendt, Dustin; Bell, Eric; Volkova, Svitlana

2017-01-01

Language in social media is extremely dynamic: new words emerge, trend and disappear, while the meaning of existing words can fluctuate over time. Such dynamics are especially notable during a period of crisis. This work addresses several important tasks of measuring, visualizing and predicting short term text representation shift, i.e. the change in a word's contextual semantics, and contrasting such shift with surface level word dynamics, or concept drift, observed in social media streams. ...

The Role of Emergent Bilingualism in the Development of Morphological Awareness in Arabic and Hebrew.

Science.gov (United States)

Schwartz, Mila; Taha, Haitham; Assad, Hanan; Khamaisi, Ferdos; Eviatar, Zohar

2016-08-01

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the role of dual language development and cross-linguistic influence on morphological awareness in young bilinguals' first language (L1) and second language (L2). We examined whether (a) the bilingual children (L1/L2 Arabic and L1/L2 Hebrew) precede their monolingual Hebrew- or Arabic-speaking peers in L1 and L2 morphological awareness, and (b) 1 Semitic language (Arabic) has cross-linguistic influence on another Semitic language (Hebrew) in morphological awareness. The study sample comprised 93 six-year-old children. The bilinguals had attended bilingual Hebrew-Arabic kindergartens for 1 academic year and were divided into 2 groups: home language Hebrew (L1) and home language Arabic (L1). These groups were compared to age-matched monolingual Hebrew speakers and monolingual Arabic speakers. We used nonwords similar in structure to familiar words in both target languages, representing 6 inflectional morphological categories. L1 Arabic and L1 Hebrew bilinguals performed significantly better than Arabic- and Hebrew-speaking monolinguals in the respective languages. Differences were not found between the bilingual groups. We found evidence of cross-linguistic transfer of morphological awareness from Arabic to Hebrew in 2 categories-bound possessives and dual number-probably because these categories are more salient in Palestinian Spoken Arabic than in Hebrew. We conclude that children with even an initial exposure to L2 reveal acceleration of sensitivity to word structure in both of their languages. We suggest that this is due to the fact that two Semitic languages, Arabic and Hebrew, share a common core of linguistic features, together with favorable contextual factors and instructional factors.

Visual determinants of reduced performance on the Stroop color-word test in normal aging individuals.

Science.gov (United States)

van Boxtel, M P; ten Tusscher, M P; Metsemakers, J F; Willems, B; Jolles, J

2001-10-01

It is unknown to what extent the performance on the Stroop color-word test is affected by reduced visual function in older individuals. We tested the impact of common deficiencies in visual function (reduced distant and close acuity, reduced contrast sensitivity, and color weakness) on Stroop performance among 821 normal individuals aged 53 and older. After adjustment for age, sex, and educational level, low contrast sensitivity was associated with more time needed on card I (word naming), red/green color weakness with slower card 2 performance (color naming), and reduced distant acuity with slower performance on card 3 (interference). Half of the age-related variance in speed performance was shared with visual function. The actual impact of reduced visual function may be underestimated in this study when some of this age-related variance in Stroop performance is mediated by visual function decrements. It is suggested that reduced visual function has differential effects on Stroop performance which need to be accounted for when the Stroop test is used both in research and in clinical settings. Stroop performance measured from older individuals with unknown visual status should be interpreted with caution.

Lexicographic Approaches to Sense Disambiguation in Monolingual Dictionaries and Equivalent Differentiation in Bilingual Dictionaries

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Marjeta Vrbinc

2011-05-01

Full Text Available The article discusses methods of sense disambiguation in monolingual dictionaries and equivalent differentiation in bilingual dictionaries. In current dictionaries, sense disambiguation and equivalent differentiation is presented in the form of specifiers or glosses, collocators or indications of context, (domain labels, metalinguistic and encyclopaedic information. Each method is presented and illustrated by actual samples of dictionary articles taken from mono and bilingual dictionaries. The last part of the article is devoted to equivalent differentiation in bilingual decoding dictionaries. In bilingual dictionaries, equivalent differentiation is often needed to describe the lack of agreement between the source language (SL and target language (TL. The article concludes by stating that equivalent differentiation should be written in the native language of the target audience and sense indicators in a monolingual learner’s dictionary should be words that the users are most familiar with.

Language specificity of lexical-phonological therapy in bilingual aphasia: A clinical and electrophysiological study.

Science.gov (United States)

Radman, Narges; Spierer, Lucas; Laganaro, Marina; Annoni, Jean-Marie; Colombo, Françoise

2016-08-01

Based on findings for overlapping representations of bilingual people's first (L1) and second (L2) languages, unilingual therapies of bilingual aphasia have been proposed to benefit the untrained language. However, the generalisation patterns of intra- and cross-language and phonological therapy and their neural bases remain unclear. We tested whether the effects of an intensive lexical-phonological training (LPT) in L2 transferred to L1 word production in a Persian-French bilingual stroke patient with Broca's aphasia. Language performance was assessed using the Bilingual Aphasia Test, a 144-item picture naming (PN) task and a word-picture verification (WPV) task. Electroencephalography (EEG) was recorded during PN and WPV in both languages before and after an LPT in French on a wordlist from the PN task. After the therapy, naming improved only for the treated L2 items. The naming performance improved neither in the untrained L2 items nor in the corresponding items in L1. EEG analyses revealed a Language x Session topographic interaction at 540 ms post-stimulus, driven by a modification of the electrophysiological response to the treated L2 but not L1 items. These results indicate that LPT modified the brain networks engaged in the phonological-phonetic processing during naming only in the trained language for the trained items.

Assessing Bilingual Knowledge Organization in Secondary Science Classrooms =

Science.gov (United States)

Wu, Jason S.

Improving outcomes for English language learners (ELLs) in secondary science remains an area of high need. The purpose of this study is to investigate bilingual knowledge organization in secondary science classrooms. This study involved thirty-nine bilingual students in three biology classes at a public high school in The Bronx, New York City. Methods included an in-class survey on language use, a science content and English proficiency exam, and bilingual free-recalls. Fourteen students participated in bilingual free-recalls which involved a semi-structured process of oral recall of information learned in science class. Free-recall was conducted in both English and Spanish and analyzed using flow-map methods. Novel methods were developed to quantify and visualize the elaboration and mobilization of ideas shared across languages. It was found that bilingual narratives displayed similar levels of organizational complexity across languages, though English recalls tended to be longer. English proficiency was correlated with narrative complexity in English. There was a high degree of elaboration on concepts shared across languages. Finally, higher Spanish proficiency correlated well with greater overlapping elaboration across languages. These findings are discussed in light of current cognitive theory before presenting the study's limitations and future directions of research.

Lexical and semantic representations in the acquisition of L2 cognate and non-cognate words: evidence from two learning methods in children.

Science.gov (United States)

Comesaña, Montserrat; Soares, Ana Paula; Sánchez-Casas, Rosa; Lima, Cátia

2012-08-01

How bilinguals represent words in two languages and which mechanisms are responsible for second language acquisition are important questions in the bilingual and vocabulary acquisition literature. This study aims to analyse the effect of two learning methods (picture- vs. word-based method) and two types of words (cognates and non-cognates) in early stages of children's L2 acquisition. Forty-eight native speakers of European Portuguese, all sixth graders (mean age = 10.87 years; SD= 0.85), participated in the study. None of them had prior knowledge of Basque (the L2 in this study). After a learning phase in which L2 words were learned either by a picture- or a word-based method, children were tested in a backward-word translation recognition task at two times (immediately vs. one week later). Results showed that the participants made more errors when rejecting semantically related than semantically unrelated words as correct translations (semantic interference effect). The magnitude of this effect was higher in the delayed test condition regardless of the learning method. Moreover, the overall performance of participants from the word-based method was better than the performance of participants from the picture-word method. Results were discussed concerning the most significant bilingual lexical processing models. ©2011 The British Psychological Society.

A behavioural and electrophysiological investigation of the effect of bilingualism on lexical ambiguity resolution in young adults

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Shanna eKousaie

2015-12-01

Full Text Available Previous research suggests that bilinguals demonstrate superior cognitive control processes than monolinguals. The goal of the current investigation was to examine whether this bilingual advantage is observed in a language processing task that requires inhibition, i.e., lexical ambiguity processing. Monolingual and bilingual participants read sentences that biased the reading of a terminal homonym toward the subordinate or dominant reading (e.g., The doctor asked her to step onto the scale.. A relatedness judgement was made on target words that were related to the contextually appropriate (e.g., balance or inappropriate meaning (e.g., skin, or unrelated to either meaning (e.g., shoe while electrophysiological recording took place. The results revealed subtle processing differences between monolinguals and bilinguals that were evident in electrophysiological measures, but not in behavioural measures. These findings suggest that monolinguals rely on context to access the contextually appropriate meaning of a homonym to a greater extent than bilinguals, while bilinguals demonstrate simultaneous activation of both meanings.

Language Proficiency and Sustained Attention in Monolingual and Bilingual Children with and without Language Impairment

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tessel Boerma

2017-07-01

Full Text Available Background: The language profiles of children with language impairment (LI and bilingual children can show partial, and possibly temporary, overlap. The current study examined the persistence of this overlap over time. Furthermore, we aimed to better understand why the language profiles of these two groups show resemblance, testing the hypothesis that the language difficulties of children with LI reflect a weakened ability to maintain attention to the stream of linguistic information. Consequent incomplete processing of language input may lead to delays that are similar to those originating from reductions in input frequency.Methods: Monolingual and bilingual children with and without LI (N = 128, aged 5–8 years old, participated in this study. Dutch receptive vocabulary and grammatical morphology were assessed at three waves. In addition, auditory and visual sustained attention were tested at wave 1. Mediation analyses were performed to examine relationships between LI, sustained attention, and language skills.Results: Children with LI and bilingual children were outperformed by their typically developing (TD and monolingual peers, respectively, on vocabulary and morphology at all three waves. The vocabulary difference between monolinguals and bilinguals decreased over time. In addition, children with LI had weaker auditory and visual sustained attention skills relative to TD children, while no differences between monolinguals and bilinguals emerged. Auditory sustained attention mediated the effect of LI on vocabulary and morphology in both the monolingual and bilingual groups of children. Visual sustained attention only acted as a mediator in the bilingual group.Conclusion: The findings from the present study indicate that the overlap between the language profiles of children with LI and bilingual children is particularly large for vocabulary in early (preschool years and reduces over time. Results furthermore suggest that the overlap may be

Comparison of auditory temporal resolution between monolingual Persian and bilingual Turkish-Persian individuals.

Science.gov (United States)

Omidvar, Shaghayegh; Jafari, Zahra; Tahaei, Ali Akbar; Salehi, Masoud

2013-04-01

The aims of this study were to prepare a Persian version of the temporal resolution test using the method of Phillips et al (1994) and Stuart and Phillips (1996), and to compare the word-recognition performance in the presence of continuous and interrupted noise as well as the temporal resolution abilities between monolingual (ML) Persian and bilingual (BL) Turkish-Persian young adults. Word-recognition scores (WRSs) were obtained in quiet and in the presence of background competing continuous and interrupted noise at signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) of -20, -10, 0, and 10 dB. Two groups of 33 ML Persian and 36 BL Turkish-Persian volunteers participated. WRSs significantly differed between ML and BL subjects at four sensation levels in the presence of continuous and interrupted noise. However, the difference in the release from masking between ML and BL subjects was not significant at the studied SNRs. BL Turkish-Persian listeners seem to show poorer performance when responding to Persian words in continuous and interrupted noise. However, bilingualism may not affect auditory temporal resolution ability.

How Deaf American Sign Language/English Bilingual Children Become Proficient Readers: An Emic Perspective

Science.gov (United States)

Mounty, Judith L.; Pucci, Concetta T.; Harmon, Kristen C.

2014-01-01

A primary tenet underlying American Sign Language/English bilingual education for deaf students is that early access to a visual language, developed in conjunction with language planning principles, provides a foundation for literacy in English. The goal of this study is to obtain an emic perspective on bilingual deaf readers transitioning from…

Spatial encoding of visual words for image classification

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, Dong; Wang, Shengsheng; Porikli, Fatih

2016-05-01

Appearance-based bag-of-visual words (BoVW) models are employed to represent the frequency of a vocabulary of local features in an image. Due to their versatility, they are widely popular, although they ignore the underlying spatial context and relationships among the features. Here, we present a unified representation that enhances BoVWs with explicit local and global structure models. Three aspects of our method should be noted in comparison to the previous approaches. First, we use a local structure feature that encodes the spatial attributes between a pair of points in a discriminative fashion using class-label information. We introduce a bag-of-structural words (BoSW) model for the given image set and describe each image with this model on its coarsely sampled relevant keypoints. We then combine the codebook histograms of BoVW and BoSW to train a classifier. Rigorous experimental evaluations on four benchmark data sets demonstrate that the unified representation outperforms the conventional models and compares favorably to more sophisticated scene classification techniques.

Lexical-Semantic Processing and Reading: Relations between Semantic Priming, Visual Word Recognition and Reading Comprehension

Science.gov (United States)

Nobre, Alexandre de Pontes; de Salles, Jerusa Fumagalli

2016-01-01

The aim of this study was to investigate relations between lexical-semantic processing and two components of reading: visual word recognition and reading comprehension. Sixty-eight children from private schools in Porto Alegre, Brazil, from 7 to 12 years, were evaluated. Reading was assessed with a word/nonword reading task and a reading…

Words Do Come Easy (Sometimes)

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Starrfelt, Randi; Petersen, Anders; Vangkilde, Signe Allerup

multiple stimuli are presented simultaneously: Are words treated as units or wholes in visual short term memory? Using methods based on a Theory of Visual Attention (TVA), we measured perceptual threshold, visual processing speed and visual short term memory capacity for words and letters, in two simple...... a different pattern: Letters are perceived more easily than words, and this is reflected both in perceptual processing speed and short term memory capacity. So even if single words do come easy, they seem to enjoy no advantage in visual short term memory....

The relation between language and arithmetic in bilinguals: insights from different stages of language acquisition

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Amandine eVan Rinsveld

2015-03-01

Full Text Available Solving arithmetic problems is a cognitive task that heavily relies on language processing. One might thus wonder whether this language-reliance leads to qualitative differences (e.g. greater difficulties, error types, etc. in arithmetic for bilingual individuals who frequently have to solve arithmetic problems in more than one language. The present study investigated how proficiency in two languages interacts with arithmetic problem solving throughout language acquisition in adolescents and young adults. Additionally, we examined whether the number word structure that is specific to a given language plays a role in number processing over and above bilingual proficiency. We addressed these issues in a German-French educational bilingual setting, where there is a progressive transition from German to French as teaching language. Importantly, German and French number naming structures differ clearly, as two-digit number names follow a unit-ten order in German, but a ten-unit order in French. We implemented a transversal developmental design in which bilingual pupils from grades 7, 8, 10, 11, and young adults were asked to solve simple and complex additions in both languages. The results confirmed that language proficiency is crucial especially for complex addition computation. Simple additions in contrast can be retrieved equally well in both languages after extended language practice. Additional analyses revealed that over and above language proficiency, language-specific number word structures (e.g. unit-ten vs. ten-unit also induced significant modulations of bilinguals’ arithmetic performances. Taken together, these findings support the view of a strong relation between language and arithmetic in bilinguals.

The effect of childhood bilingualism on episodic and semantic memory tasks.

Science.gov (United States)

Kormi-Nouri, Reza; Shojaei, Razie-Sadat; Moniri, Sadegheh; Gholami, Ali-Reza; Moradi, Ali-Reza; Akbari-Zardkhaneh, Saeed; Nilsson, Lars-Göran

2008-04-01

Kormi-Nouri, Moniri and Nilsson (2003) demonstrated that Swedish-Persian bilingual children recalled at a higher level than Swedish monolingual children, when they were tested using Swedish materials. The present study was designed to examine the bilingual advantage of children who use different languages in their everyday life but have the same cultural background and live in their communities in the same way as monolingual children. In four experiments, 488 monolingual and bilingual children were compared with regard to episodic and semantic memory tasks. In experiments 1 and 2 there were 144 boys and 144 girls in three school groups (aged 9-10 years, 13-14 years and 16-17 years) and in three language groups (Persian monolingual, Turkish-Persian bilingual, and Kurdish-Persian bilingual). In experiments 3 and 4, there were 200 male students in two school groups (aged 9-10 years and 16-17 years) and in two language groups (Persian monolingual and Turkish-Persian bilingual). In the episodic memory task, children learned sentences (experiments 1-3) and words (Experiment 4). Letter and category fluency tests were used as measures of semantic memory. To change cognitive demands in memory tasks, in Experiment 1, the integration of nouns and verbs within sentences was manipulated by the level of association between verb and noun in each sentence. At retrieval, a recognition test was used. In experiments 2 and 3, the organization between sentences was manipulated at encoding in Experiment 2 and at both encoding and retrieval in Experiment 3 through the use of categories among the objects. At retrieval, free recall or cued recall tests were employed. In Experiment 4, the bilingual children were tested with regard to both their first and their second language. In all four experiments, a positive effect of bilingualism was found on episodic and semantic memory tasks; the effect was more pronounced for older than younger children. The bilingual advantage was not affected by

Whole Word Measures in Bilingual Children with Speech Sound Disorders

Science.gov (United States)

Burrows, Lauren; Goldstein, Brian A.

