Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-p9bg8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T22:06:12.645Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Similar and distinct neural mechanisms underlying semantic priming in the languages of the French–Spanish bilingual children

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 November 2017

LOUAH SIRRI  and
PIA RÄMÄ
LOUAH SIRRI*
Affiliation:
Université Paris Descartes, Sorbonne Paris Cité, Paris, France
PIA RÄMÄ
Affiliation:
Université Paris Descartes, Sorbonne Paris Cité, Paris, France CNRS, Laboratoire Psychologie de la Perception (UMR 8242), Paris, France
*
Address for correspondence: Louah Sirri, Laboratoire Psychologie de la Perception, CNRS – UMR (8242), Université Paris Descartes, 45, rue des Saints-Pères, 75006 Paris, France[email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Recent evidence demonstrates that lexical-semantic connections emerge over the second year of life for monolingual children. Yet, little is known about the developing lexical-semantic organization of children acquiring two languages simultaneously. Two- to 4 year-old French–Spanish bilingual children completed a within-language auditory semantic priming task in both of their languages, while event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded. The results revealed that bilingual children exhibited sensitivity to taxonomic relationships between words in each of their languages, but the pattern of brain activity varied across the dominant (DL) and the non-dominant (NDL) languages. While the N2 occurred for both languages, the N400 appeared for target words in the DL only and the late anterior negativity for target words in the NDL only. These findings indicate that words are organized taxonomically in the bilinguals’ lexicons. However, the patterns of brain activity suggest that common and distinct neural resources underlie lexical-semantic processing in each language.

Keywords

bilingualismlexical-semantic processinglanguage-related ERPs
Type
Research Article
Information
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition , Volume 22 , Issue 1 , January 2019 , pp. 93 - 102
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

We thank all families for their participation and contribution to this research. This research was funded by the Sorbonne Paris Cite Grant, PME DIM Cerveau et Pensée 2013, and LABEX EFL (ANR-10-LABX-0083).

