The role of polysemy in masked semantic and translation prim(3)

M.Finkbeineretal./JournalofMemoryandLanguage51(2004)1–223

Usingthisprocedure,JiangandForster(2001)obtainedsigni cantmaskedtranslationpriminge ectsintheL2–L1directionfor‘‘old,’’butnot‘‘new’’ingthesamematerialsandtwo-phasedesign,noprimingwasobtainedwhenthetaskwaschangedtolexicaldecision.JiangandForsterexplainedtheirresultsbyproposingthatL1andL2lexiconsarestoredinseparatememorysystems:theL1lexiconisstoredinlexicalmemory,whiletheL2lexiconisstoredinepisodicmemoryasasetofassociationsbetweenL2wordsandtheirL1counter-parts(representedepisodically).Ifresponsesarecon-trolledbyactivationpatternsinepisodicmemory(astheywouldbeinan‘‘old–new’’task),thenL2–L1primingcaneasilybeexplained.Incontrast,whenre-sponsesarecontrolledbyactivationpatternsinlexicalmemory(astheywouldbeinalexicaldecisionorse-manticcategorizationtask),theL2primeisthoughttobeunabletoactivatethelexicalrepresentationofitsL1counterpart.Thisisduetoacriticalassumptionoftheseparatememorysystemsaccount,whichholdsthatactivationacrossmemorysystemsrequiresawareness.Althoughthisaccountcanexplainthetaskdi erencebetweenlexicaldecisionandepisodicrecognition,itcannotstraightforwardlyexplaintheresultsobtainedwhensemanticcategorizationisused.Sincesemanticcategorizationclearlyrequiresthatthelexicalrepresen-tationoftheL1targetbeactivated,itshouldyieldthesamee ectsasthelexicaldecisiontask,i.e.,noL2–L1priming.Hence,ataskdi erencewheremaskedtrans-lationprimingisobservedinsemanticcategorizationbutnotlexicaldecisionwouldbeachallengetoboththeconnection-strengthexplanationprovidedbytheRHMaswellastheexplanationlaidoutintheseparatememorysystemsaccount.

Thepurposeofthepresentstudyis:(1)tocon rmthetaskdi erenceoriginallyreportedbyGraingerandFrenck-Mestre(1998)betweensemanticcategorizationandlexicaldecisioninmaskedL2–L1translationprimingand(2)toproposeandtestatheoreticalac-countofmaskedtranslationprimingthatatonceisabletoaccommodatethetaskdi erence,themaskedtrans-lationprimingasymmetry,andtherobustwithin-L2maskedpriminge ects.Toanticipateourresults,wefoundmaskedtranslationprimingintheL2–L1direc-tionusingsemanticcategorizationbutnotlexicaldeci-sion.Inthesecondpartofthearticle,weproposeanaccountofthese ndings,whichwetentativelyrefertoasthe‘‘SenseModel.’’TheSenseModelisdi erentfromothermodelsofbilinguallexicalprocessinginthatitproposesthatprimingbetweensemanticallyrelatedwordsdependsontheproportionofsharedsenses.ItseemsreasonabletosupposethatL1wordsareassoci-atedwithmanymoresemanticsensesthantheirL2counterparts.FromthisitfollowsthattheproportionofprimedsensesbelongingtothetargetwordwillbemuchhigherwhenanL2wordisprimedbyitsL1

counterpartthanwhenanL1wordisprimedbyitsL2counterpart.Notethatsimilarrepresentationalasym-metriesexistbetweensemanticallyrelatedwordswithinasinglelanguagetoo(e.g.,‘‘head’’hasmanysenseswhere‘‘skull’’onlyhasoneortwo).Hence,itshouldbethecasethatprimingasymmetriesexistforwithin-lan-guageprimingaswell(e.g.,‘‘head’’shouldprime‘‘skull,’’but‘‘skull’’shouldnotprime‘‘head’’).Inthethirdpartofthearticle,wetestspeci cpredictionsoftheSenseModel,usingwithin-Englishsemanticallyre-latedprime–targetwordpairs.Toanticipateourresultsonceagain,wefoundthatwewereabletorecreatetheprimingasymmetryseenintranslationprimingwhentheselectionofmaterialsadheredtotheassumptionsoftheSenseModelfortranslationequivalents.Thatis,inlexicaldecision,primingoccurredbetweenmany-andfew-sensewordsinthemany-to-few(analogousto‘‘L1–L2’’)direction,butnotinthefew-to-many(or‘‘L2–L1’’)direction.Furthermore,weobservedpriminginbothdirectionsinthesemanticcategorizationtask,therebyrecreatingthe(cross-language)taskdi erencebetweenlexicaldecisionandsemanticcategorization.Takentogether,these ndingsprovidestrongsupportfortheassumptionsoftheSenseModel.Moregener-ally,these ndingspresentdi cultchallengestoothercurrentmodelsofbilinguallexicalrepresentationandprocessing.

Experiment1—replicationofGraingerandFrenck-Mes-tre(1998)

AcomparisonoftheSanchez-Casasetal.(1992)studyandtheGraingerandFrenck-Mestre(1998)studyrevealsseveraldi erencesthatcouldhaveproducedthecontradictory ndings.Perhapsthemoststrikingdif-ferenceisinhowthecategorieswerepresentedtotheparticipants.Itisoftenthecaseinsemanticcategoriza-tiontasksthatitemsarepresentedinablockeddesignsuchthatalloftheexemplars(andanequalnumberofnon-exemplars)appeartogether(Bueno&Frenck-Mestre,2002;Forster&Hector,2002;Forster,Mohan,&Hector,2003;Frenck-Mestre&Bueno,1999).Gra-ingerandFrenck-Mestre(1998)usedthisprocedure,whereasintheSanchez-Casasstudy,categorieschangedoneachsuccessiveitem.Aconcernwithacategoryswitchingprocedureisthateachexperimentalitemmaye ectivelyconstituteaseparatetask,andtheconse-quenceofthis‘‘task-switchingparadigm’’maybedi-minishede ects.Asanexampleinsupportofsuchapossibility,Catchpole(1987)foundthatblockingitemsintocategoriesrestoredthefrequencye ectfornon-ex-emplars,ane ectthathadpreviouslygoneundetectedinexperimentsusingdi erentcategoriesoneachtrial(Balota&Chumbley,1984).Ifswitchingcategoriesoneachsuccessivetrialcanservetoeliminateane ectas