2010-01-01

Phonological acquisition traditionally has been measured using constructs that focus on segments rather than the whole words. Findings from recent research have suggested whole-word productions be evaluated using measures such as phonological mean length of utterance (pMLU) and the proportion of whole-word proximity (PWP). These measures have been…

Foundations of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism. Sixth Edition

Science.gov (United States)

Baker, Colin; Wright, Wayne E.

2017-01-01

The sixth edition of this bestselling textbook has been substantially revised and updated to provide a comprehensive introduction to bilingualism and bilingual education in the 21st century. Written in a compact and clear style, the book covers all the crucial issues in bilingualism at individual, group and societal levels. Updates to the new…

The putative visual word form area is functionally connected to the dorsal attention network.

Science.gov (United States)

Vogel, Alecia C; Miezin, Fran M; Petersen, Steven E; Schlaggar, Bradley L

2012-03-01

The putative visual word form area (pVWFA) is the most consistently activated region in single word reading studies (i.e., Vigneau et al. 2006), yet its function remains a matter of debate. The pVWFA may be predominantly used in reading or it could be a more general visual processor used in reading but also in other visual tasks. Here, resting-state functional connectivity magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fcMRI) is used to characterize the functional relationships of the pVWFA to help adjudicate between these possibilities. rs-fcMRI defines relationships based on correlations in slow fluctuations of blood oxygen level-dependent activity occurring at rest. In this study, rs-fcMRI correlations show little relationship between the pVWFA and reading-related regions but a strong relationship between the pVWFA and dorsal attention regions thought to be related to spatial and feature attention. The rs-fcMRI correlations between the pVWFA and regions of the dorsal attention network increase with age and reading skill, while the correlations between the pVWFA and reading-related regions do not. These results argue the pVWFA is not used predominantly in reading but is a more general visual processor used in other visual tasks, as well as reading.

Stroop effects from newly learned color words : effects of memory consolidation and episodic context

OpenAIRE

Geukes, Sebastian; Gaskell, M Gareth; Zwitserlood, Pienie

2015-01-01

The Stroop task is an excellent tool to test whether reading a word automatically activates its associated meaning, and it has been widely used in mono- and bilingual contexts. Despite of its ubiquity, the task has not yet been employed to test the automaticity of recently established word-concept links in novel-word-learning studies, under strict experimental control of learning and testing conditions. In three experiments, we thus paired novel words with native language (German) color words...

Phonological Contribution during Visual Word Recognition in Child Readers. An Intermodal Priming Study in Grades 3 and 5

Science.gov (United States)

Sauval, Karinne; Casalis, Séverine; Perre, Laetitia

2017-01-01

This study investigated the phonological contribution during visual word recognition in child readers as a function of general reading expertise (third and fifth grades) and specific word exposure (frequent and less-frequent words). An intermodal priming in lexical decision task was performed. Auditory primes (identical and unrelated) were used in…

The Lemmatization of Loan Words in the isiNdebele–English ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

user

English Dictionary and the selection of words for lemmatization are ... The IsiNdebele–English Dictionary is a bilingual, bi-directional dictionary, which is divided ... In the above examples, lemmas are in isiNdebele and English and each lemma.

How bilingualism protects the brain from aging: Insights from bimodal bilinguals.

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Le; Abutalebi, Jubin; Emmorey, Karen; Gong, Gaolang; Yan, Xin; Feng, Xiaoxia; Zou, Lijuan; Ding, Guosheng

2017-08-01

Bilingual experience can delay cognitive decline during aging. A general hypothesis is that the executive control system of bilinguals faces an increased load due to controlling two languages, and this increased load results in a more "tuned brain" that eventually creates a neural reserve. Here we explored whether such a neuroprotective effect is independent of language modality, i.e., not limited to bilinguals who speak two languages but also occurs for bilinguals who use a spoken and a signed language. We addressed this issue by comparing bimodal bilinguals to monolinguals in order to detect age-induced structural brain changes and to determine whether we can detect the same beneficial effects on brain structure, in terms of preservation of gray matter volume (GMV), for bimodal bilinguals as has been reported for unimodal bilinguals. Our GMV analyses revealed a significant interaction effect of age × group in the bilateral anterior temporal lobes, left hippocampus/amygdala, and left insula where bimodal bilinguals showed slight GMV increases while monolinguals showed significant age-induced GMV decreases. We further found through cortical surface-based measurements that this effect was present for surface area and not for cortical thickness. Moreover, to further explore the hypothesis that overall bilingualism provides neuroprotection, we carried out a direct comparison of GMV, extracted from the brain regions reported above, between bimodal bilinguals, unimodal bilinguals, and monolinguals. Bilinguals, regardless of language modality, exhibited higher GMV compared to monolinguals. This finding highlights the general beneficial effects provided by experience handling two language systems, whether signed or spoken. Hum Brain Mapp 38:4109-4124, 2017. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Narratives in Two Languages: Storytelling of Bilingual Cantonese-English Preschoolers.

Science.gov (United States)

Rezzonico, Stefano; Goldberg, Ahuva; Mak, Katy Ka-Yan; Yap, Stephanie; Milburn, Trelani; Belletti, Adriana; Girolametto, Luigi

2016-06-01

The aim of this study was to compare narratives generated by 4-year-old and 5-year-old children who were bilingual in English and Cantonese. The sample included 47 children (23 who were 4 years old and 24 who were 5 years old) living in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, who spoke both Cantonese and English. The participants spoke and heard predominantly Cantonese in the home. Participants generated a story in English and Cantonese by using a wordless picture book; language order was counterbalanced. Data were transcribed and coded for story grammar, morphosyntactic quality, mean length of utterance in words, and the number of different words. Repeated measures analysis of variance revealed higher story grammar scores in English than in Cantonese, but no other significant main effects of language were observed. Analyses also revealed that older children had higher story grammar, mean length of utterance in words, and morphosyntactic quality scores than younger children in both languages. Hierarchical regressions indicated that Cantonese story grammar predicted English story grammar and Cantonese microstructure predicted English microstructure. However, no correlation was observed between Cantonese and English morphosyntactic quality. The results of this study have implications for speech-language pathologists who collect narratives in Cantonese and English from bilingual preschoolers. The results suggest that there is a possible transfer in narrative abilities between the two languages.

Bilingualism yields language-specific plasticity in left hemisphere's circuitry for learning to read in young children.

Science.gov (United States)

Jasińska, K K; Berens, M S; Kovelman, I; Petitto, L A

2017-04-01

How does bilingual exposure impact children's neural circuitry for learning to read? Theories of bilingualism suggests that exposure to two languages may yield a functional and neuroanatomical adaptation to support the learning of two languages (Klein et al., 2014). To test the hypothesis that this neural adaptation may vary as a function of structural and orthographic characteristics of bilinguals' two languages, we compared Spanish-English and French-English bilingual children, and English monolingual children, using functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy neuroimaging (fNIRS, ages 6-10, N =26). Spanish offers consistent sound-to-print correspondences ("phonologically transparent" or "shallow"); such correspondences are more opaque in French and even more opaque in English (which has both transparent and "phonologically opaque" or "deep" correspondences). Consistent with our hypothesis, both French- and Spanish-English bilinguals showed hyperactivation in left posterior temporal regions associated with direct sound-to-print phonological analyses and hypoactivation in left frontal regions associated with assembled phonology analyses. Spanish, but not French, bilinguals showed a similar effect when reading Irregular words. The findings inform theories of bilingual and cross-linguistic literacy acquisition by suggesting that structural characteristics of bilinguals' two languages and their orthographies have a significant impact on children's neuro-cognitive architecture for learning to read. Copyright © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

Language control in different contexts: the behavioural ecology of bilingual speakers

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

David William Green

2011-05-01

Full Text Available This paper proposes that different experimental contexts (single or dual language contexts permit different neural loci at which words in the target language can be selected. However, in order to develop a fuller understanding of the neural circuit mediating language control we need to consider the community context in which bilingual speakers typically use their two languages (the behavioural ecology of bilingual speakers. The contrast between speakers from code-switching and non-code switching communities offers a way to increase our understanding of the cortical, subcortical and, in particular, cerebellar structures involved in language control. It will also help us identify the non-verbal behavioural correlates associated with these control processes.

Aphasia therapy in the age of globalization: cross-linguistic therapy effects in bilingual aphasia.

Science.gov (United States)

Ansaldo, Ana Inés; Saidi, Ladan Ghazi

2014-01-01

Globalization imposes challenges to the field of behavioural neurology, among which is an increase in the prevalence of bilingual aphasia. Thus, aphasiologists have increasingly focused on bilingual aphasia therapy and, more recently, on the identification of the most efficient procedures for triggering language recovery in bilinguals with aphasia. Therapy in both languages is often not available, and, thus, researchers have focused on the transfer of therapy effects from the treated language to the untreated one. This paper discusses the literature on bilingual aphasia therapy, with a focus on cross-linguistic therapy effects from the language in which therapy is provided to the untreated language. Fifteen articles including two systematic reviews, providing details on pre- and posttherapy in the adult bilingual population with poststroke aphasia and anomia are discussed with regard to variables that can influence the presence or absence of cross-linguistic transfer of therapy effects. . The potential for CLT of therapy effects from the treated to the untreated language depends on the word type, the degree of structural overlap between languages, the type of therapy approach, the pre- and postmorbid language proficiency profiles, and the status of the cognitive control circuit.

Does bilingualism increase brain or cognitive reserve in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy?

Science.gov (United States)

Reyes, Anny; Paul, Brianna M; Marshall, Anisa; Chang, Yu-Hsuan A; Bahrami, Naeim; Kansal, Leena; Iragui, Vicente J; Tecoma, Evelyn S; Gollan, Tamar H; McDonald, Carrie R

2018-05-01

Bilingual healthy adults have been shown to exhibit an advantage in executive functioning (EF) that is associated with microstructural changes in white matter (WM) networks. Patients with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) often show EF deficits that are associated with WM compromise. In this study, we investigate whether bilingualism can increase cognitive reserve and/or brain reserve in bilingual patients with TLE, mitigating EF impairment and WM compromise. Diffusion tensor imaging was obtained in 19 bilingual and 26 monolingual patients with TLE, 12 bilingual healthy controls (HC), and 21 monolingual HC. Fractional anisotropy (FA) and mean diffusivity (MD) were calculated for the uncinate fasciculus (Unc) and cingulum (Cing), superior frontostriatal tract (SFS), and inferior frontostriatal tract (IFS). Measures of EF included Trail Making Test-B (TMT-B) and Delis-Kaplan Executive Function System Color-Word Inhibition/Switching. Analyses of covariance were conducted to compare FA and MD of the Unc, Cing, SFS, and IFS and EF performance across groups. In bilingual patients, FA was lower in the ipsilateral Cing and Unc compared to all other groups. For both patient groups, MD of the ipsilateral Unc was higher relative to HC. Despite more pronounced reductions in WM integrity, bilingual patients performed similarly to monolingual TLE and both HC groups on EF measures. By contrast, monolingual patients performed worse than HC on TMT-B. In addition, differences in group means between bilingual and monolingual patients on TMT-B approached significance when controlling for the extent of WM damage (P = .071; d = 0.62), suggesting a tendency toward higher performance for bilingual patients. Despite poorer integrity of regional frontal lobe WM, bilingual patients performed similarly to monolingual patients and HC on EF measures. These findings align with studies suggesting that bilingualism may provide a protective factor for individuals with neurological disease, potentially

The Inhibitory Mechanism in Learning Ambiguous Words in a Second Language.

Science.gov (United States)

Lu, Yao; Wu, Junjie; Dunlap, Susan; Chen, Baoguo

2017-01-01

Ambiguous words are hard to learn, yet little is known about what causes this difficulty. The current study aimed to investigate the relationship between the representations of new and prior meanings of ambiguous words in second language (L2) learning, and to explore the function of inhibitory control on L2 ambiguous word learning at the initial stage of learning. During a 4-day learning phase, Chinese-English bilinguals learned 30 novel English words for 30 min per day using bilingual flashcards. Half of the words to be learned were unambiguous (had one meaning) and half were ambiguous (had two semantically unrelated meanings learned in sequence). Inhibitory control was introduced as a subject variable measured by a Stroop task. The semantic representations established for the studied items were probed using a cross-language semantic relatedness judgment task, in which the learned English words served as the prime, and the targets were either semantically related or unrelated to the prime. Results showed that response latencies for the second meaning of ambiguous words were slower than for the first meaning and for unambiguous words, and that performance on only the second meaning of ambiguous words was predicted by inhibitory control ability. These results suggest that, at the initial stage of L2 ambiguous word learning, the representation of the second meaning is weak, probably interfered with by the representation of the prior learned meaning. Moreover, inhibitory control may modulate learning of the new meanings, such that individuals with better inhibitory control may more effectively suppress interference from the first meaning, and thus learn the new meaning more quickly.

The Inhibitory Mechanism in Learning Ambiguous Words in a Second Language

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Baoguo Chen

2017-04-01

Full Text Available Ambiguous words are hard to learn, yet little is known about what causes this difficulty. The current study aimed to investigate the relationship between the representations of new and prior meanings of ambiguous words in second language (L2 learning, and to explore the function of inhibitory control on L2 ambiguous word learning at the initial stage of learning. During a 4-day learning phase, Chinese–English bilinguals learned 30 novel English words for 30 min per day using bilingual flashcards. Half of the words to be learned were unambiguous (had one meaning and half were ambiguous (had two semantically unrelated meanings learned in sequence. Inhibitory control was introduced as a subject variable measured by a Stroop task. The semantic representations established for the studied items were probed using a cross-language semantic relatedness judgment task, in which the learned English words served as the prime, and the targets were either semantically related or unrelated to the prime. Results showed that response latencies for the second meaning of ambiguous words were slower than for the first meaning and for unambiguous words, and that performance on only the second meaning of ambiguous words was predicted by inhibitory control ability. These results suggest that, at the initial stage of L2 ambiguous word learning, the representation of the second meaning is weak, probably interfered with by the representation of the prior learned meaning. Moreover, inhibitory control may modulate learning of the new meanings, such that individuals with better inhibitory control may more effectively suppress interference from the first meaning, and thus learn the new meaning more quickly.

The role of tone and segmental information in visual-word recognition in Thai.

Science.gov (United States)

Winskel, Heather; Ratitamkul, Theeraporn; Charoensit, Akira

2017-07-01

Tone languages represent a large proportion of the spoken languages of the world and yet lexical tone is understudied. Thai offers a unique opportunity to investigate the role of lexical tone processing during visual-word recognition, as tone is explicitly expressed in its script. We used colour words and their orthographic neighbours as stimuli to investigate facilitation (Experiment 1) and interference (Experiment 2) Stroop effects. Five experimental conditions were created: (a) the colour word (e.g., ขาว /k h ã:w/ [white]), (b) tone different word (e.g., ข่าว /k h à:w/[news]), (c) initial consonant phonologically same word (e.g., คาว /k h a:w/ [fishy]), where the initial consonant of the word was phonologically the same but orthographically different, (d) initial consonant different, tone same word (e.g., หาว /hã:w/ yawn), where the initial consonant was orthographically different but the tone of the word was the same, and (e) initial consonant different, tone different word (e.g., กาว /ka:w/ glue), where the initial consonant was orthographically different, and the tone was different. In order to examine whether tone information per se had a facilitative effect, we also included a colour congruent word condition where the segmental (S) information was different but the tone (T) matched the colour word (S-T+) in Experiment 2. Facilitation/interference effects were found for all five conditions when compared with a neutral control word. Results of the critical comparisons revealed that tone information comes into play at a later stage in lexical processing, and orthographic information contributes more than phonological information.

