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Noise Modulates Crosslinguistic Effects on Second-Language Auditory Word Recognition.

Sara Guediche¹, Eugenia Navarra-Barindelli^1,2, Clara D Martin^1,3

¹BCBL. Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language, Donostia-San Sebastian, Gipuzkoa, Spain.

Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research : JSLHR

|February 2, 2023

Summary

Auditory word recognition in bilinguals is affected by noise. Performance on cognates, words with shared form and meaning across languages, worsened in noisy conditions, especially with dense phonological neighborhoods.

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Area of Science:

Psycholinguistics
Cognitive Science
Bilingualism Research

Background:

Bilingual word recognition involves managing lexical access across languages.
Crosslinguistic interactions can influence processing, particularly in challenging auditory conditions.
Understanding how signal quality affects bilingual lexical processing is crucial for cognitive models.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the impact of auditory signal quality (clear vs. noisy) on crosslinguistic effects in word recognition.
To determine if noise modulates the processing of cognates versus noncognates in bilinguals.
To examine the role of phonological neighborhood density in crosslinguistic competition under varying noise levels.

Main Methods:

An online auditory lexical decision task was administered to Spanish-English bilinguals in their second language (English).
Stimuli included English words and pseudowords presented in clear or noisy auditory conditions.
Target words were classified as cognates or noncognates based on their Spanish translation overlap, with varying neighborhood densities.

Main Results:

Crosslinguistic effects on word recognition were significantly modulated by auditory noise.
Performance was poorer for cognates compared to noncognates in noisy conditions, particularly when translations had high phonological neighborhood density.
Noise exacerbated competition between languages, amplifying the effects of crosslinguistic phonological overlap.

Conclusions:

Auditory noise intensifies lexical competition in bilinguals, mirroring effects observed within a single language.
The phonological overlap between cognates and their translation equivalents can increase the number of activated lexical candidates, especially under noisy conditions.
Findings contribute to understanding bilingual lexical processing and the interplay between signal quality and crosslinguistic interaction.