Bilingualism Influences How Articulation Enhances Verbal Encoding

Learning information may benefit from movement: Items that are spoken aloud are more accurately remembered than items that are silently read (the production effect). Candidate mechanisms for this phenomenon suggest that speaking may enrich or improve the feature content of memory traces, yet research suggests that prior language skill also plays a role. Recent work showed a larger production effect in bilinguals for words in their second language (L2) compared to their first language (L1), potentially suggesting that bilinguals engage different or additional linguistic features when speaking L2 compared to L1 words. The current study examined whether the increased L2 production effect reduces for L2 and L1 pseudowords, which may similarly engage mainly phonological features. German (L1)-English (L2) bilinguals first read (out loud or silently) and subsequently recognized German or English words or pseudowords following German or English phonology. The production effect increased for L2 compared to L1 items and for words compared to pseudowords. Modest evidence suggested L2-L1 similarity in production effect scores for pseudowords, but different L2-L1 scores for words. Integrating feature models of memory with models of bilingual language production, we propose that speaking an L2 may engage more extensive and diverse linguistic features than an L1.