Los Programas de Inmersion Bilingue y la Adquisicion del Discurso Academico (Bilingual Immersion Programs and the Acquisition of Academic Discourse).

Science.gov (United States)

Lopez-Bonilla, Guadalupe

2002-01-01

A study examined the strategies used by a fourth-grade teacher in a two-way bilingual immersion program (English/Spanish) that contributed to students' development of academic language in Spanish. Analysis of a science lesson highlighted the use of an appropriate Spanish-language textbook and the teacher's use of visual elements, repetition,…

Psychometric function for NU-6 word recognition in noise: effects of first language and dominant language.

Science.gov (United States)

Shi, Lu-Feng; Zaki, Nancy A

2014-01-01

The present study attempted to establish psychometric function in individuals whose first language is not English. Psychometric function was obtained for one of the most commonly used clinical tests, the Northwestern University Auditory Test No. 6 (Tillman & Carhart 1966), so that findings could be directly applied to everyday clinical practice. Five groups of 14 normal-hearing, adult listeners differing in their first language and dominant language (English monolinguals, English- and Arabic-dominant Arabic-English bilinguals, and English- and Russian-dominant Russian-English bilinguals) participated. Both forms of the Northwestern University Auditory Test No. 6 test (8 lists of 50 monosyllabic English words) were presented. The lists were randomly assigned to eight signal-to-noise ratios (-3 to 18 dB in 3 dB steps). Listeners responded verbally and in writing. Psychometric functions were derived via logistic regression and described by two parameters: the 50% correct performance level (θ) and the slope (k). Both English-dominant bilingual groups obtained psychometric functions comparable with monolinguals. The θ and k of the functions for these three groups of participants were consistent with the literature. Compared with these three groups, non-English-dominant bilinguals' functions grew significantly more gradually (i.e., a significantly higher θ and a significantly lower k). No differences in either θ or k were found between bilinguals with the same dominant language but different first languages. Bilinguals reporting themselves to be dominant in English generate monolingual-like psychometric functions. By contrast, a different set of psychometric properties describes the function of bilinguals dominant in their first language. Because first language did not appear to be a significant factor in determining bilinguals' functions, it is concluded that English learning history and English proficiency are more important variables than first language for

Brain regions activated by the passive processing of visually- and auditorily-presented words measured by averaged PET images of blood flow change

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Peterson, S.E.; Fox, P.T.; Posner, M.I.; Raichle, M.E.

1987-01-01

A limited number of regions specific to input modality are activated by the auditory and visual presentation of single words. These regions include primary auditory and visual cortex, and modality-specific higher order region that may be performing computations at a word level of analysis

Compositions in English: Comparing the Works of Monolinguals, Passive Bilinguals, and Active Bilinguals

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Julia Eka Rini

2010-01-01

Full Text Available This study tries to see whether the subjects’ “monolingualism” and “bilingualism” (monolinguals learning an L2 and bilinguals learning an L3 influence their study on English, especially writing. The term “bilinguals” also means “multilinguals” in this study. Bilinguals in this paper are classified into two; first, passive bilinguals who are only exposed to another local language, besides speaking Bahasa Indonesia at home, and second, active bilinguals who are exposed to and also speak other language(s and Bahasa Indonesia at home. The findings show that the monolingual and the active bilingual are better than the passive one; the active bilingual is better than the monolingual. However, if the passive and the active bilingual are combined, the monolingual is better than the bilinguals.

The Impact of Early Bilingualism on Face Recognition Processes.

Science.gov (United States)

Kandel, Sonia; Burfin, Sabine; Méary, David; Ruiz-Tada, Elisa; Costa, Albert; Pascalis, Olivier

2016-01-01

Early linguistic experience has an impact on the way we decode audiovisual speech in face-to-face communication. The present study examined whether differences in visual speech decoding could be linked to a broader difference in face processing. To identify a phoneme we have to do an analysis of the speaker's face to focus on the relevant cues for speech decoding (e.g., locating the mouth with respect to the eyes). Face recognition processes were investigated through two classic effects in face recognition studies: the Other-Race Effect (ORE) and the Inversion Effect. Bilingual and monolingual participants did a face recognition task with Caucasian faces (own race), Chinese faces (other race), and cars that were presented in an Upright or Inverted position. The results revealed that monolinguals exhibited the classic ORE. Bilinguals did not. Overall, bilinguals were slower than monolinguals. These results suggest that bilinguals' face processing abilities differ from monolinguals'. Early exposure to more than one language may lead to a perceptual organization that goes beyond language processing and could extend to face analysis. We hypothesize that these differences could be due to the fact that bilinguals focus on different parts of the face than monolinguals, making them more efficient in other race face processing but slower. However, more studies using eye-tracking techniques are necessary to confirm this explanation.

Many Neighbors are not Silent. fMRI Evidence for Global Lexical Activity in Visual Word Recognition.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mario eBraun

2015-07-01

Full Text Available Many neurocognitive studies investigated the neural correlates of visual word recognition, some of which manipulated the orthographic neighborhood density of words and nonwords believed to influence the activation of orthographically similar representations in a hypothetical mental lexicon. Previous neuroimaging research failed to find evidence for such global lexical activity associated with neighborhood density. Rather, effects were interpreted to reflect semantic or domain general processing. The present fMRI study revealed effects of lexicality, orthographic neighborhood density and a lexicality by orthographic neighborhood density interaction in a silent reading task. For the first time we found greater activity for words and nonwords with a high number of neighbors. We propose that this activity in the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex reflects activation of orthographically similar codes in verbal working memory thus providing evidence for global lexical activity as the basis of the neighborhood density effect. The interaction of lexicality by neighborhood density in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex showed lower activity in response to words with a high number compared to nonwords with a high number of neighbors. In the light of these results the facilitatory effect for words and inhibitory effect for nonwords with many neighbors observed in previous studies can be understood as being due to the operation of a fast-guess mechanism for words and a temporal deadline mechanism for nonwords as predicted by models of visual word recognition. Furthermore, we propose that the lexicality effect with higher activity for words compared to nonwords in inferior parietal and middle temporal cortex reflects the operation of an identification mechanism and based on local lexico-semantic activity.

Positive schizotypy scores correlate with left visual field interference for negatively valenced emotional words: A lateralized emotional Stroop study.

Science.gov (United States)

Van Strien, Jan W; Van Kampen, Dirk

2009-10-30

Fourteen men scoring high and 14 men scoring low on a positive schizotypy scale participated in a lateralized emotional Stroop task. Vocal reaction times for color naming of neutral, positive and negative emotional words were recorded. Across participants, the color naming of neutral and emotional words was slightly faster to right than to left visual field presentations. In men with high scores on positive schizotypy, the presentation of negative words to the left visual field (right hemisphere) resulted in significant affective interference with color naming, which was significantly larger than in men with low scores. Correlational analysis also showed that positive schizotypy was significantly associated with emotional interference in response to LVF negative words. The outcome is discussed in terms of right hemispheric engagement in negative emotions in high positive schizotypic men.

Exploring the representational basis of response-effect compatibility: Evidence from bilingual verbal response-effect mappings.

Science.gov (United States)

Földes, Noémi; Philipp, Andrea M; Badets, Arnaud; Koch, Iring

2018-05-01

The ideomotor principle states that actions are represented by their anticipated sensory effects. This notion is often tested using the response-effect compatibility (REC) paradigm, where participants' responses are followed either by a compatible or incompatible response effect (e.g., an effect on the right side after a right-hand response is considered R-E compatible due to the spatial overlap, whereas an effect on the left side after the right-hand response is considered incompatible). Shorter reaction times are typically observed in the compatible condition compared to the incompatible condition (i.e., REC effect), suggesting that effect anticipation plays a role in action control. Previous evidence from verbal REC suggested that effect anticipation can be due to conceptual R-E overlap, but there was also phonological overlap (i.e., anticipated reading of a word preceded by the vocal response of saying that very word). To examine the representational basis of REC, in three experiments, we introduced a bilingual R-E mapping to exclude phonological R-E overlap (i.e., in the R-E compatible condition, the translation equivalent of the response word is presented as an effect word in a different language). Our findings show that the REC effect is obtained when presenting the effect word in the same language as the response (i.e., monolingual condition), but the compatibility effect was not found when the semantically same word is presented in a different language, suggesting no conceptually generalized REC in a bilingual setting. (232 words). Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Don’t words come easy?A psychophysical exploration of word superiority

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Randi eStarrfelt

2013-09-01

Full Text Available Words are made of letters, and yet sometimes it is easier to identify a word than a single letter. This word superiority effect (WSE has been observed when written stimuli are presented very briefly or degraded by visual noise. We compare performance with letters and words in three experiments, to explore the extents and limits of the WSE. Using a carefully controlled list of three letter words, we show that a word superiority effect can be revealed in vocal reaction times even to undegraded stimuli. With a novel combination of psychophysics and mathematical modelling, we further show that the typical WSE is specifically reflected in perceptual processing speed: single words are simply processed faster than single letters. Intriguingly, when multiple stimuli are presented simultaneously, letters are perceived more easily than words, and this is reflected both in perceptual processing speed and visual short term memory capacity. So, even if single words come easy, there is a limit to the word superiority effect.

Visual half-field presentations of incongruent color words: effects of gender and handedness.

Science.gov (United States)

Franzon, M; Hugdahl, K

1986-09-01

Right-handed (dextral) and left-handed (sinistral) males and females (N = 15) were compared for language lateralization in a visual half-field (VHF) incongruent color-words paradigm. The paradigm consists of repeated brief (less than 200 msec) presentations of color-words written in an incongruent color. Presentations are either to the right or to the left of center fixation. The task of the subject is to report the color the word is written in on each trial, ignoring the color-word. Color-bars and congruent color-words were used as control stimuli. Vocal reaction time (VRT) and error frequency were used as dependent measures. The logic behind the paradigm is that incongruent color-words should lead to a greater cognitive conflict when presented in the half-field contralateral to the dominant hemisphere. The results showed significantly longer VRTs in the right half-field for the dextral subjects. Furthermore, significantly more errors were observed in the male dextral group when the incongruent stimuli were presented in the right half-field. There was a similar trend in the data for the sinistral males. No differences between half-fields were observed for the female groups. It is concluded that the present results strengthen previous findings from our laboratory (Hugdahl and Franzon, 1985) that the incongruent color-words paradigm is a useful non-invasive technique for the study of lateralization in the intact brain.

‘Distracters’ do not always distract: Visual working memory for angry faces is enhanced by incidental emotional words.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Margaret Cecilia Jackson

2012-10-01

Full Text Available We are often required to filter out distraction in order to focus on a primary task during which working memory (WM is engaged. Previous research has shown that negative versus neutral distracters presented during a visual WM maintenance period significantly impair memory for neutral information. However, the contents of WM are often also emotional in nature. The question we address here is how incidental information might impact upon visual WM when both this and the memory items contain emotional information. We presented emotional versus neutral words during the maintenance interval of an emotional visual WM faces task. Participants encoded two angry or happy faces into WM, and several seconds into a 9 second maintenance period a negative, positive, or neutral word was flashed on the screen three times. A single neutral test face was presented for retrieval with a face identity that was either present or absent in the preceding study array. WM for angry face identities was significantly better when an emotional (negative or positive versus neutral (or no word was presented. In contrast, WM for happy face identities was not significantly affected by word valence. These findings suggest that the presence of emotion within an intervening stimulus boosts the emotional value of threat-related information maintained in visual WM and thus improves performance. In addition, we show that incidental events that are emotional in nature do not always distract from an ongoing WM task.

Orthographic Context Sensitivity in Vowel Decoding by Portuguese Monolingual and Portuguese-English Bilingual Children

Science.gov (United States)

Vale, Ana Paula

2011-01-01

This study examines the pronunciation of the first vowel in decoding disyllabic pseudowords derived from Portuguese words. Participants were 96 Portuguese monolinguals and 52 Portuguese-English bilinguals of equivalent Portuguese reading levels. The results indicate that sensitivity to vowel context emerges early, both in monolinguals and in…

Language experience differentiates prefrontal and subcortical activation of the cognitive control network in novel word learning.

Science.gov (United States)

Bradley, Kailyn A L; King, Kelly E; Hernandez, Arturo E

2013-02-15

The purpose of this study was to examine the cognitive control mechanisms in adult English speaking monolinguals compared to early sequential Spanish-English bilinguals during the initial stages of novel word learning. Functional magnetic resonance imaging during a lexico-semantic task after only 2h of exposure to novel German vocabulary flashcards showed that monolinguals activated a broader set of cortical control regions associated with higher-level cognitive processes, including the supplementary motor area (SMA), anterior cingulate (ACC), and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), as well as the caudate, implicated in cognitive control of language. However, bilinguals recruited a more localized subcortical network that included the putamen, associated more with motor control of language. These results suggest that experience managing multiple languages may differentiate the learning strategy and subsequent neural mechanisms of cognitive control used by bilinguals compared to monolinguals in the early stages of novel word learning. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Iconic Native Culture Cues Inhibit Second Language Production in a Non-immigrant Population: Evidence from Bengali-English Bilinguals.

Science.gov (United States)

Roychoudhuri, Kesaban S; Prasad, Seema G; Mishra, Ramesh K

2016-01-01

We examined if iconic pictures belonging to one's native culture interfere with second language production in bilinguals in an object naming task. Bengali-English bilinguals named pictures in both L1 and L2 against iconic cultural images representing Bengali culture or neutral images. Participants named in both "Blocked" and "Mixed" language conditions. In both conditions, participants were significantly slower in naming in English when the background was an iconic Bengali culture picture than a neutral image. These data suggest that native language culture cues lead to activation of the L1 lexicon that competed against L2 words creating an interference. These results provide further support to earlier observations where such culture related interference has been observed in bilingual language production. We discuss the results in the context of cultural influence on the psycholinguistic processes in bilingual object naming.

L[subscript 1] and L[subscript 2] Spoken Word Processing: Evidence from Divided Attention Paradigm

Science.gov (United States)

Shafiee Nahrkhalaji, Saeedeh; Lotfi, Ahmad Reza; Koosha, Mansour

2016-01-01

The present study aims to reveal some facts concerning first language (L[subscript 1]) and second language (L[subscript 2]) spoken-word processing in unbalanced proficient bilinguals using behavioral measures. The intention here is to examine the effects of auditory repetition word priming and semantic priming in first and second languages of…

Bilingualism and cognition

NARCIS (Netherlands)

de Groot, A.M.B.; Chapelle, C.A.

2013-01-01

Scientific interest in the effects of (individual) bilingualism on cognition dates back to at least the first quarter of the 20th century, as illustrated by two articles that were published in 1923 on the relation between bilingualism and mental development (Smith, 1923) and between bilingualism and

Feature activation during word recognition: action, visual, and associative-semantic priming effects

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kevin J.Y. Lam

2015-05-01

Full Text Available Embodied theories of language postulate that language meaning is stored in modality-specific brain areas generally involved in perception and action in the real world. However, the temporal dynamics of the interaction between modality-specific information and lexical-semantic processing remain unclear. We investigated the relative timing at which two types of modality-specific information (action-based and visual-form information contribute to lexical-semantic comprehension. To this end, we applied a behavioral priming paradigm in which prime and target words were related with respect to (1 action features, (2 visual features, or (3 semantically associative information. Using a Go/No-Go lexical decision task, priming effects were measured across four different inter-stimulus intervals (ISI = 100 ms, 250 ms, 400 ms, and 1,000 ms to determine the relative time course of the different features . Notably, action priming effects were found in ISIs of 100 ms, 250 ms, and 1,000 ms whereas a visual priming effect was seen only in the ISI of 1,000 ms. Importantly, our data suggest that features follow different time courses of activation during word recognition. In this regard, feature activation is dynamic, measurable in specific time windows but not in others. Thus the current study (1 demonstrates how multiple ISIs can be used within an experiment to help chart the time course of feature activation and (2 provides new evidence for embodied theories of language.

