Dataset Information

Co-lateralized bilingual mechanisms for reading in single and dual language contexts: evidence from visual half-field processing of action words in proficient bilinguals.

ABSTRACT: When reading, proficient bilinguals seem to engage the same cognitive circuits regardless of the language in use. Yet, whether or not such "bilingual" mechanisms would be lateralized in the same way in distinct-single or dual-language contexts is a question for debate. To fill this gap, we tested 18 highly proficient Polish (L1) -English (L2) childhood bilinguals whose task was to read aloud one of the two laterally presented action verbs, one stimulus per visual half field. While in the single-language blocks only L1 or L2 words were shown, in the subsequent mixed-language blocks words from both languages were concurrently displayed. All stimuli were presented for 217 ms followed by masks in which letters were replaced with hash marks. Since in non-simultaneous bilinguals the control of language, skilled actions (including reading), and representations of action concepts are typically left lateralized, the vast majority of our participants showed the expected, significant right visual field advantage for L1 and L2, both for accuracy and response times. The observed effects were nevertheless associated with substantial variability in the strength of the lateralization of the mechanisms involved. Moreover, although it could be predicted that participants' performance should be better in a single-language context, accuracy was significantly higher and response times were significantly shorter in a dual-language context, irrespective of the language tested. Finally, for both accuracy and response times, there were significant positive correlations between the laterality indices (LIs) of both languages independent of the context, with a significantly greater left-sided advantage for L1 vs. L2 in the mixed-language blocks, based on LIs calculated for response times. Thus, despite similar representations of the two languages in the bilingual brain, these results also point to the functional separation of L1 and L2 in the dual-language context.

SUBMITTER: Krefta M

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4528090 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Similar Datasets

Project description:Reading strategies vary across languages according to orthographic depth - the complexity of the grapheme in relation to phoneme conversion rules - notably at the level of eye movement patterns. We recently demonstrated that a group of early bilinguals, who learned both languages equally under the age of seven, presented a first fixation location (FFL) closer to the beginning of words when reading in German as compared with French. Since German is known to be orthographically more transparent than French, this suggested that different strategies were being engaged depending on the orthographic depth of the used language. Opaque languages induce a global reading strategy, and transparent languages force a local/serial strategy. Thus, pseudo-words were processed using a local strategy in both languages, suggesting that the link between word forms and their lexical representation may also play a role in selecting a specific strategy. In order to test whether corresponding effects appear in late bilinguals with low proficiency in their second language (L2), we present a new study in which we recorded eye movements while two groups of late German-French and French-German bilinguals read aloud isolated French and German words and pseudo-words. Since, a transparent reading strategy is local and serial, with a high number of fixations per stimuli, and the level of the bilingual participants' L2 is low, the impact of language opacity should be observed in L1. We therefore predicted a global reading strategy if the bilinguals' L1 was French (FFL close to the middle of the stimuli with fewer fixations per stimuli) and a local and serial reading strategy if it was German. Thus, the L2 of each group, as well as pseudo-words, should also require a local and serial reading strategy. Our results confirmed these hypotheses, suggesting that global word processing is only achieved by bilinguals with an opaque L1 when reading in an opaque language; the low level in the L2 gives way to a local and serial reading strategy. These findings stress the fact that reading behavior is influenced not only by the linguistic mode but also by top-down factors, such as readers' proficiency.

Dataset Information

Co-lateralized bilingual mechanisms for reading in single and dual language contexts: evidence from visual half-field processing of action words in proficient bilinguals.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets