Ana I. Schwartz - US grants

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The goal of the proposed research is to examine the cognitive nature of bilingual word recognition in context. This research will address the degree and nature of cross-language activation of the native language (L1) during second language (L2) reading and how this activation is modulated by sentence context, Bilinguals fluent in English and Spanish and monolingual controls will complete three experiments. In Experiment 1 participants will perform naming and lexical decision tasks in their L1 and L2. On critical trials the words will have some type of lexical overlap with words from the nontarget language (e.g. orthography, phonology, semantics). The goals of Experiments 2 and 3 is to examine what lexical information, if any is activated from the nontarget L1 when similar words are presented in sentence context. Specifically, Experiment 2 will use rapid serial visual presentation to examine whether sentence context alters the degree and/or nature of cross-language activation and will thus address the question of what becomes active in sentence context. Experiment 3 on the other hand will use eye movement measures to specifically examine how the time course of cross language activation is affected by constraint of sentence context.

DESCRIPTION: Despite increasing college enrollment, degree completion rates for Latino students lags significantly behind those of Caucasian students. An important barrier to college completion is the need for reading remediation. The goal of this study is to examine the cognitive processes that underlie adult bilingual reading through the use of eye- movement monitoring technology. The specific aim of this research is to examine how bilingual reading is influenced by the coactivation of two languages. This study will look specifically at how the selection of the appropriate meanings of words in sentence context is influenced by the activation of competing representations from the non-target language. The eye-movements of college-aged bilinguals will be recorded as they read English sentences on a computer screen. These sentences will contain words that have more than one meaning, and are therefore ambiguous (e.g., novel, fast). Half of these ambiguous words will be cognates with Spanish (they will have similar spelling and meaning such as novel/novela), and half will not be cognates (e.g., fast). Eye- movements for these different types of ambiguous words will be compared. Any observed differences would suggest that bilingual readers coactivate meanings from both of their languages when understanding ambiguous words. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: This research will provide the foundational knowledge necessary for the design of effective reading interventions that are responsive to the unique cross-language dynamics of adult bilingual reading. This research will also contribute to basic research on reading, which has historically emphasized monolingual reading. This will allow the field to better address the needs of second language readers.