A bilingual child learns social communication skills through video modeling-a single case study in a norwegian school setting

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Meral Özerk

2015-09-01

Full Text Available Video modeling is one of the recognized methods used in the training and teaching of children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD. The model’s theoretical base stems from Albert Bandura's (1977; 1986 social learning theory in which he asserts that children can learn many skills and behaviors observationally through modeling. One can assume that by observing others, a child with ASD can construct an idea of how new behaviors are performed, and on later occasions this mentally and visually constructed information will serve as a guide for his/her way of behaving. There are two types of methods for model learning: 1 In Vivo Modeling and 2 Video Modeling. These can be used a to teach children with ASD skills that are not yet in their behavioral repertoire and / or b to improve the children's emerging behaviors or skills. In the case of linguistic minority children at any stage of their bilingual development, it has been presumed that some of their behaviors that can be interpreted as attitude or culture-related actions. This approach, however, can sometimes delay referral, diagnosis, and intervention. In our project, we used Video Modeling and achieved positive results with regard to teaching social communication skills and target behavior to an eleven year-old bilingual boy with ASD. Our study also reveals that through Video Modeling, children with ASD can learn desirable behavioral skills as by-products. Video Modeling can also contribute positively to the social inclusion of bilingual children with ASD in school settings. In other words, bilingual children with ASD can transfer the social communication skills and targeted behaviors they learn through second-language at school to a first-language milieu.

The Role of Auditory and Visual Speech in Word Learning at 18 Months and in Adulthood

Science.gov (United States)

Havy, Mélanie; Foroud, Afra; Fais, Laurel; Werker, Janet F.

2017-01-01

Visual information influences speech perception in both infants and adults. It is still unknown whether lexical representations are multisensory. To address this question, we exposed 18-month-old infants (n = 32) and adults (n = 32) to new word-object pairings: Participants either heard the acoustic form of the words or saw the talking face in…

The Time Course of Emotion Effects in First and Second Language Processing: A Cross Cultural ERP Study with German–Spanish Bilinguals

Science.gov (United States)

Conrad, Markus; Recio, Guillermo; Jacobs, Arthur M.

2011-01-01

To investigate whether second language processing is characterized by the same sensitivity to the emotional content of language – as compared to native language processing – we conducted an EEG study manipulating word emotional valence in a visual lexical decision task. Two groups of late bilinguals – native speakers of German and Spanish with sufficient proficiency in their respective second language – performed each a German and a Spanish version of the task containing identical semantic material: translations of words in the two languages. In contrast to theoretical proposals assuming attenuated emotionality of second language processing, a highly similar pattern of results was obtained across L1 and L2 processing: event related potential waves generally reflected an early posterior negativity plus a late positive complex for words with positive or negative valence compared to neutral words regardless of the respective test language and its L1 or L2 status. These results suggest that the coupling between cognition and emotion does not qualitatively differ between L1 and L2 although latencies of respective effects differed about 50–100 ms. Only Spanish native speakers currently living in the L2 country showed no effects for negative as compared to neutral words presented in L2 – potentially reflecting a predominant positivity bias in second language processing when currently being exposed to a new culture. PMID:22164150

The time course of emotion effects in first and second language processing: A cross cultural ERP study with German-Spanish bilinguals

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Markus eConrad

2011-12-01

Full Text Available To investigate whether second language processing is characterized by the same sensitivity to the emotional content of language – as compared to native language processing – we conducted an EEG study manipulating word emotional valence in a visual lexical decision task. Two groups of late bilinguals – native speakers of German and Spanish with sufficient proficiency in their respective second language - performed each a German and a Spanish version of the task containing identical semantic material: translations of words in the two languages.In contrast to theoretical proposals assuming attenuated emotionality of second language processing, a highly similar pattern of results was obtained across L1 and L2 processing: ERP waves generally reflected an early posterior negativity plus a late positive complex for words with positive or negative valence compared to neutral words regardless of the respective test language and its L1 or L2 status. These results clearly suggest that the coupling between cognition and emotion does not qualitatively differ between L1 and L2 although latencies of respective effects differed about 50ms.Only Spanish native speakers currently living in the L2 country showed no effects for negative as compared to neutral words presented in L2 potentially reflecting a predominant positivity bias in second language processing when currently being exposed to a new culture.

Analysis on the Difficulties Faced by a Bilingual Child in Reading and Writing

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rizki Hardiyanti

2017-08-01

Full Text Available Bilingual child ability in two languages is become popular issue in the comparison of those two languages. In this paper, the Indonesian bilingual child has parent, school and course using English actively, then his environment using Bahasa Indonesia. This research was conducted to measure ability and difficulties faced by bilingual child in reading and writing in two languages Bahasa Indonesia- English. This journal applied a qualitative research design. Qualitative research is stated as naturalistic study that has the natural setting, as the direct source of data and the researcher is the key instrument  (Bogdan and Biklen, 1992. To specify the design in this journal, this qualitative method was used to analyze a specific person of Bilingual Child. The data were taken from observation, interview, video recording of the child’s reading the English and Bahasa Indonesia textbook story and written test of the child’s writing the English and Bahasa Indonesia summary of textbook story. In both English and Bahasa Indonesia, the reading difficulties appear related to pronunciation, intonation, expression and word stress and the writing difficulties appear related to relevance, organization, vocabulary and grammar.

The perception and expression of verb morphology in bilinguals with specific language impairment

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hourieh Ahadi

2014-04-01

Full Text Available Background and Aim: Most of the researches are about bilingual children with specific language impairment and importance of it in recognition and treatment. This study aimed to assess verb morphology in bilinguals with specific language impairment (SLI and compare them with normal bilinguals.Methods: Six bilingual (Azeri and Persian children with specific language impairment at the age of 7-8 years were collected from clinics of Tehran, Iran. They were evaluated about verb morphology using narrative speech and specific language impairment test and then, compared with six age-matched and six other language-matched children as control group. Children with specific language impairment were diagnosed by exhibiting a significant delay (more than one year in language that can not be explained by intelligence deficits, hearing loss or visual impairment. We used Man-Whitney test for comparing the groups.Results: Bilingual children with specific language impairment had delay in comparison with their age-matched group in subject-verb agreement (p=0.020 and articulating tense morphemes (p=0.019. They also had meaningful delay in using proper tense of verbs (past, present, and future in comparison with language-matched control group (p=0.029.Conclusion: Comparison of typical development of bilingual children and bilinguals with specific language impairment shows that verb morphology is a good clinical marker for diagnosing and treatment of these children.

Measuring, Predicting and Visualizing Short-Term Change in Word Representation and Usage in VKontakte Social Network

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Stewart, Ian B.; Arendt, Dustin L.; Bell, Eric B.; Volkova, Svitlana

2017-05-17

Language in social media is extremely dynamic: new words emerge, trend and disappear, while the meaning of existing words can fluctuate over time. This work addresses several important tasks of visualizing and predicting short term text representation shift, i.e. the change in a word’s contextual semantics. We study the relationship between short-term concept drift and representation shift on a large social media corpus – VKontakte collected during the Russia-Ukraine crisis in 2014 – 2015. We visualize short-term representation shift for example keywords and build predictive models to forecast short-term shifts in meaning from previous meaning as well as from concept drift. We show that short-term representation shift can be accurately predicted up to several weeks in advance and that visualization provides insight into meaning change. Our approach can be used to explore and characterize specific aspects of the streaming corpus during crisis events and potentially improve other downstream classification tasks including real-time event forecasting in social media.

Balanced bilinguals favor lexical processing in their opaque language and conversion system in their shallow language

OpenAIRE

Buetler, Karin A.; Rodríguez, Diego de León; Laganaro, Marina; Müri, René; Nyffeler, Thomas; Spierer, Lucas; Annoni, Jean-Marie

2016-01-01

Referred to as orthographic depth, the degree of consistency of grapheme/phoneme correspondences varies across languages from high in shallow orthographies to low in deep orthographies. The present study investigates the impact of orthographic depth on reading route by analyzing evoked potentials to words in a deep (French) and shallow (German) language presented to highly proficient bilinguals. ERP analyses to German and French words revealed significant topographic modulations 240–280 ms po...

BILINGUAL EDUCATION: LINGUO-DIDACTIC ASPECTS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Natalia Zakordonets

2016-12-01

Full Text Available The article presents the research of linguo-didactic aspects and models of bilingual education. On the basis of the study of scientific literature the definition analysis of the notions «bilingualism» «bilingual teaching» and «bilingual education» has been carried out. Didactic-methodological bases and approaches to the content of bilingual teaching at higher educational institutions have been determined. This article considers theoretical and methodological foundations of the concept of bilingual teaching. There have been outlined the peculiarities and problems of the designing and implementing bilingual programs and curriculum materials development. It has been stated that characteristics of the latest stage of elaboration of theory and practice of bilingual education have been framed in terms of the transition to a multi-perspectival paradigm of polycultural education. This paper deals with the common didactic fundamentals of personality-oriented philosophy of higher education. The distinctions that require the formulation of specific principles of bilingual teaching have been considered.

Speaking two languages with different number naming systems: What implications for magnitude judgments in bilinguals at different stages of language acquisition?

Science.gov (United States)

Van Rinsveld, Amandine; Schiltz, Christine; Landerl, Karin; Brunner, Martin; Ugen, Sonja

2016-08-01

Differences between languages in terms of number naming systems may lead to performance differences in number processing. The current study focused on differences concerning the order of decades and units in two-digit number words (i.e., unit-decade order in German but decade-unit order in French) and how they affect number magnitude judgments. Participants performed basic numerical tasks, namely two-digit number magnitude judgments, and we used the compatibility effect (Nuerk et al. in Cognition 82(1):B25-B33, 2001) as a hallmark of language influence on numbers. In the first part we aimed to understand the influence of language on compatibility effects in adults coming from German or French monolingual and German-French bilingual groups (Experiment 1). The second part examined how this language influence develops at different stages of language acquisition in individuals with increasing bilingual proficiency (Experiment 2). Language systematically influenced magnitude judgments such that: (a) The spoken language(s) modulated magnitude judgments presented as Arabic digits, and (b) bilinguals' progressive language mastery impacted magnitude judgments presented as number words. Taken together, the current results suggest that the order of decades and units in verbal numbers may qualitatively influence magnitude judgments in bilinguals and monolinguals, providing new insights into how number processing can be influenced by language(s).

The Developmental Lexicon Project: A behavioral database to investigate visual word recognition across the lifespan.

Science.gov (United States)

Schröter, Pauline; Schroeder, Sascha

2017-12-01

With the Developmental Lexicon Project (DeveL), we present a large-scale study that was conducted to collect data on visual word recognition in German across the lifespan. A total of 800 children from Grades 1 to 6, as well as two groups of younger and older adults, participated in the study and completed a lexical decision and a naming task. We provide a database for 1,152 German words, comprising behavioral data from seven different stages of reading development, along with sublexical and lexical characteristics for all stimuli. The present article describes our motivation for this project, explains the methods we used to collect the data, and reports analyses on the reliability of our results. In addition, we explored developmental changes in three marker effects in psycholinguistic research: word length, word frequency, and orthographic similarity. The database is available online.

Effects of Classroom Bilingualism on Task-Shifting, Verbal Memory, and Word Learning in Children

Science.gov (United States)

Kaushanskaya, Margarita; Gross, Megan; Buac, Milijana

2014-01-01

We examined the effects of classroom bilingual experience in children on an array of cognitive skills. Monolingual English-speaking children were compared with children who spoke English as the native language and who had been exposed to Spanish in the context of dual-immersion schooling for an average of 2 years. The groups were compared on a…

Attentional asymmetry between visual hemifields is related to habitual direction of reading and its implications for debate on cause and effects of dyslexia.

Science.gov (United States)

Kermani, Mojtaba; Verghese, Ashika; Vidyasagar, Trichur R

2018-02-01

A major controversy regarding dyslexia is whether any of the many visual and phonological deficits found to be correlated with reading difficulty cause the impairment or result from the reduced amount of reading done by dyslexics. We studied this question by comparing a visual capacity in the left and right visual hemifields in people habitually reading scripts written right-to-left or left-to-right. Selective visual attention is necessary for efficient visual search and also for the sequential recognition of letters in words. Because such attentional allocation during reading depends on the direction in which one is reading, asymmetries in search efficiency may reflect biases arising from the habitual direction of reading. We studied this by examining search performance in three cohorts: (a) left-to-right readers who read English fluently; (b) right-to-left readers fluent in reading Farsi but not any left-to-right script; and (c) bilingual readers fluent in English and in Farsi, Arabic, or Hebrew. Left-to-right readers showed better search performance in the right hemifield and right-to-left readers in the left hemifield, but bilingual readers showed no such asymmetries. Thus, reading experience biases search performance in the direction of reading, which has implications for the cause and effect relationships between reading and cognitive functions. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Action word Related to Walk Heard by the Ears Activates Visual Cortex and Superior Temporal Gyrus: An fMRI Study

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Naoyuki Osaka

2012-10-01

Full Text Available Cognitive neuroscience of language of action processing is one of the interesting issues on the cortical “seat” of word meaning and related action (Pulvermueller, 1999 Behavioral Brain Sciences 22 253–336. For example, generation of action verbs referring to various arm or leg actions (e.g., pick or kick differentially activate areas along the motor strip that overlap with those areas activated by actual movement of the fingers or feet (Hauk et al., 2004 Neuron 41 301–307. Meanwhile, mimic words like onomatopoeia have the other potential to selectively and strongly stimulate specific brain regions having a specified “seat” of action meaning. In fact, mimic words highly suggestive of laughter and gaze significantly activated the extrastriate visual /premotor cortices and the frontal eye field, respectively (Osaka et al., 2003 Neuroscience Letters 340 127–130; 2009 Neuroscience Letters 461 65–68. However, the role of a mimic word related to walk on specific brain regions has not yet been investigated. The present study showed that a mimic word highly suggestive of human walking, heard by the ears with eyes closed, significantly activated the visual cortex located in extrastriate cortex and superior temporal gyrus while hearing non-sense words that did not imply walk under the same task did not activate these areas. These areas would be a critical region for generating visual images of walking and related action.

Tradurre nel contesto pluriglosso dell'arabo con l'aiuto di un nuovo dizionario bilingue. Riflessioni sull'Oxford Arabic Dictionary.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Claudia Maria Tresso

2014-12-01

Full Text Available Translating in the Arabic Plurilingual Context with the Help of a New Bilingual Dictionary. Some remarks on the Oxford Arabic Dictionary. A bilingual dictionary from English, the International language for communication, to Arabic nowadays represents one of the major challenges in the fields of translation studies and teaching. The Oxford Arabic Dictionary, with is corpus-based word list represents a good point of departure for future lexicographical works and for the development of teaching of Modern Standard Arabic.

Interference Effects on the Recall of Pictures, Printed Words, and Spoken Words.

Science.gov (United States)

Burton, John K.; Bruning, Roger H.

1982-01-01

Nouns were presented in triads as pictures, printed words, or spoken words and followed by various types of interference. Measures of short- and long-term memory were obtained. In short-term memory, pictorial superiority occurred with acoustic, and visual and acoustic, but not visual interference. Long-term memory showed superior recall for…

The Influence of Visual Word Form in Reading: Single Case Study of an Arabic Patient with Deep Dyslexia

Science.gov (United States)

Boumaraf, Assia; Macoir, Joël

2016-01-01

Deep dyslexia is a written language disorder characterized by poor reading of non-words, and advantage for concrete over abstract words with production of semantic, visual and morphological errors. In this single case study of an Arabic patient with input deep dyslexia, we investigated the impact of graphic features of Arabic on manifestations of…

Bilingualism as a Model for Multitasking.

Science.gov (United States)

Poarch, Gregory J; Bialystok, Ellen

2015-03-01

Because both languages of bilinguals are constantly active, bilinguals need to manage attention to the target language and avoid interference from the non-target language. This process is likely carried out by recruiting the executive function (EF) system, a system that is also the basis for multitasking. In previous research, bilinguals have been shown to outperform monolinguals on tasks requiring EF, suggesting that the practice using EF for language management benefits performance in other tasks as well. The present study examined 203 children, 8-11 years old, who were monolingual, partially bilingual, bilingual, or trilingual performing a flanker task. Two results support the interpretation that bilingualism is related to multitasking. First, bilingual children outperformed monolinguals on the conflict trials in the flanker task, confirming previous results for a bilingual advantage in EF. Second, the inclusion of partial bilinguals and trilinguals set limits on the role of experience: partial bilingual performed similarly to monolinguals and trilinguals performed similarly to bilinguals, suggesting that degrees of experience are not well-calibrated to improvements in EF. Our conclusion is that the involvement of EF in bilingual language processing makes bilingualism a form of linguistic multitasking.

Accessing word meaning: Semantic word knowledge and reading comprehension in Dutch monolingual and bilingual fifth-graders

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Cremer, M.

