Figure 6 – French Words, English Neighborhood Size

1. Figure 6 – French Words, English Neighborhood Size Figure 3 – Trial Sequence Figure 7 – English Words, French Neighborhood Size Cross-Language Neighborhood Effects in Bilinguals: An Electrophysiological InvestigationKrysta Chauncey1, Katherine J. Midgley1,2, Jonathan Grainger 2, Walter van Heuven3, Phillip J. Holcomb1Tufts University, Medford, MA1; LPC-CNRS, Université de Provence2; F.C. Donders Centre, Nijmegen, NL3 • Introduction • In bilingual speakers, are lexical items from different languages stored jointly or separately? • Holcomb, Grainger, & O'Rourke (2002) found that greater orthographic neighborhood density produced an increase in N400 amplitude. • van Heuven, Dijkstra, & Grainger (1998) found that larger cross-linguistic neighborhood size slowed response times, but since this study was behaviorally conducted, the data is functionally opaque. • The current investigation reproduced this effect cross-linguistically, which implies a joint or entwined storage of multiple lexica in bilinguals. • Results • The ERP data revealed a latency-shift of a possible N400 in response to L1 (French) words when compared to L2 (English) words. • Also found was a within-language effect dependent on cross-language neighborhood size— • larger cross-language neighborhood size produced a more pronounced negative-going waveform (N400), although • the contrast was stronger for French (i.e., L1) neighborhood size during the processing of English (L2) words than for English (L2) neighborhood size during the processing of French (L1) words.

2. Figure 5 – English Words, French Neighborhood Size Figure 1 – Electrode Montage Figure 2 – Orthographic Neighbors SAT COT CAT CAP • Methods • Subjects • 20 participants (13 females, average age = 23) • right-handed French native speakers • normal or corrected-to-normal vision • Stimuli • common words in English and French • 74 critical items, 30 body parts • blocked by language, order counterbalanced • French stimuli classified by relevant neighborhood size calculated for English (>4, <2) • English stimuli classified by relevant neighborhood size calculated for French • Stimuli • semantic categorization judgment to body parts • Conclusions • Increased N400 latency to L2 (English) words confirms the cognitive costs of L2 processing • Increased amplitude to L2 (English) words when the L1 (French) neighborhood size is large (+4) indicates that words from different languages are contained in some kind of joint or entwined storage. • This finding adds support to an interpretation of cross-language neighborhood effects in terms of an integrated lexical network for bilinguals. • These results extend and confirm the behavioral data reported by van Heuven et al. (1998) finding increasing reaction times (and therefore processing loads) to L2 words with larger L1 neighborhood size. Figure 4 – English Words v. French Words References Holcomb, PJ; Grainger, J; O'Rourke, T (2002). An electrophysiological study of the effects of orthographic neighborhood size on printed word perception. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 14, 938-50. van Heuven, Walter J. B; Dijkstra, Ton; Grainger, Jonathan (1998). Orthographic neighborhood effects in bilingual word recognition. Journal of Memory & Language, 39, 458-483. This research was supported by NIH Grants HD25889 and HD043251, and by the CNRS (France).