The effects of bilingual language proficiency on recall accuracy and semantic clustering in free recall output: evidence for shared semantic associations across languages

Production benefits on encoding are modulated by language experience: Less experience may help

Several lines of research have shown that performing movements while learning new information aids later retention of that information, compared to learning by perception alone. For instance, articulated words are more accurately remembered than words that are silently read (the production effect). A candidate mechanism for this movement-enhanced encoding, sensorimotor prediction, assumes that acquired sensorimotor associations enable movements to prime associated percepts and hence improve encoding. Yet it is still unknown how the extent of prior sensorimotor experience influences the benefits of movement on encoding. The current study addressed this question by examining whether the production effect is modified by prior language experience. Does the production effect reduce or persist in a second language (L2) compared to a first language (L1)? Two groups of unbalanced bilinguals, German (L1) - English (L2) bilinguals (Experiment 1) and English (L1) - German (L2) bilinguals (Experiment 2), learned lists of German and English words by reading the words silently or reading the words aloud, and they subsequently performed recognition tests. Both groups showed a pronounced production effect (higher recognition accuracy for spoken compared to silently read words) in the first and second languages. Surprisingly, the production effect was greater in the second languages compared to the first languages, across both bilingual groups. We discuss interpretations based on increased phonological encoding, increased effort or attention, or both, when reading aloud in a second language.

Does bilingualism come with linguistic costs? A meta-analytic review of the bilingual lexical deficit

A series of recent studies have shown that the once-assumed cognitive advantage of bilingualism finds little support in the evidence available to date. Surprisingly, however, the view that bilingualism incurs linguistic costs (the so-called lexical deficit) has not yet been subjected to the same degree of scrutiny, despite its centrality for our understanding of the human capacity for language. The current study implemented a comprehensive meta-analysis to address this gap. By analyzing 478 effect sizes from 130 studies on expressive vocabulary, we found that observed lexical deficits could not be attributed to bilingualism: Simultaneous bilinguals (who acquired both languages from birth) did not exhibit any lexical deficit, nor did sequential bilinguals (who acquired one language from birth and a second language after that) when tested in their mother tongue. Instead, systematic evidence for a lexical deficit was found among sequential bilinguals when tested in their second language, and more so for late than for early second language learners. This result suggests that a lexical deficit may be a phenomenon of second language acquisition rather than bilingualism per se.

Multi-Trial Episodic Recall and Recognition of Emotion-Laden Words in First Versus Second Language

Monolingual studies contrasting memory for positive versus negative emotion-laden words have generally used single-trial paradigms and have produced inconsistent results (no difference or an advantage for either positive or negative valence). However, monolingual studies with multiple presentations of stimuli have consistently found a positivity advantage in recall. No bilingual study has examined whether L2 testing, using a multi-trial procedure, will also produce a positivity advantage. We report two experiments in which L1 and L2 participants performed three learning trials (aural exposure, oral recall), followed by multiple delayed oral recall trials and a recognition trial, using lists of English words from ad-hoc semantic categories, with equal numbers of positive versus negative valence words. Results, including an overall positivity advantage, a greater positivity advantage in L2 than L1, and greater valence-based clustering in L2 than L1, were discussed in terms of the effects of stimulus exposure and gist consolidation.

Rethinking Bilingual Enhancement Effects in Associative Learning of Foreign Language Vocabulary: The Role of Proficiency in the Mediating Language

The present study investigated claims that learning vocabulary in an unfamiliar language is more efficient in bilinguals than in monolinguals and the possible effects of language proficiency and dominance. In Experiment 1, monolingual (n = 48) and bilingual participants (n = 96) learned Japanese words paired with English translations and completed cued-recall and associative-recognition tests. Accuracy did not differ across monolingual and bilingual or language dominance groups. Nevertheless, in bilinguals, higher English proficiency was associated with higher accuracy. In Experiment 2, Japanese-English bilinguals (n = 40) learned Spanish-Japanese word pairs, and higher Japanese proficiency was associated with higher accuracy. Associative strategies were reported at a higher rate in bilingual than in monolingual participants but were not associated with more accurate performance. Careful comparisons of the present and previous results support the conclusion that higher proficiency in the language through which bilinguals learn foreign vocabulary enhances associative memory, but bilingualism itself does not.