2013-01-01

Word knowledge is one of the key elements in reading comprehension and by extension in school success. At the same time, it is not quite clear which components of lexical knowledge play a role in reading. Is it enough to recognize the words we read? Do we need an in-depth understanding of their

Morphosyntax in the Bilingual Mental Lexicon: An Experimental Study of Strong Stems in German

Science.gov (United States)

Krause, Helena; Bosch, Sina; Clahsen, Harald

2015-01-01

Although morphosyntax has been identified as a major source of difficulty for adult (nonnative) language learners, most previous studies have examined a limited set of largely affix-based phenomena. Little is known about word-based morphosyntax in late bilinguals and of how morphosyntax is represented and processed in a nonnative speaker's…

Preparacion e Iniciacion de la Lectura en Espanol para Maestros de Programas Bilingues. Serie Tierra de Encanto (Preparation and Initiation of Reading in Spanish for Teachers of Bilingual Programs. Land of Enchantment Series).

Science.gov (United States)

New Mexico Univ., Albuquerque.

Part of the "Land of Enchantment" series of instructional materials, this very detailed teaching manual is designed to help teachers in bilingual programs prepare students to read Spanish. It contains suggestions for developing reading readiness skills and ways to teach a basic 30-word reading vocabulary. The reading program follows five steps:…

The Disfluent Speech of Bilingual Spanish–English Children: Considerations for Differential Diagnosis of Stuttering

Science.gov (United States)

Bedore, Lisa M.; Ramos, Daniel

2015-01-01

Purpose The primary purpose of this study was to describe the frequency and types of speech disfluencies that are produced by bilingual Spanish–English (SE) speaking children who do not stutter. The secondary purpose was to determine whether their disfluent speech is mediated by language dominance and/or language produced. Method Spanish and English narratives (a retell and a tell in each language) were elicited and analyzed relative to the frequency and types of speech disfluencies produced. These data were compared with the monolingual English-speaking guidelines for differential diagnosis of stuttering. Results The mean frequency of stuttering-like speech behaviors in the bilingual SE participants ranged from 3% to 22%, exceeding the monolingual English standard of 3 per 100 words. There was no significant frequency difference in stuttering-like or non-stuttering-like speech disfluency produced relative to the child's language dominance. There was a significant difference relative to the language the child was speaking; all children produced significantly more stuttering-like speech disfluencies in Spanish than in English. Conclusion Results demonstrate that the disfluent speech of bilingual SE children should be carefully considered relative to the complex nature of bilingualism. PMID:25215876

Resolving the locus of cAsE aLtErNaTiOn effects in visual word recognition: Evidence from masked priming.

Science.gov (United States)

Perea, Manuel; Vergara-Martínez, Marta; Gomez, Pablo

2015-09-01

Determining the factors that modulate the early access of abstract lexical representations is imperative for the formulation of a comprehensive neural account of visual-word identification. There is a current debate on whether the effects of case alternation (e.g., tRaIn vs. train) have an early or late locus in the word-processing stream. Here we report a lexical decision experiment using a technique that taps the early stages of visual-word recognition (i.e., masked priming). In the design, uppercase targets could be preceded by an identity/unrelated prime that could be in lowercase or alternating case (e.g., table-TABLE vs. crash-TABLE; tAbLe-TABLE vs. cRaSh-TABLE). Results revealed that the lowercase and alternating case primes were equally effective at producing an identity priming effect. This finding demonstrates that case alternation does not hinder the initial access to the abstract lexical representations during visual-word recognition. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Selectivity of N170 for visual words in the right hemisphere: Evidence from single-trial analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Yang, Hang; Zhao, Jing; Gaspar, Carl M; Chen, Wei; Tan, Yufei; Weng, Xuchu

2017-08-01

Neuroimaging and neuropsychological studies have identified the involvement of the right posterior region in the processing of visual words. Interestingly, in contrast, ERP studies of the N170 typically demonstrate selectivity for words more strikingly over the left hemisphere. Why is right hemisphere selectivity for words during the N170 epoch typically not observed, despite the clear involvement of this region in word processing? One possibility is that amplitude differences measured on averaged ERPs in previous studies may have been obscured by variation in peak latency across trials. This study examined this possibility by using single-trial analysis. Results show that words evoked greater single-trial N170s than control stimuli in the right hemisphere. Additionally, we observed larger trial-to-trial variability on N170 peak latency for words as compared to control stimuli over the right hemisphere. Results demonstrate that, in contrast to much of the prior literature, the N170 can be selective to words over the right hemisphere. This discrepancy is explained in terms of variability in trial-to-trial peak latency for responses to words over the right hemisphere. © 2017 Society for Psychophysiological Research.

Word translation at three levels of proficiency in a second language: the ubiquitous involvement of conceptual memory

NARCIS (Netherlands)

de Groot, A.M.B.; Poot, R.

1997-01-01

Three groups of 20 unbalanced bilinguals, different from one another in second language (L2) fluency, translated one set of words from L1, Dutch, to L2, English (forward translation), and a second set of matched words from L2 to L1 (backward translation). In both language sets we orthogonally

Speaking Two Languages Enhances an Auditory but Not a Visual Neural Marker of Cognitive Inhibition

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mercedes Fernandez

2014-09-01

Full Text Available The purpose of the present study was to replicate and extend our original findings of enhanced neural inhibitory control in bilinguals. We compared English monolinguals to Spanish/English bilinguals on a non-linguistic, auditory Go/NoGo task while recording event-related brain potentials. New to this study was the visual Go/NoGo task, which we included to investigate whether enhanced neural inhibition in bilinguals extends from the auditory to the visual modality. Results confirmed our original findings and revealed greater inhibition in bilinguals compared to monolinguals. As predicted, compared to monolinguals, bilinguals showed increased N2 amplitude during the auditory NoGo trials, which required inhibitory control, but no differences during the Go trials, which required a behavioral response and no inhibition. Interestingly, during the visual Go/NoGo task, event related brain potentials did not distinguish the two groups, and behavioral responses were similar between the groups regardless of task modality. Thus, only auditory trials that required inhibitory control revealed between-group differences indicative of greater neural inhibition in bilinguals. These results show that experience-dependent neural changes associated with bilingualism are specific to the auditory modality and that the N2 event-related brain potential is a sensitive marker of this plasticity.

Science education in a bilingual class: problematising a translational practice

Science.gov (United States)

Ünsal, Zeynep; Jakobson, Britt; Molander, Bengt-Olov; Wickman, Per-Olof

2016-10-01

In this article we examine how bilingual students construe relations between everyday language and the language of science. Studies concerning bilingual students language use in science class have mainly been conducted in settings where both the teacher and the students speak the same minority language. In this study data was collected in a class consisting of students aged 13-14. All students had Turkish as their minority language, whereas the teacher's minority language was Bosnian. The class was observed when they were working with acids and bases. In addition, the students were interviewed in groups. They were asked about how they use their languages during science lessons and then asked to describe and explain scientific phenomena and processes that had been a part of the observed lessons. For the analysis, practical epistemology analysis and the theory of translanguaging were used. The results show how the students' everyday language repertoire may limit their possibilities to make meaning of science. In particular, the teacher's practice of facilitating and supporting students' understanding of science content by relating it to concrete examples took another direction since the everyday words he used were not a part of the students' language repertoire. The study also shows how the students used their minority language as a resource to translate words from Swedish to Turkish in order to proceed with the science activities. However, translating scientific concepts was problematic and led to the students' descriptions of the concepts not being in line with how they are viewed in science. Finally, the study also demonstrates how monolingual exams may limit bilingual students' achievements in science. The study contributes by presenting and discussing circumstances that need to be taken into consideration when planning and conducting science lessons in classes where the teacher and the student do not share the same minority language.

Cross-Language Translation Priming Asymmetry with Chinese-English Bilinguals: A Test of the Sense Model

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Baoguo; Zhou, Huixia; Gao, Yiwen; Dunlap, Susan

2014-01-01

The present study aimed to test the Sense Model of cross-linguistic masked translation priming asymmetry, proposed by Finkbeiner et al. ("J Mem Lang" 51:1-22, 2004), by manipulating the number of senses that bilingual participants associated with words from both languages. Three lexical decision experiments were conducted with…

English Word Reading Difficulties and Orthographic Processing Weaknesses in Chinese English Bilingual Adolescents with Dyslexia

Science.gov (United States)

Tong, Xiuhong; McBride, Catherine

2017-01-01

Is dyslexia in Chinese for Chinese-English bilinguals associated with difficulties in reading English, given differences in L1 and L2 orthographies? Among 11 Hong Kong Chinese adolescents with dyslexia, who were diagnosed by professional psychologists using the diagnostic criteria set out in a standardized test, and 14 adolescents without…

The cognate advantage in bilingual aphasia: Now you see it, now you don't.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Emma Hughes

2015-05-01

Full Text Available Background: The role of cognateness in bilingual language production has been the focus of much investigation. Many studies have found a cognate facilitation effect for reaction times and accuracy in naming in control participants (Costa, Caramazza & Sebastien-Galles, 2000; Rosselli, Ardila, Jurado,& Salvatierra, 2012 but the findings are by no means unequivocal e.g. Siyambalapitiya et al, 2009 observed a reversal of the cognate facilitation effect in older participants. The effect of cognateness has also been investigated in aphasic participants; Roberts & Deslauriers (199 observed a strong picture naming advantage for cognate words over non-cognate words, though no individual data were reported. Several case studies have reported cognate advantage in individuals, though results vary dependent on task and on the individual (Detry, Pillon & De Partz, 2005; Lalor & Kirsner, 2001. Furthermore, an inhibitory effect for cognate words has also been observed (Tiwari & Krishnan 2015. Overall, the above findings serve to illustrate that the facilitatory effect of cognate words is uncertain, and further investigation is required. Research Question: Does task type affect the cognate advantage in Welsh-English bilingual speakers? It is expected that patients will present with a picture naming advantage for cognate items. The expectations for a cognate advantage in translation are less assured, as the presentation of a cognate word in one language may inhibit access to its translation equivalent due to the phonological overlap, or the similarity may be facilitatory in activating the phonological representation of the target. Participants: 7 Welsh-English early proficient bilingual aphasic participants were selected for participation. Each patient scored significantly lower (p<.05 than age-matched controls (N=37 on at least one task using the modified t-tests for single cases (Crawford & Howell, 1998 Methods: Picture naming and translation tasks were

Acquisition of stress and pitch accent in English-Spanish bilingual children

Science.gov (United States)

Kim, Sahyang; Andruski, Jean; Nathan, Geoffrey S.; Casielles, Eugenia; Work, Richard

2005-09-01

Although understanding of prosodic development is considered crucial for understanding of language acquisition in general, few studies have focused on how children develop native-like prosody in their speech production. This study will examine the acquisition of lexical stress and postlexical pitch accent in two English-Spanish bilingual children. Prosodic characteristics of English and Spanish are different in terms of frequent stress patterns (trochaic versus penultimate), phonetic realization of stress (reduced unstressed vowel versus full unstressed vowel), and frequent pitch accent types (H* versus L*+H), among others. Thus, English-Spanish bilingual children's prosodic development may provide evidence of their awareness of language differences relatively early during language development, and illustrate the influence of markedness or input frequency in prosodic acquisition. For this study, recordings from the children's one-word stage are used. Durations of stressed and unstressed syllables and F0 peak alignment are measured, and pitch accent types in different accentual positions (nuclear versus prenuclear) are transcribed using American English ToBI and Spanish ToBI. Prosodic development is compared across ages within each language and across languages at each age. Furthermore, the bilingual children's productions are compared with monolingual English and Spanish parents' productions.

Methods for Identifying Specific Language Impairment in Bilingual Populations in Germany

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Cornelia Hamann

2017-10-01

Full Text Available This study investigates the performance of 22 monolingual and 54 bilingual children with and without specific language impairment (SLI, in a non-word repetition task (NWRT and a sentence repetition task (SRT. Both tasks were constructed according to the principles for LITMUS tools (Language Impairment Testing in Multilingual Settings developed within COST Action IS0804 and incorporated phonological or syntactic structures that are linguistically complex and have been shown to be difficult for children with SLI across languages. For phonology these are in particular (nonwords containing consonant clusters. In morphosyntax, complexity has been attributed to factors such as embedding and/or syntactic movement. Tasks focusing on such structures are expected to identify SLI in bilinguals across language combinations. This is notoriously difficult because structures that are problematic for typically developing bilinguals (BiTDs and monolingual children with SLI (MoSLI often overlap. We show that the NWRT and the SRT are reliable tools for identification of SLI in bilingual contexts. However, interpretation of the performance of bilingual children depends on background information as provided by parental questionnaires. To evaluate the accuracy of our tasks, we recruited children in ordinary kindergartens or schools and in speech language therapy centers and verified their status with a battery of standardized language tests, assessing bilingual children in both their languages. We consider a bilingual child language impaired if she shows impairments in two language domains in both her languages. For assessment, we used tests normed for monolinguals (with one exception and adjusted the norms for bilingualism and for language dominance. This procedure established the following groups: 10 typical monolinguals (MoTD, 12 MoSLI, 46 BiTD, and 8 bilingual children with SLI (BiSLI. Our results show that both tasks target relevant structures: monolingual

The impact of early bilingualism on face recognition processes

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sonia Kandel

2016-07-01

Full Text Available Early linguistic experience has an impact on the way we decode audiovisual speech in face-to-face communication. The present study examined whether differences in visual speech decoding could be linked to a broader difference in face processing. To identify a phoneme we have to do an analysis of the speaker’s face to focus on the relevant cues for speech decoding (e.g., locating the mouth with respect to the eyes. Face recognition processes were investigated through two classic effects in face recognition studies: the Other Race Effect (ORE and the Inversion Effect. Bilingual and monolingual participants did a face recognition task with Caucasian faces (own race, Chinese faces (other race and cars that were presented in an Upright or Inverted position. The results revealed that monolinguals exhibited the classic ORE. Bilinguals did not. Overall, bilinguals were slower than monolinguals. These results suggest that bilinguals’ face processing abilities differ from monolinguals’. Early exposure to more than one language may lead to a perceptual organization that goes beyond language processing and could extend to face analysis. We hypothesize that these differences could be due to the fact that bilinguals focus on different parts of the face than monolinguals, making them more efficient in other race face processing but slower. However, more studies using eye-tracking techniques are necessary to confirm this explanation.

Bilingualism: Research and Policy

Science.gov (United States)

McCardle, Peggy

2015-01-01

Bilingualism, commonplace throughout the world, is not well accepted or supported in many parts of the United States. Education policies and practices regarding bilingualism are often based on myths and attitudes rather than facts, despite scientific evidence on both the disadvantages and advantages of bilingualism. Based on a brief overview of…

Reading in the dark: neural correlates and cross-modal plasticity for learning to read entire words without visual experience.

Science.gov (United States)

Sigalov, Nadine; Maidenbaum, Shachar; Amedi, Amir

2016-03-01

Cognitive neuroscience has long attempted to determine the ways in which cortical selectivity develops, and the impact of nature vs. nurture on it. Congenital blindness (CB) offers a unique opportunity to test this question as the brains of blind individuals develop without visual experience. Here we approach this question through the reading network. Several areas in the visual cortex have been implicated as part of the reading network, and one of the main ones among them is the VWFA, which is selective to the form of letters and words. But what happens in the CB brain? On the one hand, it has been shown that cross-modal plasticity leads to the recruitment of occipital areas, including the VWFA, for linguistic tasks. On the other hand, we have recently demonstrated VWFA activity for letters in contrast to other visual categories when the information is provided via other senses such as touch or audition. Which of these tasks is more dominant? By which mechanism does the CB brain process reading? Using fMRI and visual-to-auditory sensory substitution which transfers the topographical features of the letters we compare reading with semantic and scrambled conditions in a group of CB. We found activation in early auditory and visual cortices during the early processing phase (letter), while the later phase (word) showed VWFA and bilateral dorsal-intraparietal activations for words. This further supports the notion that many visual regions in general, even early visual areas, also maintain a predilection for task processing even when the modality is variable and in spite of putative lifelong linguistic cross-modal plasticity. Furthermore, we find that the VWFA is recruited preferentially for letter and word form, while it was not recruited, and even exhibited deactivation, for an immediately subsequent semantic task suggesting that despite only short sensory substitution experience orthographic task processing can dominate semantic processing in the VWFA. On a wider

The Development of Bilingual Narrative Retelling Among Spanish-English Dual Language Learners Over Two Years.

