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Updated: Jun 25, 2026
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Eye Tracking During Visually Situated Language Comprehension: Flexibility and Limitations in Uncovering Visual Context Effects
Published on: November 30, 2018
Bilingual lexical access in context: evidence from eye movements during reading
Maya R Libben1, Debra A Titone
1Department of Psychology, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. maya.libben@mail.mcgill.ca
Summary
Bilinguals show nonselective lexical access when reading words in isolation or low-constraint sentences. However, this nonselective access is quickly resolved in high-constraint sentences, indicating context influences language processing.
Area of Science:
- Psycholinguistics
- Cognitive Neuroscience
- Bilingualism Research
Background:
- Current models of bilingualism suggest nonselective lexical access during reading.
- Previous research often used isolated words, limiting understanding of contextual effects.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate if nonselective lexical access occurs for words within biased sentence contexts.
- To examine the influence of semantic constraint on bilingual reading processes.
Main Methods:
- Eye movements of French-English bilinguals were tracked while reading sentences.
- Sentences included cognates, interlingual homographs, or control words.
- Semantic constraint was manipulated (low vs. high).
Main Results:
- Cognate facilitation and interlingual homograph interference were observed in low-constraint sentences.
- In high-constraint sentences, only early comprehension measures supported nonselective access.
- Late-stage comprehension measures showed no such effects in high-constraint contexts.
Conclusions:
- Nonselective bilingual lexical access occurs at early stages of reading.
- This effect is rapidly resolved in semantically biased contexts during later comprehension stages.
- Sentence context plays a crucial role in modulating bilingual language processing.
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