The effects of contextual diversity on incidental vocabulary learning in the native and a foreign language

Vocabulary learning occurs throughout the lifespan, often implicitly. For foreign language learners, this is particularly challenging as they must acquire a large number of new words with little exposure. In the present study, we explore the effects of contextual diversity—namely, the number of texts a word appears in—on native and foreign language word learning. Participants read several texts that had novel pseudowords replacing high-frequency words. The total number of encounters with the novel words was held constant, but they appeared in 1, 2, 4, or 8 texts. In addition, some participants read the texts in Spanish (their native language) and others in English (their foreign language). We found that increasing contextual diversity improved recall and recognition of the word, as well as the ability to match the word with its meaning while keeping comprehension unimpaired. Using a foreign language only affected performance in the matching task, where participants had to quickly identify the meaning of the word. Results are discussed in the greater context of the word learning and foreign language literature as well as their importance as a teaching tool.

Temporal dynamics of free recall: The role of rehearsal efficiency in word frequency and bilingual language proficiency effects

Under a recall model in which presentations and rehearsals are treated as equivalent encoding events, we investigated whether rehearsal efficiency differences explain the effects of word frequency and bilingual proficiency on the temporal dynamics of rehearsal and free recall. Experiments 1 and 3 were conducted with monolingual English speakers, and Experiments 2 and 4 were conducted with Spanish-English bilinguals with matched age, education, and socioeconomic status. In Experiments 1 and 2, lower word frequency, lower proficiency, and bilingualism were associated with less accurate free recall of items from early serial positions, beginning recall with items from later serial positions, and making fewer transitions to items from later or adjacent serial positions. These effects were replicated and rehearsal-based explanations were validated in Experiments 3 and 4 using a rehearse-aloud protocol. With lower frequency words or lower language proficiency, rehearsal was less efficient with fewer rehearsals between item presentations. As a result, items from early serial positions had fewer rehearsals that stopped earlier in the study sequence, less spacing between repeated rehearsals, and fewer transitions to items from later or adjacent serial positions. Rehearsal-contingent analyses revealed that these rehearsal patterns were associated with less accurate recall, beginning recall with items from later serial positions, and consistent transition patterns from rehearsal to recall. These patterns support a model in which presentations and rehearsals are treated as equivalent encoding events and the effects of word frequency and language proficiency on recall accuracy are mediated by less efficient rehearsal. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Word-context associations in episodic memory are learned at the conceptual level: Word frequency, bilingual proficiency, and bilingual status effects on source memory

[Correction Notice: An Erratum for this article was reported in Vol 45(10) of Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition (see record 2019-53018-001). In the article, a formula error in the scoring spreadsheet for bilingual participants in Experiment 3 systematically inflated their accuracy scores. Therefore, statistical information for analyses involving the bilingual sample, and bilingual portions of Table 7 and Figure 3 have been corrected. All versions of this article have been corrected.] Three source-memory experiments were conducted with Spanish-English bilinguals and monolingual English speakers matched on age, education, nonverbal cognitive ability and socioeconomic status. Bilingual language proficiency and dominance were assessed using standardized objective measures. In Experiment 1, source was manipulated visuo-spatially, in Experiment 2, source was manipulated temporally, and in Experiment 3, source was manipulated by presenting stimuli in different modalities. Bilingual source discrimination was more accurate for low-frequency words than for high-frequency words, but it did not differ for the more fluent and less fluent languages (L1 and L2, respectively). These results contrast with the L2 advantage observed in item recognition (Francis & Gutiérrez, 2012; Francis & Strobach, 2013), adding to evidence that the bases of performance for item and source memory differ. The dissociation of word frequency and language effects indicates that word-context associations are made at the conceptual level rather than the word-form level. Bilinguals exhibited more accurate source discrimination than monolinguals, both under intentional and incidental encoding conditions, indicating that this effect cannot be explained entirely by differences in encoding strategies. We reason that relative to monolinguals, bilinguals more efficiently encode associations between word concepts and contexts or other types of information that do not convey meaning preexperimentally. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).