Science.gov (United States)

Lucero, Audrey

2018-05-25

This exploratory study investigates the development of oral narrative retell proficiency among Spanish-English emergent bilingual children longitudinally from kindergarten to second grade in Spanish and English as they learned literacy in the 2 languages concurrently. Oral narrative retell assessments were conducted with children who spoke Spanish at home and were enrolled in a dual language immersion program (N = 12) in the spring of kindergarten and second grade. Retells were transcribed and coded for vocabulary and grammar at the microlevel (Miller, 2012) and story structure at the macrolevel (Heilmann, Miller, Nockerts, & Dunaway, 2010). In microstructure paired-sample t tests, children showed significant improvements in vocabulary in both languages (Spanish total number of words η2 = .43, Spanish number of different words η2 = .44, English total number of words η2 = .61, English number of different words η2 = .62) but not grammar by second grade. At the macrostructure level, children showed significantly higher performance in English only (English narrative scoring scheme η2 = .47). The finding that children significantly improved in vocabulary in both languages but in overall story structure only in English suggests that discourse skills were being facilitated in English whereas Spanish discourse development may have stagnated even within a dual language immersion program. Results contribute to what is currently known about bilingual oral narrative development among young Spanish speakers enrolled in such programs and can inform assessment and instructional decisions.

Deaf Parents of Cochlear-Implanted Children: Beliefs on Bimodal Bilingualism

Science.gov (United States)

Mitchiner, Julie Cantrell

2015-01-01

This study investigated 17 Deaf families in North America with cochlear-implanted children about their attitudes, beliefs, and practices on bimodal bilingualism (defined as using both a visual/manual language and an aural/oral language) in American Sign Language (ASL) and English. A survey and follow-up interviews with 8 families were conducted.…

More Use Almost Always Means a Smaller Frequency Effect: Aging, Bilingualism, and the Weaker Links Hypothesis

Science.gov (United States)

Gollan, Tamar H.; Montoya, Rosa I.; Cera, Cynthia; Sandoval, Tiffany C.

2008-01-01

The "weaker links" hypothesis proposes that bilinguals are disadvantaged relative to monolinguals on speaking tasks because they divide frequency-of-use between two languages. To test this proposal, we contrasted the effects of increased word use associated with monolingualism, language dominance, and increased age on picture naming times. In two…

The temporal dynamics of implicit processing of non-letter, letter, and word-forms in the human visual cortex

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Lawrence Gregory Appelbaum

2009-11-01

Full Text Available The decoding of visually presented line segments into letters, and letters into words, is critical to fluent reading abilities. Here we investigate the temporal dynamics of visual orthographic processes, focusing specifically on right hemisphere contributions and interactions between the hemispheres involved in the implicit processing of visually presented words, consonants, false fonts, and symbolic strings. High-density EEG was recorded while participants detected infrequent, simple, perceptual targets (dot strings embedded amongst a of character strings. Beginning at 130ms, orthographic and non-orthographic stimuli were distinguished by a sequence of ERP effects over occipital recording sites. These early latency occipital effects were dominated by enhanced right-sided negative-polarity activation for non-orthographic stimuli that peaked at around 180ms. This right-sided effect was followed by bilateral positive occipital activity for false-fonts, but not symbol strings. Moreover the size of components of this later positive occipital wave was inversely correlated with the right-sided ROcc180 wave, suggesting that subjects who had larger early right-sided activation for non-orthographic stimuli had less need for more extended bilateral (e.g. interhemispheric processing of those stimuli shortly later. Additional early (130-150ms negative-polarity activity over left occipital cortex and longer-latency centrally distributed responses (>300ms were present, likely reflecting implicit activation of the previously reported ‘visual-word-form’ area and N400-related responses, respectively. Collectively, these results provide a close look at some relatively unexplored portions of the temporal flow of information processing in the brain related to the implicit processing of potentially linguistic information and provide valuable information about the interactions between hemispheres supporting visual orthographic processing.

Could a multimodal dictionary serve as a learning tool? An examination of the impact of technologically enhanced visual glosses on L2 text comprehension

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Takeshi Sato

2016-09-01

Full Text Available This study examines the efficacy of a multimodal online bilingual dictionary based on cognitive linguistics in order to explore the advantages and limitations of explicit multimodal L2 vocabulary learning. Previous studies have examined the efficacy of the verbal and visual representation of words while reading L2 texts, concluding that it facilitates incidental word retention. This study explores other potentials of multimodal L2 vocabulary learning: explicit learning with a multimodal dictionary could enhance not only word retention, but also text comprehension; the dictionary could serve not only as a reference tool, but also as a learning tool; and technology-enhanced visual glosses could facilitate deeper text comprehension. To verify these claims, this study investigates the multimodal representations’ effects on Japanese students learning L2 locative prepositions by developing two online dictionaries, one with static pictures and one with animations. The findings show the advantage of such dictionaries in explicit learning; however, no significant differences are found between the two types of visual glosses, either in the vocabulary or in the listening tests. This study confirms the effectiveness of multimodal L2 materials, but also emphasizes the need for further research into making the technologically enhanced materials more effective.

The Pattern Recognition in Cattle Brand using Bag of Visual Words and Support Vector Machines Multi-Class

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Carlos Silva, Mr

2018-03-01

Full Text Available The recognition images of cattle brand in an automatic way is a necessity to governmental organs responsible for this activity. To help this process, this work presents a method that consists in using Bag of Visual Words for extracting of characteristics from images of cattle brand and Support Vector Machines Multi-Class for classification. This method consists of six stages: a select database of images; b extract points of interest (SURF; c create vocabulary (K-means; d create vector of image characteristics (visual words; e train and sort images (SVM; f evaluate the classification results. The accuracy of the method was tested on database of municipal city hall, where it achieved satisfactory results, reporting 86.02% of accuracy and 56.705 seconds of processing time, respectively.

The Impact of Orthographic Connectivity on Visual Word Recognition in Arabic: A Cross-Sectional Study

Science.gov (United States)

Khateb, Asaid; Khateb-Abdelgani, Manal; Taha, Haitham Y.; Ibrahim, Raphiq

2014-01-01

This study aimed at assessing the effects of letters' connectivity in Arabic on visual word recognition. For this purpose, reaction times (RTs) and accuracy scores were collected from ninety-third, sixth and ninth grade native Arabic speakers during a lexical decision task, using fully connected (Cw), partially connected (PCw) and…

Comparing different kinds of words and word-word relations to test an habituation model of priming.

Science.gov (United States)

Rieth, Cory A; Huber, David E

2017-06-01

Huber and O'Reilly (2003) proposed that neural habituation exists to solve a temporal parsing problem, minimizing blending between one word and the next when words are visually presented in rapid succession. They developed a neural dynamics habituation model, explaining the finding that short duration primes produce positive priming whereas long duration primes produce negative repetition priming. The model contains three layers of processing, including a visual input layer, an orthographic layer, and a lexical-semantic layer. The predicted effect of prime duration depends both on this assumed representational hierarchy and the assumption that synaptic depression underlies habituation. The current study tested these assumptions by comparing different kinds of words (e.g., words versus non-words) and different kinds of word-word relations (e.g., associative versus repetition). For each experiment, the predictions of the original model were compared to an alternative model with different representational assumptions. Experiment 1 confirmed the prediction that non-words and inverted words require longer prime durations to eliminate positive repetition priming (i.e., a slower transition from positive to negative priming). Experiment 2 confirmed the prediction that associative priming increases and then decreases with increasing prime duration, but remains positive even with long duration primes. Experiment 3 replicated the effects of repetition and associative priming using a within-subjects design and combined these effects by examining target words that were expected to repeat (e.g., viewing the target word 'BACK' after the prime phrase 'back to'). These results support the originally assumed representational hierarchy and more generally the role of habituation in temporal parsing and priming. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Bilingualism with and without CLIL, a Double-Edged Sword: Comparing Bilingual and Non Bilingual Young Learners' Beliefs about EFL and Science Learning

Science.gov (United States)

Sandoval Brotons, Alfonso Victor

2015-01-01

Bilingualism and its reference methodology: CLIL are spreading at a very fast pace all through educative systems from some years on. The young status of bilingual programmes leads to little research about how bilingualism is influencing real learning contexts and which factors play important roles in that influence. In this way, this study aims to…

Measuring growth in bilingual and monolingual children's english productive vocabulary development: the utility of combining parent and teacher report.

Science.gov (United States)

Vagh, Shaher Banu; Pan, Barbara Alexander; Mancilla-Martinez, Jeannette

2009-01-01

This longitudinal study examined growth in the English productive vocabularies of bilingual and monolingual children between ages 24 and 36 months and explored the utility and validity of supplementing parent reports with teacher reports to improve the estimation of children's vocabulary. Low-income, English-speaking and English/Spanish-speaking parents and Early Head Start and Head Start program teachers completed the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory, Words and Sentences for 85 children. Results indicate faster growth rates for monolingual than for bilingual children and larger vocabularies for bilingual children who spoke mostly English than mostly Spanish at home. Parent-teacher composite reports, like parent reports, significantly related to children's directly assessed productive vocabulary at ages 30 and 36 months, but parent reports fit the model better. Implications for vocabulary assessment are discussed.

Predicting English Word Reading Skills for Spanish-Speaking Students in First Grade.

Science.gov (United States)

Páez, Mariela; Rinaldi, Claudia

2006-10-01

This article describes the word reading skills in English and Spanish for a sample of 244 Spanish-speaking, English-learning (hence, bilingual) students in first grade and presents a predictive model for English word reading skills. The children in the study were assessed at the end of kindergarten and first grade, respectively. Data were gathered with 3 subtests of the Woodcock Language Proficiency Battery and a researcher-developed phonological awareness task. Results showed that, on average, children's English word reading skills were similar to monolingual norms whereas their Spanish word reading skills averaged 1 SD below the mean. English vocabulary, English phonological awareness, and Spanish word reading skills in kindergarten were found to be significant predictors of English word reading skills in first grade. Educational implications for screening language and reading skills and promising areas for targeted instruction for this population are discussed.

Balanced bilingualism and early age of second language acquisition as the underlying mechanisms of a bilingual executive control advantage: why variations in bilingual experiences matter.

Science.gov (United States)

Yow, W Quin; Li, Xiaoqian

2015-01-01

Recent studies revealed inconsistent evidences of a bilingual advantage in executive processing. One potential source of explanation is the multifaceted experience of the bilinguals in these studies. This study seeks to test whether bilinguals who engage in language selection more frequently would perform better in executive control tasks than those bilinguals who engage in language selection less frequently. We examined the influence of the degree of bilingualism (i.e., language proficiency, frequency of use of two languages, and age of second language acquisition) on executive functioning in bilingual young adults using a comprehensive battery of executive control tasks. Seventy-two 18- to 25-years-old English-Mandarin bilinguals performed four computerized executive function (EF) tasks (Stroop, Eriksen flanker, number-letter switching, and n-back task) that measure the EF components: inhibition, mental-set shifting, and information updating and monitoring. Results from multiple regression analyses, structural equation modeling, and bootstrapping supported the positive association between age of second language acquisition and the interference cost in the Stroop task. Most importantly, we found a significant effect of balanced bilingualism (balanced usage of and balanced proficiency in two languages) on the Stroop and number-letter task (mixing cost only), indicating that a more balanced use and a more balanced level of proficiency in two languages resulted in better executive control skills in the adult bilinguals. We did not find any significant effect of bilingualism on flanker or n-back task. These findings provided important insights to the underlying mechanisms of the bilingual cognitive advantage hypothesis, demonstrating that regular experience with extensive practice in controlling attention to their two language systems results in better performance in related EFs such as inhibiting prepotent responses and global set-shifting.

Balanced bilingualism and early age of second language acquisition as the underlying mechanisms of a bilingual executive control advantage: why variations in bilingual experiences matter

Science.gov (United States)

Yow, W. Quin; Li, Xiaoqian

2015-01-01

Recent studies revealed inconsistent evidences of a bilingual advantage in executive processing. One potential source of explanation is the multifaceted experience of the bilinguals in these studies. This study seeks to test whether bilinguals who engage in language selection more frequently would perform better in executive control tasks than those bilinguals who engage in language selection less frequently. We examined the influence of the degree of bilingualism (i.e., language proficiency, frequency of use of two languages, and age of second language acquisition) on executive functioning in bilingual young adults using a comprehensive battery of executive control tasks. Seventy-two 18- to 25-years-old English–Mandarin bilinguals performed four computerized executive function (EF) tasks (Stroop, Eriksen flanker, number–letter switching, and n-back task) that measure the EF components: inhibition, mental-set shifting, and information updating and monitoring. Results from multiple regression analyses, structural equation modeling, and bootstrapping supported the positive association between age of second language acquisition and the interference cost in the Stroop task. Most importantly, we found a significant effect of balanced bilingualism (balanced usage of and balanced proficiency in two languages) on the Stroop and number–letter task (mixing cost only), indicating that a more balanced use and a more balanced level of proficiency in two languages resulted in better executive control skills in the adult bilinguals. We did not find any significant effect of bilingualism on flanker or n-back task. These findings provided important insights to the underlying mechanisms of the bilingual cognitive advantage hypothesis, demonstrating that regular experience with extensive practice in controlling attention to their two language systems results in better performance in related EFs such as inhibiting prepotent responses and global set-shifting. PMID:25767451

Balanced bilingualism and early age of second language acquisition as the underlying mechanisms of a bilingual executive control advantage: Why variations in bilingual experiences matter.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

W. Quin eYow

2015-02-01

Full Text Available Recent studies revealed inconsistent evidences of a bilingual advantage in executive processing. One potential source of explanation is the multifaceted experience of the bilinguals in these studies. This study seeks to test whether bilinguals who engage in language selection more frequently would perform better in executive control tasks than those bilinguals who engage in language selection less frequently. We examined the influence of the degree of bilingualism (i.e., language proficiency, frequency of use of two languages, and age of second language acquisition on executive functioning in bilingual young adults using a comprehensive battery of executive control tasks. Seventy-two 18- to 25-year-old English-Mandarin bilinguals performed four computerized executive function tasks (Stroop, Eriksen flanker, number-letter switching and n-back task that measure the executive function components: inhibition, mental-set shifting, and information updating and monitoring. Results from multiple regression analyses, structural equation modeling, and bootstrapping supported the positive association between age of second language acquisition and the interference cost in the Stroop task. Most importantly, we found a significant effect of balanced bilingualism (balanced usage of and balanced proficiency in two languages on the Stroop and number-letter task (mixing cost only, indicating that a more balanced use and a more balanced level of proficiency in two languages resulted in better executive control skills in the adult bilinguals. We did not find any significant effect of bilingualism on flanker or n-back task. These findings provided important insights to the underlying mechanisms of the bilingual cognitive advantage hypothesis, demonstrating that regular experience with extensive practice in controlling attention to their two language systems results in better performance in related executive functions such as inhibiting prepotent responses and global

The influence of print exposure on the body-object interaction effect in visual word recognition.

Science.gov (United States)

Hansen, Dana; Siakaluk, Paul D; Pexman, Penny M

2012-01-01

We examined the influence of print exposure on the body-object interaction (BOI) effect in visual word recognition. High print exposure readers and low print exposure readers either made semantic categorizations ("Is the word easily imageable?"; Experiment 1) or phonological lexical decisions ("Does the item sound like a real English word?"; Experiment 2). The results from Experiment 1 showed that there was a larger BOI effect for the low print exposure readers than for the high print exposure readers in semantic categorization, though an effect was observed for both print exposure groups. However, the results from Experiment 2 showed that the BOI effect was observed only for the high print exposure readers in phonological lexical decision. The results of the present study suggest that print exposure does influence the BOI effect, and that this influence varies as a function of task demands.

Comparing Local Descriptors and Bags of Visual Words to Deep Convolutional Neural Networks for Plant Recognition

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Pawara, Pornntiwa; Okafor, Emmanuel; Surinta, Olarik; Schomaker, Lambertus; Wiering, Marco

2017-01-01

The use of machine learning and computer vision methods for recognizing different plants from images has attracted lots of attention from the community. This paper aims at comparing local feature descriptors and bags of visual words with different classifiers to deep convolutional neural networks

Does Bilingualism Influence Cognitive Aging?

