Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T19:09:02.512Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The cognate facilitation effect depends on the presence of identical cognates

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2022

Sophie L. Arana ,
Helena M. Oliveira ,
Ana Isabel Fernandes ,
Ana Paula Soares  and
Montserrat Comesaña Open the ORCID record for Montserrat Comesaña [Opens in a new window]
Sophie L. Arana
Affiliation:
Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Centre for Cognitive Imaging, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen, Netherlands
Helena M. Oliveira
Affiliation:
Research Unit in Human Cognition, CIPsi, School of Psychology, University of Minho, Braga, Portugal
Ana Isabel Fernandes
Affiliation:
Research Unit in Human Cognition, CIPsi, School of Psychology, University of Minho, Braga, Portugal
Ana Paula Soares
Affiliation:
Research Unit in Human Cognition, CIPsi, School of Psychology, University of Minho, Braga, Portugal
Montserrat Comesaña*
Affiliation:
Research Unit in Human Cognition, CIPsi, School of Psychology, University of Minho, Braga, Portugal Centro de Investigación Nebrija en Cognición (CINC), Nebrija University, Madrid, Spain
*
*Address for correspondence: Montserrat Comesaña Research Unit in Human Cognition, CIPsi School of Psychology, University of Minho Campus de Gualtar 4710-057 Braga, Portugal E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Previous research has shown that the direction of the cognate facilitation effect (CFE) can disappear if identical cognate words are removed from the stimulus list while keeping task requirements constant (Comesaña, Ferré, Romero, Guasch, Soares & García-Chico, 2015). These results do not fit well with leading computational models of bilingual word recognition (BIA+, Multilink), according to which there are no top-down influences at early stages of word processing. Influences would be post-lexical in nature and would result from competition at the response level. This study aimed to examine this issue by manipulating stimulus list composition and examining its impact on cognate word recognition. We varied the proportion of identical cognates in the experimental lists with four ratios of identical vs. non-identical cognates (50-50; 25-75; 12-88, and 0-100, respectively). Results showed that the CFE gradually decreases as the proportion of identical cognates also decreases. These findings cannot be explained by mechanisms of response competition, but instead seem to imply a dynamic and language-specific top-down regulation of lexical activation.

Keywords

representation and processing of identical and non-identical cognatescognate facilitation effectstimulus list compositionMultilink model
Type
Research Article
Information
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition , Volume 25 , Issue 4 , August 2022 , pp. 660 - 678
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Barr, DJ, Levy, R, Scheepers, C and Tily, HJ (2013) Random effects structure for confirmatory hypothesis testing: Keep it maximal. Journal of Memory and Language 68, 255–278. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jml.2012.11.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bates, D, Machler, M and Bolker, B (2011) lme4: Linear mixed-effects models using s4 classes. http://cran.R-project.org/package=lme4. R package version 0.999375-42.Google Scholar
Benjamini, Y and Hochberg, Y (1995) Controlling the false discovery rate: a practical and powerful approach to multiple testing. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series B (Methodological) 57, 289–300. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2517-6161.1995.tb02031.x.Google Scholar
Brenders, P, van Hell, JG and Dijkstra, T (2011) Word recognition in child second language learners: Evidence from cognates and false friends. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 109, 383–396. doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2011.03.012CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Caramazza, A and Brones, I (1979) Lexical access in bilinguals. Word Journal Of The International Linguistic Association 13, 212–214.Google Scholar
Casalis, S, Commissaire, E and Duncan, L (2015) Sensitivity to morpheme units in English 623 as L2 word recognition. Writing System Research 7, 186–201.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chauncey, K, Grainger, J and Holcomb, PJ (2008) Code-switching effects in bilingual word recognition: a masked priming study with event-related potentials. Brain Language 105, 161–174.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Comesaña, M, Ferré, P, Demestre, J, Valente, D, Gonçalves, AM and van Heuven, WJB (2021, in preparation). Re-examining the role of local context on relative language activation: an ERP study with Catalan–Spanish bilinguals. [Manuscript in preparation]. School of Psychology, University of Minho.Google Scholar
Comesaña, M, Ferré, P, Romero, J, Guasch, M, Soares, AP and García-Chico, T (2015) Facilitative Effect of Cognate Words Vanishes When Reducing the Orthographic Overlap: The Role of Stimuli List Composition Facilitative Effect of Cognate Words Vanishes When Reducing. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 41, 614–635. doi: 10.1037/xlm0000065Google ScholarPubMed
