Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-q6k6v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-12T15:25:49.108Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Language switching between sentences in reading: Exogenous and endogenous effects on eye movements and comprehension*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 November 2014

ANDREA M. PHILIPP  and
LYNN HUESTEGGE
ANDREA M. PHILIPP*
Affiliation:
RWTH Aachen University, Department of Psychology, Aachen, Germany
LYNN HUESTEGGE
Affiliation:
RWTH Aachen University, Department of Psychology, Aachen, Germany University of Würzburg, Department of Psychology, Würzburg, Germany
*
Address for correspondence: Andrea M. Philipp, RWTH Aachen University, Department of Psychology, Jägerstrasse 17-19, 52066 Aachen, Germanyandrea.philipp@psych.rwth-aachen.de
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The present study explored the influence of language switching on both comprehension (utilizing a picture-sentence matching procedure) and word-level processing (utilizing eye movement registration) in reading simple German and English sentences. Language sequence was unpredictable and contained language switches (subsequent sentence in a different language) and language repetitions (subsequent sentence in the same language). The results revealed a substantial decrease of comprehension following language switches (with greater switch costs in L1 than in L2), likely indicating relatively long-lasting, endogenous inhibition processes affecting higher-level text integration. In contrast, there were comparatively minor and transient effects on eye movements (in terms of altered skipping probabilities and gaze durations) that were restricted to the initial words within a sentence, presumably representing short-lasting exogenous (stimulus-driven) activation effects after language switches (with greater switch costs in L2 than in L1). Overall, the results are in line with predictions from recent interactive-activation frameworks of bilingual language processing.

Keywords

Bilingualismsentence comprehensioneye movementstext integration
Type
Research Article
Information
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition , Volume 18 , Issue 4 , October 2015 , pp. 614 - 625
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

Dr. phil. Andrea M. Philipp, Department of Psychology, RWTH Aachen University, and Dr. rer. nat. Lynn Huestegge, Department of Psychology, RWTH Aachen University and Department of Psychology, University of Würzburg. We thank Magali Kreutzfeld and Johanna Josten for conducting the experiment.