Science.gov (United States)

Bak, Thomas H; Nissan, Jack J; Allerhand, Michael M; Deary, Ian J

2014-01-01

Recent evidence suggests a positive impact of bilingualism on cognition, including later onset of dementia. However, monolinguals and bilinguals might have different baseline cognitive ability. We present the first study examining the effect of bilingualism on later-life cognition controlling for childhood intelligence. We studied 853 participants, first tested in 1947 (age = 11 years), and retested in 2008–2010. Bilinguals performed significantly better than predicted from their baseline cognitive abilities, with strongest effects on general intelligence and reading. Our results suggest a positive effect of bilingualism on later-life cognition, including in those who acquired their second language in adulthood. PMID:24890334

The embodiment of emotional words in a second language: An eye-movement study.

Science.gov (United States)

Sheikh, Naveed A; Titone, Debra

2016-01-01

The hypothesis that word representations are emotionally impoverished in a second language (L2) has variable support. However, this hypothesis has only been tested using tasks that present words in isolation or that require laboratory-specific decisions. Here, we recorded eye movements for 34 bilinguals who read sentences in their L2 with no goal other than comprehension, and compared them to 43 first language readers taken from our prior study. Positive words were read more quickly than neutral words in the L2 across first-pass reading time measures. However, this emotional advantage was absent for negative words for the earliest measures. Moreover, negative words but not positive words were influenced by concreteness, frequency and L2 proficiency in a manner similar to neutral words. Taken together, the findings suggest that only negative words are at risk of emotional disembodiment during L2 reading, perhaps because a positivity bias in L2 experiences ensures that positive words are emotionally grounded.

Language Control Abilities of Late Bilinguals

Science.gov (United States)

Festman, Julia

2012-01-01

Although all bilinguals encounter cross-language interference (CLI), some bilinguals are more susceptible to interference than others. Here, we report on language performance of late bilinguals (Russian/German) on two bilingual tasks (interview, verbal fluency), their language use and switching habits. The only between-group difference was CLI:…

Bilingual Identity Negotiation in Practice: Teacher Pedagogy and Classroom Interaction in a Bilingual Programme

Science.gov (United States)

Fielding, Ruth

2016-01-01

This paper discusses how teachers in a bilingual education programme see their pedagogies and interactions influencing student connection to the languages of the bilingual programme. The teacher perception of the classroom is explored because the classroom is one of the principal settings in which the students negotiate their bilingual identities.…

Neural Correlates of Word Recognition: A Systematic Comparison of Natural Reading and Rapid Serial Visual Presentation.

Science.gov (United States)

Kornrumpf, Benthe; Niefind, Florian; Sommer, Werner; Dimigen, Olaf

2016-09-01

Neural correlates of word recognition are commonly studied with (rapid) serial visual presentation (RSVP), a condition that eliminates three fundamental properties of natural reading: parafoveal preprocessing, saccade execution, and the fast changes in attentional processing load occurring from fixation to fixation. We combined eye-tracking and EEG to systematically investigate the impact of all three factors on brain-electric activity during reading. Participants read lists of words either actively with eye movements (eliciting fixation-related potentials) or maintained fixation while the text moved passively through foveal vision at a matched pace (RSVP-with-flankers paradigm, eliciting ERPs). The preview of the upcoming word was manipulated by changing the number of parafoveally visible letters. Processing load was varied by presenting words of varying lexical frequency. We found that all three factors have strong interactive effects on the brain's responses to words: Once a word was fixated, occipitotemporal N1 amplitude decreased monotonically with the amount of parafoveal information available during the preceding fixation; hence, the N1 component was markedly attenuated under reading conditions with preview. Importantly, this preview effect was substantially larger during active reading (with saccades) than during passive RSVP with flankers, suggesting that the execution of eye movements facilitates word recognition by increasing parafoveal preprocessing. Lastly, we found that the N1 component elicited by a word also reflects the lexical processing load imposed by the previously inspected word. Together, these results demonstrate that, under more natural conditions, words are recognized in a spatiotemporally distributed and interdependent manner across multiple eye fixations, a process that is mediated by active motor behavior.

Bilingualism and National Development in Malaysia.

Science.gov (United States)

Ozog, A. Conrad K.

1993-01-01

Malaysia's long tradition of English medium instruction and bilingualism officially ended in 1970. This paper reviews the role of bilingualism in the development of the country, including the role of a bilingual population in national development and the possible effects of the abandonment of bilingual education. (Contains 38 references.)…

Response to dynamic language tasks among typically developing Latino preschool children with bilingual experience.

Science.gov (United States)

Patterson, Janet L; Rodríguez, Barbara L; Dale, Philip S

2013-02-01

The purpose of this study was to determine whether typically developing preschool children with bilingual experience show evidence of learning within brief dynamic assessment language tasks administered in a graduated prompting framework. Dynamic assessment has shown promise for accurate identification of language impairment in bilingual children, and a graduated prompting approach may be well-suited to screening for language impairment. Three dynamic language tasks with graduated prompting were presented to 32 typically developing 4-year-olds in the language to which the child had the most exposure (16 Spanish, 16 English). The tasks were a novel word learning task, a semantic task, and a phonological awareness task. Children's performance was significantly higher on the last 2 items compared with the first 2 items for the semantic and the novel word learning tasks among children who required a prompt on the 1st item. There was no significant difference between the 1st and last items on the phonological awareness task. Within-task improvements in children's performance for some tasks administered within a brief, graduated prompting framework were observed. Thus, children's responses to graduated prompting may be an indicator of modifiability, depending on the task type and level of difficulty.

Un Bosquejo del Proyecto Bilingue (Outline of a Bilingual Project).

Science.gov (United States)

Compton City Schools, CA.

Bilingual education in English and Spanish is intended to give native speakers of both languages insights into two cultures, a broader background, and greater life opportunities. Spanish-speaking students in bilingual programs can retain their language ties and the ability to communicate with their families and older relatives. The directors of…

The Influence of Print Exposure on the Body-Object Interaction Effect in Visual Word Recognition

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Dana eHansen

2012-05-01

Full Text Available We examined the influence of print exposure on the body-object interaction (BOI effect in visual word recognition. High print exposure readers and low print exposure readers either made semantic categorizations (Is the word easily imageable?; Experiment 1 or phonological lexical decisions (Does the item sound like a real English word?; Experiment 2. The results from Experiment 1 showed that there was a larger facilitatory BOI effect for the low print exposure readers than for the high print exposure readers in semantic categorization, though an effect was observed for both print exposure groups. However, the results from Experiment 2 showed that a facilitatory BOI effect was observed only for the high print exposure readers in phonological lexical decision. The results of the present study suggest that print exposure does influence the BOI effect, and that this influence varies as a function of task demands.

Dual Coding and Bilingual Memory.

Science.gov (United States)

Paivio, Allan; Lambert, Wallace

1981-01-01

Describes study which tested a dual coding approach to bilingual memory using tasks that permit comparison of the effects of bilingual encoding with verbal-nonverbal dual encoding items. Results provide strong support for a version of the independent or separate stories view of bilingual memory. (Author/BK)

Hemispheric asymmetry of emotion words in a non-native mind: a divided visual field study.

Science.gov (United States)

Jończyk, Rafał

2015-05-01

This study investigates hemispheric specialization for emotional words among proficient non-native speakers of English by means of the divided visual field paradigm. The motivation behind the study is to extend the monolingual hemifield research to the non-native context and see how emotion words are processed in a non-native mind. Sixty eight females participated in the study, all highly proficient in English. The stimuli comprised 12 positive nouns, 12 negative nouns, 12 non-emotional nouns and 36 pseudo-words. To examine the lateralization of emotion, stimuli were presented unilaterally in a random fashion for 180 ms in a go/no-go lexical decision task. The perceptual data showed a right hemispheric advantage for processing speed of negative words and a complementary role of the two hemispheres in the recognition accuracy of experimental stimuli. The data indicate that processing of emotion words in non-native language may require greater interhemispheric communication, but at the same time demonstrates a specific role of the right hemisphere in the processing of negative relative to positive valence. The results of the study are discussed in light of the methodological inconsistencies in the hemifield research as well as the non-native context in which the study was conducted.

On the Parallel Deterioration of Lexico-Semantic Processes in the Bilinguals' Two Languages: Evidence from Alzheimer's Disease

Science.gov (United States)

Costa, Albert; Calabria, Marco; Marne, Paula; Hernandez, Mireia; Juncadella, Montserrat; Gascon-Bayarri, Jordi; Lleo, Alberto; Ortiz-Gil, Jordi; Ugas, Lidia; Blesa, Rafael; Rene, Ramon

2012-01-01

In this article we aimed to assess how Alzheimer's disease (AD), which is neurodegenerative, affects the linguistic performance of early, high-proficient bilinguals in their two languages. To this end, we compared the Picture Naming and Word Translation performances of two groups of AD patients varying in disease progression (Mild and Moderate)…

When Bilinguals Choose a Single Word to Speak: Electrophysiological Evidence for Inhibition of the Native Language

Science.gov (United States)

Misra, Maya; Guo, Taomei; Bobb, Susan C.; Kroll, Judith F.

2012-01-01

Behavioral and event-related potential (ERP) measures are reported for a study in which relatively proficient Chinese-English bilinguals named identical pictures in each of their two languages. Production occurred only in Chinese (the first language, L1) or only in English (the second language, L2) in a given block with the order counterbalanced…

Relevance of useful visual words in object retrieval

Science.gov (United States)

Qi, Siyuan; Luo, Yupin

2013-07-01

The most popular methods in object retrieval are almost based on bag-of-words(BOW) which is both effective and efficient. In this paper we present a method use the relations between words of the vocabulary to improve the retrieval performance based on the BOW framework. In basic BOW retrieval framework, only a few words of the vocabulary is useful for retrieval, which are spatial consistent in images. We introduce a method to useful select useful words and build a relevance between these words. We combine useful relevance with basic BOW framework and query expansion as well. The useful relevance is able to discover latent related words which is not exist in the query image, so that we can get a more accurate vector model for retrieval. Combined with query expansion method, the retrieval performance are better and fewer time cost.

The Cost of Switching Language in a Semantic Categorization Task.

Science.gov (United States)

von Studnitz, Roswitha E.; Green, David W.

2002-01-01

Presents a study in which German-English bilinguals decided whether a visually presented word, either German or English, referred to an animate or to an inanimate entity. Bilinguals were slower to respond on a language switch trial than on language non-switch trials but only if they had to make the same response as on the prior trial. (Author/VWL)

Impact of orthographic transparency on typical and atypical reading development: evidence in French-Spanish bilingual children.

Science.gov (United States)

Lallier, Marie; Valdois, Sylviane; Lassus-Sangosse, Delphine; Prado, Chloé; Kandel, Sonia

2014-05-01

The present study aimed to quantify cross-linguistic modulations of the contribution of phonemic awareness skills and visual attention span (VA Span) skills (number of visual elements that can be processed simultaneously) to reading speed and accuracy in 18 Spanish-French balanced bilingual children with and without developmental dyslexia. The children were administered two similar reading batteries in French and Spanish. The deficits of the dyslexic children in reading accuracy were mainly visible in their opaque orthography (French) whereas difficulties indexed by reading speed were observed in both their opaque and transparent orthographies. Dyslexic children did not exhibit any phonemic awareness problems in French or in Spanish, but showed poor VA Span skills compared to their control peers. VA span skills correlated with reading accuracy and speed measures in both Spanish and French, whereas phonemic awareness correlated with reading accuracy only. Overall, the present results show that the VA Span is tightly related to reading speed regardless of orthographic transparency, and that it accounts for differences in reading performance between good and poor readers across languages. The present findings further suggest that VA Span skills may play a particularly important role in building-up specific word knowledge which is critical for lexical reading strategies. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Bilingual Advertising in Melbourne Chinatown

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Sherry Yong

2014-01-01

This paper explores the function of bilingual advertising by analyzing a case study of bilingual advertising in the Chinatown of Melbourne, Australia. The use of bilingual advertising in an immigrant setting differentiates itself from those in Asian settings where English is not used by dominant proportion of speakers in the society, and this…

Effects of bilingualism on vocabulary, executive functions, age of dementia onset, and regional brain structure.

Science.gov (United States)

Gasquoine, Philip Gerard

2016-11-01

To review the current literature on the effects of bilingualism on vocabulary, executive functions, age of dementia onset, and regional brain structure. PubMed and PsycINFO databases were searched (from January 1999 to present) for relevant original research and review articles on bilingualism (but not multilingualism) paired with each target neuropsychological variable published in English. A qualitative review of these articles was conducted. It has long been known that mean scores of bilinguals fall below those of monolinguals on vocabulary and other language, but not visual-perceptual, format cognitive tests. Contemporary studies that have reported higher mean scores for bilinguals than monolinguals on executive function task-switching or inhibition tasks have not always been replicated, leading to concerns of publication bias, statistical flaws, and failures to match groups on potentially confounding variables. Studies suggesting the onset of Alzheimer's disease occurred about 4 years later for bilinguals versus monolinguals have not been confirmed in longitudinal, cohort, community-based, incidence studies that have used neuropsychological testing and diagnostic criteria to establish an age of dementia diagnosis. Neuroimaging studies of regional gray and white matter volume in bilinguals versus monolinguals show inconsistencies in terms of both the regions of difference and the nature of the difference. Resolving inconsistencies in the behavioral data is necessary before searching in the brain for neuroanatomical correlation. Comparisons of balanced versus language-dominant groups within the same ethnoculture combined with objective measurement of bilingualism could better match groups on potentially confounding variables. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

Age of Acquisition Effects on Word Processing for Chinese Native Learners? English: ERP Evidence for the Arbitrary Mapping Hypothesis

OpenAIRE

Xue, Jin; Liu, Tongtong; Marmolejo-Ramos, Fernando; Pei, Xuna

2017-01-01

The present study aimed at distinguishing processing of early learned L2 words from late ones for Chinese natives who learn English as a foreign language. Specifically, we examined whether the age of acquisition (AoA) effect arose during the arbitrary mapping from conceptual knowledge onto linguistic units. The behavior and ERP data were collected when 28 Chinese-English bilinguals were asked to perform semantic relatedness judgment on word pairs, which represented three stages of word learni...

Age of Acquisition Effects on Word Processing for Chinese Native Learners’ English: ERP Evidence for the Arbitrary Mapping Hypothesis

OpenAIRE

Jin Xue; Tongtong Liu; Fernando Marmolejo-Ramos; Fernando Marmolejo-Ramos; Xuna Pei

2017-01-01

The present study aimed at distinguishing processing of early learned L2 words from late ones for Chinese natives who learn English as a foreign language. Specifically, we examined whether the age of acquisition (AoA) effect arose during the arbitrary mapping from conceptual knowledge onto linguistic units. The behavior and ERP data were collected when 28 Chinese-English bilinguals were asked to perform semantic relatedness judgment on word pairs, which represented three stages of word learni...

How Many Words Is a Picture Worth? Integrating Visual Literacy in Language Learning with Photographs

Science.gov (United States)

Baker, Lottie

2015-01-01

Cognitive research has shown that the human brain processes images quicker than it processes words, and images are more likely than text to remain in long-term memory. With the expansion of technology that allows people from all walks of life to create and share photographs with a few clicks, the world seems to value visual media more than ever…

Effects of bilingualism on the age of onset and progression of MCI and AD: evidence from executive function tests.

Science.gov (United States)

Bialystok, Ellen; Craik, Fergus I M; Binns, Malcolm A; Ossher, Lynn; Freedman, Morris

2014-03-01

Previous articles have reported that bilingualism is associated with a substantial delay in the onset of both Alzheimer's disease (AD) and Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI). The present study reports results from 74 MCI patients and 75 AD patients; approximately half of the patients in each group were bilingual. All patients were interviewed to obtain details of their language use, onset of their condition, and lifestyle habits. Patients performed three executive function (EF) tests from the D-KEFS battery (Trails, Color-Word Interference, Verbal Fluency) on 3 occasions over a period of approximately 1 year. Results replicated the finding that bilingual patients are several years older than comparable monolinguals at both age of symptom onset and date of first clinic visit. This result could not be attributed to language group differences in such lifestyle variables as diet, smoking, alcohol consumption, physical activity, or social activity. On the first testing occasion, performance on the EF tasks was generally comparable between the language groups, contesting arguments that bilinguals wait longer before attending the clinic. Finally, EF performance tended to decline over the 3 sessions, but no differences were found between monolinguals and bilinguals in the rate of decline. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved.

