The Effect of Word Type and Bilingual Status on TOTs
Poster Number
28
Format
Poster Presentation
Faculty Mentor Name
Elizabeth Graham
Faculty Mentor Department
Psychology
Abstract/Artist Statement
All language users report an occasional, frustrating phenomenon known as a Tip-of-the- Tongue (TOT), a temporary failure to retrieve a target word they are confident of knowing. TOTs occur most often for low frequency words and proper names, due to weak connections between the lexical and phonological representations of infrequently used concepts (Burke, MacKay, Worthley, & Wade, 1991). Weak connections for low frequency words are especially pronounced in bilinguals, who have separate lexical and phonological representations for each language, and who would be expected to activate each language’s representation less often compared to a monolingual speaker. Indeed, Gollan, Bonanni, and Montoya (2005) demonstrated that bilinguals were more likely than monolinguals to have TOTs for low frequency object nouns, but not for proper names which have consistent representations across the two languages. The likelihood of experiencing a TOT for a target word may also be related to the frequency of other phonologically related words. For example, Jescheniak and Levelt (1994) found that low frequency words that were part of a homophone pair had translation latencies similar to high frequency non-homophones, and faster latencies compared to low frequency non-homophones. If the frequency benefits of homophones extend to TOTs, they should benefit monolinguals more than bilinguals. In the current study, TOT states were induced by asking participants to name 60 pictures of famous people, or name 30 low frequency objects based on their definitions. Half of the famous people had homophone surnames (e.g. Emma Stone) and the other half did not (e.g. Cynthia Nixon). We hypothesized that bilinguals would experience more TOTs overall. However this difference would occur only for objects and famous people with homophone surnames. The results have implications for models of bilingual lexical processing and language production.
Location
DeRosa University Center, Ballroom
Start Date
25-4-2015 2:00 PM
End Date
25-4-2015 4:00 PM
The Effect of Word Type and Bilingual Status on TOTs
DeRosa University Center, Ballroom
All language users report an occasional, frustrating phenomenon known as a Tip-of-the- Tongue (TOT), a temporary failure to retrieve a target word they are confident of knowing. TOTs occur most often for low frequency words and proper names, due to weak connections between the lexical and phonological representations of infrequently used concepts (Burke, MacKay, Worthley, & Wade, 1991). Weak connections for low frequency words are especially pronounced in bilinguals, who have separate lexical and phonological representations for each language, and who would be expected to activate each language’s representation less often compared to a monolingual speaker. Indeed, Gollan, Bonanni, and Montoya (2005) demonstrated that bilinguals were more likely than monolinguals to have TOTs for low frequency object nouns, but not for proper names which have consistent representations across the two languages. The likelihood of experiencing a TOT for a target word may also be related to the frequency of other phonologically related words. For example, Jescheniak and Levelt (1994) found that low frequency words that were part of a homophone pair had translation latencies similar to high frequency non-homophones, and faster latencies compared to low frequency non-homophones. If the frequency benefits of homophones extend to TOTs, they should benefit monolinguals more than bilinguals. In the current study, TOT states were induced by asking participants to name 60 pictures of famous people, or name 30 low frequency objects based on their definitions. Half of the famous people had homophone surnames (e.g. Emma Stone) and the other half did not (e.g. Cynthia Nixon). We hypothesized that bilinguals would experience more TOTs overall. However this difference would occur only for objects and famous people with homophone surnames. The results have implications for models of bilingual lexical processing and language production.