References

Ardal, S., Donald, M.W., Meuter, R., Muldrew, S., & Luce, M. (1990). Brain responses to semantic incongruity in bilinguals. Brain and Language, 39 (2), 187–205.Google Scholar
Arias-Trejo, N., & Plunkett, K. (2009). Lexical-semantic priming effects during infancy. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B. Biological Sciences, 364 (1536), 3633–47.Google Scholar
Arias-Trejo, N., & Plunkett, K. (2013). What's in a link: associative and taxonomic priming effects in the infant lexicon. Cognition, 128 (2), 214–27.Google Scholar
Bloom, L. (1973). One word at a time: the use of the single-word utterances before syntax. The Hague: Mouton.Google Scholar
Bosch, L., & Sebastián-Gallés, N. (1997). Native-language recognition abilities in 4-month-old infants from monolingual and bilingual environments. Cognition, 65 (1), 33–69.Google Scholar
Bosch, L., & Sebastián-Gallés, N. (2001). Evidence of early language discrimination abilities in infants from bilingual environments. Infancy, 2 (1), 29–49.Google Scholar
Conboy, B.T., & Mills, D.L. (2006). Two languages, one developing brain: event-related potentials to words in bilingual toddlers. Developmental Science, 9, 1–12.Google Scholar
DeAnda, S., Hendrickson, K., Zesiger, P., Poulin-Dubois, D., & Friend, M. (2016b). Lexical access in the second year: a cross-linguistic study of monolingual and bilingual vocabulary development. San Diego Linguistic Papers, 6, 14–28.Google Scholar
DeAnda, S., Poulin-Dubois, D., Zesiger, P., & Friend, M. (2016a). Lexical processing and organization in bilingual first language acquisition: Guiding future research. Psychological Bulletin, 142 (6), 655–667.Google Scholar
Delle Luche, C., Durrant, S., Floccia, C., & Plunkett, K. (2014). Implicit meaning in 18-month- old toddlers. Developmental Science, 17 (6), 948–55.Google Scholar
Elman, J., Bates, E., Johnson, M., Karmiloff-Smith, A., Parisi, D., & Plunkett, K. (1996). Rethinking innateness: A connectionist perspective on development. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Fenson, L., Dale, P., Reznick, S., Thal, D., Bates, E., Hartung, J., Pethick, S., & Reilly, J. (1993). MacArthur Communicative Development Inventories: User's guide and technical manual. San Diego, CA: Singular Publishing Group.Google Scholar
Fernald, A., Perfors, A., & Marchman, V.A. (2006). Picking up speed in understanding: speech processing efficiency and vocabulary growth across the 2nd year. Developmental Psychology, 42 (1), 98–116.Google Scholar
Fernald, A., Pinto, J.P., Swingley, D., Weinberg, A., & McRoberts, G.W. (1998). Rapid gains in speed of verbal processing by infants in the 2nd year. Psychological Science, 9 (3), 228–231.Google Scholar
Friedrich, M., & Friederici, A.D. (2004). N400-like semantic incongruity effect in 19-month-olds: Processing known words in picture contexts. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 16 (8), 1465–1477.Google Scholar
Friedrich, M., & Friederici, A.D. (2008). Neurophysiological correlates of online word learning in 14-month-old infants. NeurReport, 19 (18), 1757–1761.Google Scholar
Ganger, J., & Brent, M. R. (2004). Reexamining the vocabulary spurt. Developmental Psychology, 40 (4), 621–32.Google Scholar
Genesee, F. (2003). Rethinking bilingual acquisition. In deWaele, J.M. (Ed.) Bilingualism: Challenges and directions for future research (pp. 158–182). Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar
Genesee, F. (2006). Bilingual first language acquisition. In McCardle, E. & Hoff, E. (Eds.), Childhood bilingualism: Research on infancy through school age, (pp. 45–67). Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar
Gervain, J., & Werker, J.F. (2013). Prosody cues word order in 7-month-old bilingual infants. Nature Communications, 4, Article number: 1490.Google Scholar
Gollan, T.H., Montoya, R.I., Cera, C., & Sandoval, T.C. (2008). More use almost always means a smaller frequency effect: aging, bilingualism, and the weaker links hypothesis. Journal of Memory and Language, 58 (3), 787–814.Google Scholar
Gollan, T.H., Montoya, R.I., Fennema-Notestine, C., & Morris, S.K. (2005). Bilingualism affects picture naming but not picture classification. Memory & Cognition, 33 (7), 1220–1234.Google Scholar
Gratton, G., Coles, M.G.H., & Donchin, E. (1983). A new method for off-line removal of ocular artifacts. Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology, 55, 468–484.Google Scholar
Hahne, A., & Friederici, A.D. (2001). Processing a second language: late learners’ comprehension mechanisms as revealed by event-related brain potentials. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 4 (2), 123–141.Google Scholar
Hills, T.T., Maouene, M., Maouene, J., Sheya, A., & Smith, L. (2009). Longitudinal analysis of early semantic networks preferential attachment or preferential acquisition. Psych Science, 20 (6), 729–739.Google Scholar
Hurtado, N., Grüter, T., Marchman, V.A., & Fernald, A. (2014). Relative language exposure, processing efficiency and vocabulary in Spanish-English bilingual toddlers. Bilingualism: Language and Cogntiion, 17 (10), 189–202.Google Scholar
Kuipers, J. R., & Thierry, G. (2013). ERP-pupil size correlations reveal how bilingualism enhances cognitive flexibility. Cortex, 49 (10), 2853–2860.Google Scholar
Kutas, M., & Federmeier, K. D. (2011). Thirty years and counting: finding meaning in the N400 component of the event-related brain potential (ERP). Annual Review of Psychology, 62, 621–47.Google Scholar
Legacy, J., Zesiger, P., Friend, M., & Poulin-Dubois, D. (2016). Vocabulary size, translation equivalents, and efficiency in word recognition in very young bilinguals. Journal of Child Language, 43 (4), 760–783.Google Scholar
Marchman, V. A., Fernald, A., & Hurtado, N. (2010). How vocabulary size in two languages relates to efficiency in spoken word recognition by young Spanish-English bilinguals. Journal of Child Language, 37, 817–840.Google Scholar
Mills, D.L., Coffey-Corina, S., & Neville, H.J. (1997). Language comprehension and cerebral specialization from 13 to 20 months. Developmental Neuropsychology, 13 (3), 397–445.Google Scholar
Mills, D.L., Coffey-Corina, S.A., & Neville, H. (1993). Language acquisition and cerebral specialization in 20-month-old infants. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 5 (3), 317–334.Google Scholar
Oller, D., Eilers, R. E., Urbano, R., & Cobo-Lewis, A. B. (1997). Development of precursors to speech in infants exposed to two languages. Journal of child language, 24 (02), 407–425.Google Scholar
Pearson, B. Z., Fernandez, S. C., & Oller, D. K. (1993). Lexical development in bilingual infants and toddlers: Comparison to monolingual norms. Language learning, 43 (1), 93–120.Google Scholar
Patterson, J. L., & Pearson, B. Z. (2004). Bilingual lexical development: Influences, contexts, and processes. In Goldstein, B. A. (Ed.), Bilingual language development and disorders in Spanish- English speakers (pp. 77–104). Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes.Google Scholar
Polka, L., & Sundara, M. (2003). Word segmentation in monolingual and bilingual infant learners of English and French. In Proceedings of the 15th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, pp. 1021–1024.Google Scholar
Rämä, P., Sirri, L., & Serres, J. (2013). Development of lexical–semantic language system: N400 priming effect for spoken words in 18-and 24-month old children. Brain and language, 125 (1), 1–10.Google Scholar
Silva Pereyra, J.F., Klarman, L., Lin, L.J-F., & Kuhl, P. (2005). Sentence processing in 30-month-old children : an event-related potential study. NeuroReport, 16 (6), 645–648.Google Scholar
Singh, L. (2014). One World, Two Languages: Cross‐Language Semantic Priming in Bilingual Toddlers. Child development, 85 (2), 755–766.Google Scholar
Sirri, L., & Rämä, P. (2015). Cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying semantic priming during language acquisition. Journal of Neurolinguistics, 35, 1–12.Google Scholar
Styles, S. J., & Plunkett, K. (2009). How do infants build a semantic system? Language and Cognition, 1 (01), 1–24.Google Scholar
Thierry, G., Vihman, M., & Roberts, M. (2003). Familiar words capture the attention of 11-month-olds in less than 250ms. NeuroReport,14 (18), 2307–2310.Google Scholar
Torkildsen, J. von Koss., Sannerud, T., Syversen, G., Thormodsen, R., Simonsen, H.G., Moen, I., Smith, L., & Lindgren, M. (2006). Semantic organization of basic-level words in 20-month-olds: An ERP study. Journal of Neurolinguistics, 19, 431–454.Google Scholar
Torkildsen, J. von Koss, Syversen, G., Simonsen, H. G., Moen, I., & Lindgren, M. (2007). Electrophysiological correlates of auditory semantic priming in 24-month-olds. Journal of Neurolinguistics, 20 (4), 332–351.Google Scholar
Vihman, M. M., Thierry, G., Lum, J., Keren-Portnoy, T., & Martin, P. (2007). Onset of word form recognition in English, Welsh, and English-Welsh bilingual infants. Applied Psycholinguistics, 28 (3), 475.Google Scholar
Weber-Fox, C.M., & Neville, H. J. (1996). Maturational constraints on functional specialization for language processing: ERP and behavioral evidence in bilingual speakers. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 8 (3), 231–256.Google Scholar