Verbal Reports of Proficient Readers In Coping With Unfamiliar Words

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kusumarasdyati Kusumarasdyati

2016-02-01

Full Text Available The present study reports the actual strategy use of good readers when they face hindrance in the form of unfamiliar words. Eight undergraduates majoring in English at Surabaya State University performed think-aloud while reading two texts to find out how they coped with such difficulties. The verbal protocol indicated that half of the participants mainly relied on a bilingual (English-Indonesian dictionary to attack unfamiliar words, and only one of them preferred to use a monolingual (English-English one. Two of them employed context cues to infer the meaning of the words, while one participant combined the use of context cues and a monolingual dictionary as the major strategy. All but one of the participants skipped some of lexical items whose meaning was unknown to them, especially when these words did not have a key contribution to the meaning of the whole text.

VStops: A Thinking Strategy and Visual Representation Approach in Mathematical Word Problem Solving toward Enhancing STEM Literacy

Science.gov (United States)

Abdullah, Nasarudin; Halim, Lilia; Zakaria, Effandi

2014-01-01

This study aimed to determine the impact of strategic thinking and visual representation approaches (VStops) on the achievement, conceptual knowledge, metacognitive awareness, awareness of problem-solving strategies, and student attitudes toward mathematical word problem solving among primary school students. The experimental group (N = 96)…

On Processing Chinese Ideographs and English Words: Some Implications from Stroop-Test Results.

Science.gov (United States)

Biederman, Irving; Tsao, Yao-Chung

1979-01-01

When Chinese adults tried to name the color of characters which represented conflicting color words, they showed greater interference than did English speaking readers of the same task in English. This effect cannot be attributed to bilingualism. There may be fundamental differences in the perceptual demands of reading Chinese and English.…

Identifying language impairment in bilingual children in France and in Germany.

Science.gov (United States)

Tuller, Laurice; Hamann, Cornelia; Chilla, Solveig; Ferré, Sandrine; Morin, Eléonore; Prevost, Philippe; Dos Santos, Christophe; Abed Ibrahim, Lina; Zebib, Racha

2018-05-23

The detection of specific language impairment (SLI) in children growing up bilingually presents particular challenges for clinicians. Non-word repetition (NWR) and sentence repetition (SR) tasks have proven to be the most accurate diagnostic tools for monolingual populations, raising the question of the extent of their usefulness in different bilingual populations. To determine the diagnostic accuracy of NWR and SR tasks that incorporate phonological/syntactic complexity as discussed in recent linguistic theory. The tasks were developed as part of the Language Impairment Testing in Multilingual Settings (LITMUS) toolkit, in two different national settings, France and Germany, and investigated children with three different home languages: Arabic, Portuguese and Turkish. NWR and SR tasks developed in parallel were administered to 151 bilingual children, aged 5;6-8;11, in France and in Germany, to 64 children in speech-language therapy (SLT) and to 87 children not in SLT, whose first language (L1) was Arabic, Portuguese or Turkish. Children were also administered standardized language tests in each of their languages to determine likely clinical status (typical development (TD) or SLI), and parents responded to a questionnaire including questions about early and current language use (bilingualism factors) and early language development (risk factors for SLI). Monolingual controls included 47 TD children and 29 children with SLI. Results were subjected to inter-group comparisons, to diagnostic accuracy calculation, and to correlation and multiple regression analyses. In accordance with previous studies, NWR and SR identified SLI in the monolingual children, yielding good to excellent diagnostic accuracy. Diagnostic accuracy in bilingual children was fair to good, generally distinguishing children likely to have SLI from children likely to have TD. Accuracy was necessarily linked to the determination of clinical status, which was based on standardized assessment in each

Interference of spoken word recognition through phonological priming from visual objects and printed words

NARCIS (Netherlands)

McQueen, J.M.; Hüttig, F.

2014-01-01

Three cross-modal priming experiments examined the influence of preexposure to pictures and printed words on the speed of spoken word recognition. Targets for auditory lexical decision were spoken Dutch words and nonwords, presented in isolation (Experiments 1 and 2) or after a short phrase

Asymmetric Switch Costs in numeral naming and number word reading: Implications for models of bilingual language production

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Michael eReynolds

2016-01-01

Full Text Available One approach used to gain insight into the processes underlying bilingual language comprehension and production examines the costs that arise from switching languages. For unbalanced bilinguals, asymmetric switch costs are reported in speech production, where the switch cost for L1 is larger than the switch cost for L2, whereas, symmetric switch costs are reported in language comprehension tasks, where the cost of switching is the same for L1 and L2. Presently, it is unclear why asymmetric switch costs are observed in speech production, but not in language comprehension. Three experiments are reported that simultaneously examine methodological explanations of task related differences in the switch cost asymmetry and the predictions of three accounts of the switch cost asymmetry in speech production. The results of these experiments suggest that (1 the type of language task (comprehension vs. production determines whether an asymmetric switch cost is observed and (2 at least some of the switch cost asymmetry arises within the language system.

Two Languages, Number One Authors: The Influence of Bilingual Upbringing on the Literary Accomplishments of Roald Dahl and Dr. Seuss

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ivana Marinić

2008-06-01

Full Text Available This paper focuses on the nature and impact of bilingual upbringing on cognitive development, thought and cultural experience of two bestselling authors, Roald Dahl and Theodor Seuss Geisel (Dr. Seuss. It argues that this bilingual upbringing resulted in a specific use of language in their literary accomplishments. Several segments from representative works by Dahl and Dr. Seuss are examined in order to reveal the stylistic particularities of the two authors, such as their original argot, word play, neologisms, the art of exaggeration and nonsense, as well as various aspects of metaphor. This is to show that bilingualism may be a decisive factor in creating a fruitful environment for the development of original and recognizable mode of written expression, which not only transcends cognitive and linguistic boundaries, but also cultural borderlines, resulting in the emergence of a new cultural artistic identity.

The effect of visual and verbal modes of presentation on children's retention of images and words

Science.gov (United States)

Vasu, Ellen Storey; Howe, Ann C.

This study tested the hypothesis that the use of two modes of presenting information to children has an additive memory effect for the retention of both images and words. Subjects were 22 first-grade and 22 fourth-grade children randomly assigned to visual and visual-verbal treatment groups. The visual-verbal group heard a description while observing an object; the visual group observed the same object but did not hear a description. Children were tested individually immediately after presentation of stimuli and two weeks later. They were asked to represent the information recalled through a drawing and an oral verbal description. In general, results supported the hypothesis and indicated, in addition, that children represent more information in iconic (pictorial) form than in symbolic (verbal) form. Strategies for using these results to enhance science learning at the elementary school level are discussed.

The word-length effect and disyllabic words.

Science.gov (United States)

Lovatt, P; Avons, S E; Masterson, J

2000-02-01

Three experiments compared immediate serial recall of disyllabic words that differed on spoken duration. Two sets of long- and short-duration words were selected, in each case maximizing duration differences but matching for frequency, familiarity, phonological similarity, and number of phonemes, and controlling for semantic associations. Serial recall measures were obtained using auditory and visual presentation and spoken and picture-pointing recall. In Experiments 1a and 1b, using the first set of items, long words were better recalled than short words. In Experiments 2a and 2b, using the second set of items, no difference was found between long and short disyllabic words. Experiment 3 confirmed the large advantage for short-duration words in the word set originally selected by Baddeley, Thomson, and Buchanan (1975). These findings suggest that there is no reliable advantage for short-duration disyllables in span tasks, and that previous accounts of a word-length effect in disyllables are based on accidental differences between list items. The failure to find an effect of word duration casts doubt on theories that propose that the capacity of memory span is determined by the duration of list items or the decay rate of phonological information in short-term memory.

Bilingual education in Slovakia: A Case Study

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Silvia Pokrivčáková

2013-06-01

Full Text Available Bilingual education is one of the areas in contemporary education that brings out some important controversies (philosophical, conceptual, sociological, political, economical, etc. and thus calls for extensive and intensive debate. Bilingual education in Europe (and here the European Union countries are meant has gained a very different status, due to the general European policy of developing language diversity and promoting “European plurilingualism and multilingualism”. In Slovakia, one of the younger members of the EU, bilingual education became an extraordinarily popular instrument for the fulfilment of this task.  Since the specifically defined topic of bilingual education and its current status in Slovakia has not been studied and systematically reviewed yet, the research presented in this paper was designed as a single-phenomenon revelatory case study investigating seven research areas: reflection of bilingual education in school legislation and state pedagogical documents, purposes of bilingual education in Slovakia, its organization (levels and types of schools, foreign languages incorporated, teachers, structure of bilingual schools curricula, types of bilingual education applied at Slovak bilingual schools, and how bilingual education is both reflected in and saturated by the latest research findings. The conclusions presented in the paper were collected from multiple sources: state curriculum, statistical data published by the Slovak Ministry of Education or its partner institutions, international treaties on establishing and supporting bilingual sections of schools, bilingual schools curricula, interviews with school directors, teachers, and learners, direct observations at bilingual schools, research studies and research reports, etc. In the conclusion, bilingual education in Slovakia is identified as a unique, dynamically developing system which is both significantly shaped by the foreign language education policy promoted by

Language Identification of Kannada, Hindi and English Text Words Through Visual Discriminating Features

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

M.C. Padma

2008-06-01

Full Text Available In a multilingual country like India, a document may contain text words in more than one language. For a multilingual environment, multi lingual Optical Character Recognition (OCR system is needed to read the multilingual documents. So, it is necessary to identify different language regions of the document before feeding the document to the OCRs of individual language. The objective of this paper is to propose visual clues based procedure to identify Kannada, Hindi and English text portions of the Indian multilingual document.

Of black sheep and white crows: Extending the bilingual dual coding theory to memory for idioms

OpenAIRE

Lena K. Pritchett; Jyotsna Vaid; Sumeyra Tosun

2016-01-01

Are idioms stored in memory in ways that preserve their surface form or language or are they represented amodally? We examined this question using an incidental cued recall paradigm in which two word idiomatic expressions were presented to adult bilinguals proficient in Russian and English. Stimuli included phrases with idiomatic equivalents in both languages (e.g. “empty words/пycтыe cлoвa”) or in one language only (English—e.g. “empty suit/пycтoй кocтюм” or Russian—e.g. “empty sound/пycтoй ...

Neighbourhood frequency effects in visual word recognition and naming

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Grainger, I.J.

1988-01-01

Two experiments are reported that examine the influence of a given word's ortllographic neighbours (orthographically similar words) on the recognition and pronunciation of that word. In Experiment 1 (lexical decision) neighbourhood frequency as opposed to stimulus-word frequency was shown to have a

Extending models of visual-word recognition to semicursive scripts: Evidence from masked priming in Uyghur.

Science.gov (United States)

Yakup, Mahire; Abliz, Wayit; Sereno, Joan; Perea, Manuel

2015-12-01

One basic feature of the Arabic script is its semicursive style: some letters are connected to the next, but others are not, as in the Uyghur word [see text]/ya xʃi/ ("good"). None of the current orthographic coding schemes in models of visual-word recognition, which were created for the Roman script, assign a differential role to the coding of within letter "chunks" and between letter "chunks" in words in the Arabic script. To examine how letter identity/position is coded at the earliest stages of word processing in the Arabic script, we conducted 2 masked priming lexical decision experiments in Uyghur, an agglutinative Turkic language. The target word was preceded by an identical prime, by a transposed-letter nonword prime (that either kept the ligation pattern or did not), or by a 2-letter replacement nonword prime. Transposed-letter primes were as effective as identity primes when the letter transposition in the prime kept the same ligation pattern as the target word (e.g., [see text]/inta_jin/-/itna_jin/), but not when the transposed-letter prime didn't keep the ligation pattern (e.g., [see text]/so_w_ʁa_t/-/so_ʁw_a_t/). Furthermore, replacement-letter primes were more effective when they kept the ligation pattern of the target word than when they did not (e.g., [see text]/so_d_ʧa_t/-/so_w_ʁa_t/ faster than [see text]/so_ʧd_a_t/-/so_w_ʁa_t/). We examined how input coding schemes could be extended to deal with the intricacies of semicursive scripts. (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).

Affective processing in bilingual speakers: disembodied cognition?

Science.gov (United States)

Pavlenko, Aneta

2012-01-01

A recent study by Keysar, Hayakawa, and An (2012) suggests that "thinking in a foreign language" may reduce decision biases because a foreign language provides a greater emotional distance than a native tongue. The possibility of such "disembodied" cognition is of great interest for theories of affect and cognition and for many other areas of psychological theory and practice, from clinical and forensic psychology to marketing, but first this claim needs to be properly evaluated. The purpose of this review is to examine the findings of clinical, introspective, cognitive, psychophysiological, and neuroimaging studies of affective processing in bilingual speakers in order to identify converging patterns of results, to evaluate the claim about "disembodied cognition," and to outline directions for future inquiry. The findings to date reveal two interrelated processing effects. First-language (L1) advantage refers to increased automaticity of affective processing in the L1 and heightened electrodermal reactivity to L1 emotion-laden words. Second-language (L2) advantage refers to decreased automaticity of affective processing in the L2, which reduces interference effects and lowers electrodermal reactivity to negative emotional stimuli. The differences in L1 and L2 affective processing suggest that in some bilingual speakers, in particular late bilinguals and foreign language users, respective languages may be differentially embodied, with the later learned language processed semantically but not affectively. This difference accounts for the reduction of framing biases in L2 processing in the study by Keysar et al. (2012). The follow-up discussion identifies the limits of the findings to date in terms of participant populations, levels of processing, and types of stimuli, puts forth alternative explanations of the documented effects, and articulates predictions to be tested in future research.

Interference of spoken word recognition through phonological priming from visual objects and printed words.

Science.gov (United States)

McQueen, James M; Huettig, Falk

2014-01-01

Three cross-modal priming experiments examined the influence of preexposure to pictures and printed words on the speed of spoken word recognition. Targets for auditory lexical decision were spoken Dutch words and nonwords, presented in isolation (Experiments 1 and 2) or after a short phrase (Experiment 3). Auditory stimuli were preceded by primes, which were pictures (Experiments 1 and 3) or those pictures' printed names (Experiment 2). Prime-target pairs were phonologically onset related (e.g., pijl-pijn, arrow-pain), were from the same semantic category (e.g., pijl-zwaard, arrow-sword), or were unrelated on both dimensions. Phonological interference and semantic facilitation were observed in all experiments. Priming magnitude was similar for pictures and printed words and did not vary with picture viewing time or number of pictures in the display (either one or four). These effects arose even though participants were not explicitly instructed to name the pictures and where strategic naming would interfere with lexical decision making. This suggests that, by default, processing of related pictures and printed words influences how quickly we recognize spoken words.

Does bilingualism influence cognitive aging?

Science.gov (United States)

Bak, Thomas H; Nissan, Jack J; Allerhand, Michael M; Deary, Ian J

2014-06-01

Recent evidence suggests a positive impact of bilingualism on cognition, including later onset of dementia. However, monolinguals and bilinguals might have different baseline cognitive ability. We present the first study examining the effect of bilingualism on later-life cognition controlling for childhood intelligence. We studied 853 participants, first tested in 1947 (age = 11 years), and retested in 2008-2010. Bilinguals performed significantly better than predicted from their baseline cognitive abilities, with strongest effects on general intelligence and reading. Our results suggest a positive effect of bilingualism on later-life cognition, including in those who acquired their second language in adulthood. © 2014 The Authors Annals of Neurology published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of American Neurological Association. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

The Onset and Time Course of Semantic Priming during Rapid Recognition of Visual Words

Science.gov (United States)

Hoedemaker, Renske S.; Gordon, Peter C.

2016-01-01

In two experiments, we assessed the effects of response latency and task-induced goals on the onset and time course of semantic priming during rapid processing of visual words as revealed by ocular response tasks. In Experiment 1 (Ocular Lexical Decision Task), participants performed a lexical decision task using eye-movement responses on a sequence of four words. In Experiment 2, the same words were encoded for an episodic recognition memory task that did not require a meta-linguistic judgment. For both tasks, survival analyses showed that the earliest-observable effect (Divergence Point or DP) of semantic priming on target-word reading times occurred at approximately 260 ms, and ex-Gaussian distribution fits revealed that the magnitude of the priming effect increased as a function of response time. Together, these distributional effects of semantic priming suggest that the influence of the prime increases when target processing is more effortful. This effect does not require that the task include a metalinguistic judgment; manipulation of the task goals across experiments affected the overall response speed but not the location of the DP or the overall distributional pattern of the priming effect. These results are more readily explained as the result of a retrospective rather than a prospective priming mechanism and are consistent with compound-cue models of semantic priming. PMID:28230394