Comesaña, M, Moreira, AJ, Valente, D, Hernández, J and Soares, AP (2019) List composition effect on cognate and non-cognate word acquisition in children. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism 9, 289–313. doi: 10.1075/lab.16034.comCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Comesaña, M, Sánchez-Casas, R, Soares, AP, Pinheiro, AP, Rauber, A, Frade, S and Fraga, I (2012) The interplay of phonology and orthography in visual cognate word recognition: An ERP study. Neuroscience Letters 529, 75–79.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Costa, A, Caramazza, A and Sebastian-Galles, N (2000) The Cognate Facilitation Effect: Implications for Models of Lexical Access. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition Caramazza 26, 1283–1296. doi: 10.1037/0278-7393.26.5.1283Google ScholarPubMed
Cristoffanini, P, Kirsner, K and Milech, D (1986) Bilingual lexical representation: The status of Spanish–English cognates. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology Section A 38, 367–393. doi: 10.1080/14640748608401604Google Scholar
Davis, CJ (2005) N-watch: a program for deriving neighborhood size and other psycholinguistic statistics. Behavior Research Methods 37, 65–70. doi: 10.3758/BF03206399CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
de Groot, AM and Nas, GL (1991) Lexical representation of cognates and noncognates in compound bilinguals. Journal of Memory and Language 30, 90–123. doi: 10.1016/0749-596X(91)90012-9CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dijkstra, A, Wahl, A, Buytenhuijs, F, van Halem, N, Aljibouri, Z, de Korte, M and Rekké, S (2019) Multilink: a computational model for bilingual word recognition and word translation. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 22, 657–679. doi:10.1017/S1366728918000287.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dijkstra, AT and van Heuven, WJB (1998) The BIA model and bilingual word recognition. In Grainger, J and Jacobs, AM (eds.), Localist connectionist approaches to human cognition. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, pp. 189–225.Google Scholar
Dijkstra, T, Bruijn, E. De, Schriefers, H and Brinke, S Ten, . (2000a) More on interlingual homograph recognition: language intermixing versus explicitness of instruction *. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 3, 69–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dijkstra, T, Grainger, J and van Heuven, WJB (1999) Recognition of Cognates and Interlingual Homographs: The Neglected Role of Phonology. Journal of Memory and Language 41, 496–518. doi: 10.1006/jmla.1999.2654CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dijkstra, T, Miwa, K, Brummelhuis, B, Sappelli, M and Baayen, H (2010) How cross-language similarity and task demands affect cognate recognition. Journal of Memory and Language 62, 284–301. doi: 10.1016/j.jml.2009.12.003CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dijkstra, T, Timmermans, M and Schriefers, H (2000b) On Being Blinded by Your Other Language: Effects of Task Demands on Interlingual Homograph Recognition. Journal of Memory and Language 42, 445–464. doi: 10.1006/jmla.1999.2697CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dijkstra, T and van Heuven, WJB (2002) The architecture of the bilingual word recognition system: From identification to decision. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 5. doi: 10.1017/S1366728902003012CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dijkstra, T and van Heuven, WJB (2012) Word recognition in the bilingual brain. In The Handbook of the Neuropsychology of Language (pp. 451–471). Retrieved from https://books.google.com/books?hl=de&lr=&id=UEWVqdNFL4cC&pgis=1CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elston-Güttler, KE and Gunter, TC (2009) Fine-tuned: Phonology and semantics affect first-to second-language zooming in. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 21, 180–196. doi:10.1162/jocn.2009.21015CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Elston-Güttler, KE, Gunter, TC and Kotz, SA (2005) Zooming into L2: Global language context and adjustment affect processing of interlingual homographs in sentences. Cognitive Brain Research 25, 57–70. doi: 10.1016/j.cogbrainres.2005.04.007CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Forster, KI and Forster, JC (2003) DMDX: a windows display program with millisecond accuracy. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, and Computers 35, 116–124. doi: 10.3758/BF03195503CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gooskens, C and Heeringa, W (2004) Perceptive evaluation of Levenshtein dialect distance measurements using Norwegian dialect data. Language Variation and Change 16, 189–207. doi: 10.1017/S0954394504163023CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guasch, M, Ferré, P and Haro, J (2017) Pupil dilation is sensitive to the cognate status of words: further evidence for non-selectivity in bilingual lexical access. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 20, 49–54. doi:10.1017/S1366728916000651CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hochberg, Y (1988) A sharper Bonferroni procedure for multiple tests of significance. Biometrika 75, 800–802. https://doi.org/10.1093/biomet/75.4.800CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hoversten, LJ and Traxler, MJ (2016) A time course analysis of interlingual homograph processing: Evidence from eye movements. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 19, 347–360. doi:10.1017/S1366728915000115.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hoversten, LJ and Traxler, MJ (2020) Zooming in on zooming out: Partial selectivity and dynamic tuning of bilingual language control during reading. Cognition, 195, p. 104118. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2019.104118CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jared, D and Kroll, JF (2001) Do Bilinguals Activate Phonological Representations in One or Both of Their Languages When Naming Words? Journal of Memory and Language 44, 2–31. doi: 10.1006/jmla.2000.2747CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keuleers, E and Brysbaert, M (2010) Wuggy: a multilingual pseudoword generator. Behavior Research Methods 42, 627–633. doi: 10.3758/BRM.42.3.627CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Khuri, AI, Mathew, T and Sinha, B.K. (1998) Statistical Tests for Linear Mixed Models, New York, NY: Wiley.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lemhöfer, K and Dijkstra, T (2004) Recognizing cognates and interlingual homographs: effects of code similarity in language-specific and generalized lexical decision. Memory & Cognition 32, 533–50. doi: 10.3758/BF03195845CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lemhöfer, K, Dijkstra, T, Schriefers, H, Baayen, RH, Grainger, J and Zwitserlood, P (2008) Native language influences on word recognition in a second language: a megastudy. Journal of Experimental Psychology. Learning, Memory, and Cognition 34, 12–31. doi: 10.1037/0278-7393.34.1.12CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Li, P, Zhang, F, Tsai, E and Puls, B (2013) Language history questionnaire (LHQ 2.0): A new dynamic web-based research tool. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 17, 673–680. doi: 10.1017/S1366728913000606CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Midgley, KJ, Holcomb, PJ and Grainger, J (2011) Effects of cognate status on word comprehension in second language learners: an ERP investigation. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 23, 1634–1647. doi: 10.1162/jocn.2010.21463CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pellika, J, Helenius, P, Mäkelä, J and Lehtonen, M (2015) Context affects L1 but not L2 during bilingual word recognition: An MEG study. Brain & Language 142, 8–17. doi:10.1016/j.bandl.2015.01.006.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Poort, ED and Rodd, JM (2017) The cognate facilitation effect in bilingual lexical decision is influenced by stimulus list composition. Acta Psychologica 180, 52–63.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Satterthwaite, FE (1941) Synthesis of variance. Psychometrika 6, 309–316. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02288586.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schwartz, AI and Kroll, JF (2006) Bilingual lexical activation in sentence context. Journal of Memory and Language 55, 197–212. doi: 10.1016/j.jml.2006.03.004CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schwartz, AI, Kroll, JF and Diaz, M (2007) Reading words in Spanish and English: Mapping orthography to phonology in two languages. Language and Cognitive Processes 22, 106–129. doi:10.1080/01690960500463920CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Soares, AP, Oliveira, H, Comesaña, M and Costa, A (2018a) Lexico-syntactic interactions in the resolution of second language relative clause ambiguities: The role of cognate status and second language proficiency. Psicológica 39, 164–197. doi: 10.2478/psicolj-2018-0008CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Soares, AP, Iriarte, A, de Almeida, JJ, Simões, A, Costa, A, Machado, J, França, P, Comesaña, M, Rauber, A, Rato, A and Perea, M (2018b) Procura-PALavras (P-PAL): A web-based interface for a new European Portuguese lexical database. Behavior Research Methods 50, 1461–1481. doi: 10.3758/s13428-018-1058-zCrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Soares, AP, Oliveira, H, Ferreira, M, Comesaña, M, Macedo, F, Ferré, P, Acuña-Fariña, JC, Hernández-Cabrera, J and Fraga, I (2019) The role of cognate status and second language proficiency on relative clause attachment preferences in a second language: An eye-tracker study. Plos One 14: e0216779. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0216779Google Scholar
Titone, D, Libben, M, Mercier, J, Whitford, V and Pivneva, I (2011) Bilingual lexical access during L1 sentence reading: The effects of L2 knowledge, semantic constraint, and L1–L2 intermixing. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 37, 1412–1431. doi: 10.1037/a0024492Google ScholarPubMed
van Hell, JG and de Groot, AMB (2008) Sentence context modulates visual word recognition and translation in bilinguals. Acta Psychologica 128, 431–451. doi: 10.1016/j.actpsy.2008.03.010CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
van Hell, JG and Dijkstra, T (2002) Foreign language knowledge can influence native language performance in exclusively native contexts. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 9, 780–789. doi: 10.3758/BF03196335CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Vanlangendonck, F, Peeters, D, Rueschemeyer, SA and Dijkstra, T (2020) Mixing the stimulus list in bilingual lexicon decision turns cognate facilitation effects into mirrored inhibition effects. Bilingualism: Language & Cognition. doi: 0.1017/ S1366728919000531CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wu, YJ and Thierry, G (2010) Investigating bilingual processing: The neglected role of language processing contexts. Frontiers in Psychology 1: 178. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2010.00178CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Yudes, C, Macizo, P and Bajo, T (2010) Cognate effects in bilingual language comprehension tasks. Neuroreport 21, 507–512. doi: 10.1097/WNR.0b013e328338b9e1CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed