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Article published In:
Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism
Vol. 10:6 (2020) ► pp.805–846

Visual working memory load constrains language non-selective activation under task-demands

| University of Hyderabad
| University of Hyderabad
| University of Hyderabad

Visual world studies with bilinguals have demonstrated spontaneous cross-linguistic activations. In two experiments, we examined whether concurrent visual working memory (VWM) load constrains bilingual parallel activation during spoken word comprehension. Hindi-English bilinguals heard a spoken word in Hindi (L1) or English (L2) and saw a display containing the spoken word-referent, a phonological cohort of the spoken word’s translation and two unrelated objects. Participants completed a concurrent WM task of remembering an array of five coloured squares and judging its similarity with a test array. Participants were asked to click on the spoken word-referent in Experiment 1 but not in Experiment 2. Reduced parallel activation and enhanced target activation was observed under the load for L2 spoken words in Experiment 1 (where the task-demands were high). The findings suggest that a VWM load can constrain the spontaneous activation of an irrelevant lexicon, under certain conditions.

Keywords: parallel activation, bilingualism, cross-linguistic activation, language mediated eye movements, visual working memory
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Current study
  • 2.Experiment 1
    • 2.1Method
      • 2.1.1Participants
      • 2.1.2Stimuli
      • 2.1.3Control measures
      • 2.1.4Apparatus
      • 2.1.5Procedure
    • 2.2Data analysis
      • 2.2.1Eye movements
      • 2.2.2Manual responses
    • 2.3Results
      • 2.3.1Proportion of fixations
      • 2.3.2First saccade latency
      • 2.3.3Manual responses on visual world task
      • 2.3.4WM task
    • 2.4Discussion
  • 3.Experiment 2
    • 3.1Methods
      • 3.1.1Participants
      • 3.1.2Stimuli & procedure
    • 3.2Data analysis
    • 3.3Results
      • 3.3.1Proportion of fixations
      • 3.3.2First saccade latency
      • 3.3.3WM task
    • 3.4Discussion
  • 4.General discussion
    • 4.1Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Note
  • References
Published online: 3 June 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lab.18045.pra
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Prasad, Seema & Ramesh Kumar Mishra
2020. Concurrent verbal working memory load constrains cross-linguistic translation activation: A visual world eye-tracking study on Hindi–English bilinguals. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo

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