Related Experiment Video
Updated: Oct 30, 2025
05:38
Interaction between Phonological and Semantic Processes in Visual Word Recognition using Electrophysiology
Published on: June 29, 2021
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Within-language lexical interference can be resolved in a similar way to between-language interference.
Iva Ivanova1, Dacia Carolina Hernandez1
1Department of Psychology, University of Texas at El Paso, USA.
Cognition
|July 4, 2021
Summary
Monolinguals may use top-down language control mechanisms, similar to bilinguals, to manage internal language interference. This suggests shared cognitive processes for resolving lexical interference within and across languages.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Psycholinguistics
- Neuroscience
Background:
- Bilinguals utilize language control mechanisms to manage interference between languages.
- These mechanisms are often assumed to be top-down and are studied using language switching paradigms.
- Monolingual interference resolution is typically explained by bottom-up processes.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate whether monolinguals employ similar top-down mechanisms as bilinguals for resolving lexical interference within a single language.
- To compare language control processes in bilinguals and monolinguals using a cued language mixing task.
- To explore the role of top-down versus bottom-up mechanisms in lexical interference.
Main Methods:
- Experiments involved picture naming tasks with blocked and trial-level switching conditions.
- Bilingual participants (Spanish-English) switched between languages.
- Monolingual participants switched between basic-level and subordinate names for objects.
- Analyses included switching, mixing, post-mixing costs, dominance effects, and repetition benefits.
Main Results:
- Bilinguals showed signs of dominant deprioritization (costs for dominant language).
- Monolinguals also exhibited dominant deprioritization (costs for basic-level names).
- Monolinguals unexpectedly showed a dominance reversal, with basic-level names being slower overall.
Conclusions:
- Findings suggest top-down mechanisms may be involved in monolingual lexical interference resolution.
- This challenges the traditional view of bottom-up mechanisms for monolingual interference.
- Cognitive control mechanisms for managing interference might be shared across monolingual and bilingual language processing.
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