In this study we examined how the introduction of a parallel finger-tapping task influences second language (L2) speech encoding mechanisms and monitoring processes, and how the level of proficiency impacts the efficiency and accuracy of L2 performance under single and dual task conditions. The results indicate that imposing dual task demands had…

Sensorimotor processing in children and higher-cognitive processing in adults could determine how non-native phonemes are acquired. This study investigates how age-of-acquisition (AOA) and proficiency-level (PL) predict native-like perception of statistically dissociated L2 categories, i.e., within-category and between-category. In a similarity…

The main objective of this article is to provide new evidence regarding the impact of bilingualism on the attentional system. We approach this goal by assessing the effects of bilingualism on the executive and orienting networks of attention. In Experiment 1, we compared young bilingual and monolingual adults in a numerical version of the Stroop…

This study investigated the possibility that lifelong bilingualism may lead to enhanced efficiency in the ability to shift between mental sets. We compared the performance of monolingual and fluent bilingual college students in a task-switching paradigm. Bilinguals incurred reduced switching costs in the task-switching paradigm when compared with…

Do the lexical representations of the non-response language enter into lexical competition during speech production? This issue has been studied by means of the picture-word interference paradigm in which two paradoxical effects have been observed. The so-called CROSS-LANGUAGE IDENTITY EFFECT (Costa, Miozzo and Caramazza, 1999) has been taken as…

Explored the role of age of acquisition in picture naming with a group of unbalanced, late bilinguals and a group of monolinguals. Hypothesized that effects of second language (L2)age of acquisition on l2 picture naming performance would be found (Author/VWL)

Used event-related dense-sensor EEG recording techniques to examine the time course of language switching during a visually-cued naming task in which bilingual participants named digits in either their first or second language. Switch-related modulation of ERP components was evident over parietal and frontal cortices, and in the latter case showed…

Contrasted the effect of instruction-induced expectancies and language intermixing in an English lexical decision task performed by Dutch-English bilinguals. Results indicate that language intermixing rather than instruction-based expectancies drives the bilingual participants' performance. Consequences for current views on bilingual word…

Examines form-similar nouns in early lexical development of a bilingual German/English child, as well as effects of form similarity in picture naming and translation in two groups of German/English children. Results show an effect of form similarity in early lexical development; form similar words occurred frequently in the beginning of the…

Functional neuroimaging of bilinguals and monolinguals used in conjunction with experimental cognitive tasks has been successful in establishing functional specialization as a principle of brain organization in humans. Consistent results show that attained proficiency and possibly language exposure are more important than age of acquisition as a…

Examined word recognition in early fluent Spanish-English bilinguals using a single word presentation lexical decision task. Reaction times (RT) and event-related brain potentials were measured while subjects made a lexical decision on words and pseudowords in either Spanish or English. Result show associative priming as measured by RTs but both…

Dutch-English bilinguals performed a generalized lexical decision task on triplets of items, responding with "yes" if all items wee correct Dutch and/or English words, and with "no" if one or ore of the items was not a word in wither language. Semantic priming effects were found in on-line response times. Event-related…

Investigates the acquisition of verb movement phenomena in the interlanguage of English native speakers learning French as a second language. Participants were given a grammaticality judgment task and production task. French native speakers' results go against certain theoretical predictions of negation and adverb placement in nonfinite contexts,…

A grammaticality judgment test based on five structures of English grammar was administered in oral and written form. Two groups were formed by separating participants who began learning English at younger and older than 15 years of age. Performance patterns were different for the two groups, the linguistic structure tested affected participants'…

Examined why adults learning second languages make frequent errors in lexical form. More and less fluent bilinguals in English and Spanish performed a translation recognition task in which they had to decide whether the second of two words was the correct translation of the first. Less fluent participants experienced more interference for…