We examined how linguistic context influences the nature of bilingual lexical activation. We hypothesized that in single-word context, form-related words would receive the strongest activation while, in sentence context, semantically related words would receive the strongest activation. Spanish-English bilinguals performed a semantic verification…

This study investigated whether the semantic similarity and grammatical class of distracter words affects the naming of pictured actions (verbs) in Japanese. Three experiments used the picture-word interference paradigm with participants naming picturable actions while ignoring distracters. In all three experiments, we manipulated the semantic…

We investigate how L1 phonology and semantics affect processing of interlingual homographs by manipulating language context before, and auditory input during, a visual experiment in the L2. Three experiments contained German-English homograph primes ("gift" = German "poison") in English sentences and was performed by German (L1) learners of…

How does the development and consolidation of perceptual, attentional, and higher cognitive abilities interact with language acquisition and processing? We explored children's (ages 5-17) and adults' (ages 18-51) comprehension of morphosyntactically varied sentences under several competing speech conditions that varied in the degree of attentional…

Evidence from 3 experiments reveals interference effects from structural relationships that are inconsistent with any grammatical parse of the perceived input. Processing disruption was observed when items occurring between a head and a dependent overlapped with either (or both) syntactic or semantic features of the dependent. Effects of syntactic…

A comprehensive procedure to test if bilinguals generalize semantically between their languages yielded results which support the classifying of bilinguals as either coordinate or compound. (FWB)

We present data from four experiments using cross-modal priming to examine the effects of competitor environment on lexical activation during the time course of the perception of a spoken word. The research is conducted from the perspective of a distributed model of speech perception and lexical representation, which focuses on activation at the…

Focuses on linguistic interference patterns which impede the progress of Italians learning English as a second language in Canada. (RL)

Research supported by research grants from the Canadian Defense Research Board and the Canada Council. (VM)

Discusses for the benefit of German students of Russian the various ways of rendering in Russian the German verb "haben" (have) used in the sense of "besitzen" (own). Numerous examples are presented. (Text is in German.) (FB)

Findings indicate that there are significant differences in semantic distance between English-Spanish bilinguals and English monolinguals, that semantic distance differed between balanced bilinguals and Spanish-dominant bilinguals, and that the balanced bilinguals have a greater repertoire of verbal information than their monolingual peers.…

Third- and sixth-grade readers were asked to label sets of pictures printed with distracting words (either nouns, adjectives, or functors) and nonsense syllables. (Author/JMB)

Tests with mixed-language associative networks lent support to the theoretical contrast between compound and coordinate forms of bilingualism. (Author/FWB)

The authors investigated effects of task and overlapping processing load on semantic processing. In 3 experiments the brain potential component N400 was elicited by synonymous and nonsynonymous spoken noun pairs that were to be classified according to semantic relatedness. The time course of the N=400 component to the nouns was delayed, and its…

Italian speakers were asked to name pictures of actions (e.g. "bere", to drink). Pictures were presented at the same time as distracter words that were semantically related or unrelated to the picture names, and were of the same or different grammatical class (verbs or nouns). Half of the participants named the actions as verbs in citation form,…