Language choice and naming difficulty: Evidence from bilingual degraded picture naming

Area of Science:

• Psycholinguistics
• Cognitive Science
• Second Language Acquisition

Background:

• Understanding factors influencing voluntary language choice in bilinguals is crucial for psycholinguistics.
• Previous research suggests task difficulty can impact language selection, but the specific role of prelexical processing remains unclear.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate whether anticipated naming difficulty, manipulated through image degradation, affects language choice and switching behavior in L2 English speakers.
• To test the hypothesis that increased prelexical difficulty leads to greater use of the nondominant language (English) and reduced language switching.

Main Methods:

• Three experiments involving native Dutch and Indonesian speakers performing an online picture-naming task with free language choice.
• Image degradation was used to manipulate prelexical processing difficulty (easy vs. difficult).
• Word frequency was also manipulated in one experiment; response times and language choices were recorded.

Main Results:

• Participants were slower to name degraded images and lower-frequency words, confirming the manipulation's effectiveness.
• Faster responses were observed for English trials (reverse dominance effect) and language repeat trials (switch cost).
• Contrary to hypotheses, image degradation did not significantly affect language choice or switching behavior.

Conclusions:

• Early, prelexical sources of naming difficulty do not influence voluntary language selection in L2 speakers.
• These findings support modular theories of language production, positing that language decisions occur independently of visual or conceptual processing stages.
• Language choice is primarily influenced by lexical factors rather than prelexical processing ease.