Hierarchical levels of representation in language prediction: The influence of first language acquisition in highly proficient bilinguals
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Date
2017Author
Molinaro, Nicola
Giannelli, Francesco
Caffarra, Sendy
Martin, Clara D.
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Nicola Molinaro, Francesco Giannelli, Sendy Caffarra, Clara Martin, Hierarchical levels of representation in language prediction: The influence of first language acquisition in highly proficient bilinguals, In Cognition, Volume 164, 2017, Pages 61-73, ISSN 0010-0277, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2017.03.012.
Abstract
Language comprehension is largely supported by predictive mechanisms that account for the ease and
speed with which communication unfolds. Both native and proficient non-native speakers can efficiently
handle contextual cues to generate reliable linguistic expectations. However, the link between the variability
of the linguistic background of the speaker and the hierarchical format of the representations predicted
is still not clear. We here investigate whether native language exposure to typologically highly
diverse languages (Spanish and Basque) affects the way early balanced bilingual speakers carry out language
predictions. During Spanish sentence comprehension, participants developed predictions of words
the form of which (noun ending) could be either diagnostic of grammatical gender values (transparent) or
totally ambiguous (opaque). We measured electrophysiological prediction effects time-locked both to the
target word and to its determiner, with the former being expected or unexpected. Event-related (N200–
N400) and oscillatory activity in the low beta-band (15–17 Hz) frequency channel showed that both
Spanish and Basque natives optimally carry out lexical predictions independently of word transparency.
Crucially, in contrast to Spanish natives, Basque natives displayed visual word form predictions for transparent
words, in consistency with the relevance that noun endings (post-nominal suffixes) play in their
native language. We conclude that early language exposure largely shapes prediction mechanisms, so
that bilinguals reading in their second language rely on the distributional regularities that are highly relevant
in their first language. More importantly, we show that individual linguistic experience hierarchically
modulates the format of the predicted representation.