The role of polysemy in masked semantic and translation prim(4)

4M.Finkbeineretal./JournalofMemoryandLanguage51(2004)1–22

robustasthefrequencye ect,thenitfollowsthatblockingitemsaccordingtosemanticcategoryinse-manticcategorizationtasksmaybenecessarytoobserveanylexicalprocessinge ects,includingtranslationpriminge ects.Accordingly,itemsinthepresentex-perimentwereblockedaccordingtocategory,andpar-ticipantsweregivenpracticeitemswitheachnewcategory.

Justasthereisreasontobeconcernedthatthede-signoftheSanchez-Casasetal.studymayhaveledtoaTypeIIerror,thereisalsoreasontobeconcernedaboutparticularaspectsoftheGraingerandFrenck-Mestrestudy.Forexample,therewerearelativelysmallnum-berofparticipantsintheGraingerandFrenck-Mestrestudy(N¼12;twoofwhomweretheauthors,asop-posedtoanNof21intheSanchez-Casasstudy)andeachitemwaspresentedatotalof24di erenttimestoeachparticipant.Obviously,thisdegreeofrepetitionmayleadtostrategice ects.Similarly,thedominantlanguageoftheEnglish–FrenchbilingualsintheGra-ingerandFrenck-MestrestudymayhavebeentheirL2French(asaresultoflivinginFranceformanyyears),whereastheparticipantsintheSanchez-Casasetal.studywerecertainlynotdominantintheirL2English.Ifthiswerethecase,itmayexplainwhyGraingerandFrenck-MestreobservedprimingintheFrench–English(L2–L1)directionandwhySanchez-Casasetal.didnot(exceptforcognates)intheEnglish–Spanish(againL2–L1)direction.Inthepresentexperiment,thedominantlanguageofallofourJapanese–EnglishbilingualswastheirL1(Japanese).Method

Participants

TwentyJapanese–EnglishbilingualswererecruitedfromtheUniversityofArizonacampuscommunity.AllparticipantswerenativespeakersofJapaneseandwereemployedasgraduatestudentsattheUniversityofArizona.Participantshadreceivedaminimumof6yearsofEnglishinstructionwhileinJapanandatthetimeoftestingallhadbeenlivingintheUnitedStatesforatleast2years.Allparticipantswerepaidfortheirparticipation.

Materials

InordertoensuretranslationequivalencyforeachEnglish–Japaneseprime–targetwordpair,5Japanese–Englishbilinguals(fromthesamepopulationastheparticipantsintheexperiment)wereaskedtotranslatealistof170itemsfromEnglishintoJapanese(L2–L1);anothergroupof5wasaskedtotranslatethesameitemsintheoppositedirection(L1–L2).Onlythosewordpairsthatweretranslatedidenticallyineachdi-rectionbyallparticipantswereselectedascriticalitems.Fifty-twowordpairsmetthiscriterion.The

criticalitemsbelongedto11di erentsemanticcate-gories(partofbuilding,familyrelative,color,unitoftime,animal,profession,insect,scienti cdiscipline,partofthebody,kindofmetal,readingmaterial).Inordertomakeuseofablockeddesign,anadditional58itemswereselectedtoserveas‘‘practice’’itemsontrialsprecedingthecriticalitemsineachcategory.Thisre-sultedinatotalof110‘‘Yes’’items(10percategory),withaminimumof4percategorybeingcritical.Ad-ditionally,110non-exemplartargets(NOitems)werechosen.Thesewerechosensoastoensurethattheycouldnotbeconstruedasbelongingtoanyofthe11categories.Anadditional220Englishwordswerese-lectedtoserveasprimesoncontrolandpracticeex-emplartrials,aswellasonnon-exemplartrials.Thesewereunrelatedtotheirtargets,butwerematchedwiththecriticalprimesforfrequency,concreteness,image-ability,andword-length.

CarewastakentoensurethatnoneoftheJapanesetargetssharedcognatestatuswiththeirEnglishprimes.Alltargetswerepresentedintheirstandardscript,whichwasKanjiforallcategoriesexceptforthoseappearingintheINSECTcategory(thestandardscriptforinsectsisKatakana).

Designandprocedure

Itemswereblockedaccordingtosemanticcategory.Foreachcategory,therewere10exemplarand10non-exemplartrials.Eachtrialconsistedofthefollowingsequence(adaptedfromGraingerandFrenck-Mestre): rst,theparticipantwaspresentedwithaforwardmask(##########)for500ms,followedbyanEnglishprime(translationorcontrol)inlowercaselettersfor50ms,followedbyabackwardmaskfor150ms,andthentheJapanesetargetwordfor500ms.Thebackwardmaskwasinterpolatedbetweentheprimeandthetargetinordertoensurethatparticipantshadsu cienttimetoprocesstheL2prime.IthasbeensuggestedthatL2–L1primingmaynotoccurbecauseofaspeedofprocessingasymmetry(cf.Jiang,1999).Accordingtothisargu-ment,theprocessingofL2primeslagstoofarbehindtheprocessingofL1targetstoproduceanyobservablepriming.Consideringthispossibility,wepresentedabackwardmaskforarelativelylongduration(150msforatotalSOAof200ms).Apotentialconcernwiththisprocedureisthattheprimewillappearto‘‘popout’’ofthebackgroundcreatedbyidenticalforwardandback-wardmasks.Inordertopreventthispossibility,thebackwardmaskdi eredfromtheforwardmaskbothinfonttype(ArialBlack,asopposedtoTimesNewRoman)andsize(18asopposedto11).Thisparticularpresentationsequencewasapparentlye ectiveinpre-ventingparticipantsfrombecomingawareofthepres-enceoftheprimeastheyallexpressedsurpriseduringtheirdebrie ngtolearnthatanEnglishwordhadpre-cededtheJapanesetarget.