Cross-language associative priming is influenced by language proficiency and executive control

The present study investigated the impact of language proficiency and executive control (EC) ability on cross-language semantic activation using an English semantic priming lexical-decision task. Primes were either English-French homographs (i.e., words that share spelling but not meaning, e.g., pain means "bread" in French; related trial) or matched control words (e.g., pale; unrelated trial). Type of Priming was either translation (e.g., pain-BREAD) or cross-language associative (e.g., pain-BUTTER). A living/nonliving judgment task and a colour Stroop task measured individual differences in language proficiency and EC, respectively. Reaction time (RT) data from 58 bilingual young adults were analysed using linear mixed-effects modelling. Experimental variables (Type of Priming, relatedness), and individual-differences variables (English language proficiency, EC ability) served as fixed variables. Unlike previous studies on cross-language semantic activation, the current study included EC ability as an individual difference variable and found that it interacted with language proficiency to impact associative priming performance. Linear mixed-effects models for associative priming revealed that participants with slow English access exhibited increased positive priming from homographs, whereas individuals with fast lexical access experienced negative priming. Furthermore, these effects were exaggerated for individuals with poor EC. No effects of individual difference variables were observed on translation priming. These results suggest that theories of bilingual word recognition need to incorporate individual difference variables beyond language proficiency. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).