References

Abutalebi, J., Brambati, S. M., Annoni, J. M., Moro, A., Cappa, S. F., & Perani, D. (2007). The neural cost of the auditory perception of language switches: An event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging study in bilinguals. The Journal of Neuroscience, 27, 13762–13769.Google Scholar
Altarriba, J., Kroll, J. F., Sholl, A., & Rayner, K. (1996). The influence of lexical and conceptual constraints on reading mixed-language sentences: Evidence from eye fixations and naming times. Memory and Cognition, 24, 477–492.Google Scholar
Alvarez, R. P., Holcomb, P. J., & Grainger, J. (2003). Accessing word meaning in two languages: An event-related brain potential study of beginning bilinguals. Brain and Language, 87, 290–304.Google Scholar
Booth, R. W., & Weger, U. W. (2013). The function of regressions in reading: backward eye movements allow rereading. Memory and Cognition, 41, 82–97.Google Scholar
Bobb, S. C., & Wodniecka, Z. (2013). Language switching in picture naming: What asymmetric switch costs (do not) tell us about inhibition in bilingual speech planning. Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 25, 568–585.Google Scholar
Bultena, S., Dijkstra, T., & van Hell, J. G. (in press). Language switch costs in sentence comprehension depend on language dominance: Evidence from self-paced reading. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition.Google Scholar
Costa, A., & Santesteban, M. (2004). Lexical access in bilingual speech production: Evidence from language switching in highly proficient bilinguals and L2 learners. Journal of Memory and Language, 50, 491–511.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Declerck, M., Koch, I., & Philipp, A. M. (2012). Digits vs. pictures: The influence of stimulus type on language switching. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 15, 896–904.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dijkstra, A. F. J., & van Heuven, W. V. (2002). The architecture of the bilingual word recognition system: From identification to decision. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 5, 175–197.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Drieghe, D., Brysbaert, M., Desmet, T., & De Baecke, C. (2004). Word skipping in Reading: On the interplay of linguistic and visual factors. European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 16, 79–103.Google Scholar
Filippi, R., Karaminis, T., & Thomas, M. S. (2014). Language switching in bilingual production: Empirical data and computational modelling. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 294–315.Google Scholar
Gollan, T. H., Slattery, T. J., Goldenberg, D., van Assche, E., Duyck, W., & Rayner, K. (2011). Frequency drives lexical access in reading but not in speaking: The frequency-lag hypothesis. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 140, 186–209.Google Scholar
Grainger, J., & Beauvillain, C. (1987). Language blocking and lexical access in bilinguals. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 39A, 295–319.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grainger, J., & Dijkstra, T. (1992). On the representation and use of language information in bilinguals. Advances in psychology, 83, 207–220.Google Scholar
Grainger, J., Midgley, K., & Holcomb, P. J. (2010). Re-thinking the bilingual interactive-activation model from a developmental perspective (BIA-d). Language acquisition across linguistic and cognitive systems, 52, 267–283.Google Scholar
Green, D. W. (1998). Mental control of the bilingual lexico-semantic system. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 1, 213–229.Google Scholar
Gullifer, J., Kroll, J. F., & Dussias, P. E. (2013). When language switching has no apparent cost: Lexical access in sentence context. Frontiers in Psychology, 4, 1–13.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Huestegge, L., Radach, R., Corbic, D., & Huestegge, S. M. (2009). Oculomotor and Linguistic Determinants of Reading Development: A Longitudinal Study. Vision Research, 49, 2948–2959.Google Scholar
Ibáñez, A. J., Macizo, P., & Bajo, M. T. (2010). Language access and language selection in professional translators. Acta psychologica, 135, 257–266.Google Scholar
Jackson, G. M., Swainson, R., Mullin, A., Cunnington, R., Jackson, S. R. (2004). ERP correlates of a receptive language-switching task. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 57A, 223–240.Google Scholar
Kliegl, R., Nuthmann, A., & Engbert, R. (2006). Tracking the mind during reading: The influence of past, present, and future words on fixation durations. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 135, 12–35.Google Scholar
Lagrou, E., Hartsuiker, R. J., & Duyck, W. (2013). Interlingual lexical competition in a spoken sentence context: Evidence from the visual world paradigm. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 20, 963–972.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meuter, R. F. I., & Allport, A. (1999). Bilingual language switching in naming: Asymmetrical costs of language selection. Journal of Memory and Language, 40, 25–40.Google Scholar
Moreno, E. M., Federmeier, K. D., & Kutas, M. (2002). Switching languages, switching palabras (words): An electrophysiological study of code switching. Brain and Language, 80, 188–207.Google Scholar
Moreno, E. M., Rodríguez-Fornells, A., & Laine, M. (2008). Event-related potentials (ERPs) in the study of bilingual language processing. Journal of Neurolinguistics, 21, 477–508.Google Scholar
O’Regan, J. K. (1992). Optimal viewing position in words and the strategy-tactics theory of eye movements in reading. In Rayner, K. (Ed.), Eye movements and visual cognition: Scene perception and reading (pp. 333–354). New York: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Orfanidou, E., & Sumner, P. (2005). Language switching and the effect of orthographic specificity and response repetition. Memory and Cogntion, 33, 355–369.Google Scholar
Peeters, D., Runnqvist, E., Bertrand, D., & Grainger, J. (2014). Asymmetrical switch costs in bilingual language production induced by reading words. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 40, 284–292.Google Scholar
Philipp, A. M., Gade, M., & Koch, I. (2007). Inhibitory processes in language switching: Evidence from switching language-defined response sets. European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 19, 395–416.Google Scholar
Proverbio, A. M., Leoni, G., & Zani, A. (2004). Language switching mechanisms in simultaneous interpreters: An ERP study. Neuropsychologia, 42, 1636–1656.Google Scholar
Pynte, J., & Kennedy, A. (2006). An influence over eye movements in reading exerted from beyond the level of the word: evidence from reading English and French. Vision Research, 46, 3786–3801.Google Scholar
Radach, R., Huestegge, L., & Reilly, R. (2008). The role of global top-down factors in local eye-movement control in reading. Psychological Research, 72, 675–688.Google Scholar
Radach, R., Schmitten, C., Glover, L., & Huestegge, L. (2009). How children read for comprehension: Eye movements in developing readers. In Wagner, R. K., Schatschneider, C., & Phythian-Sence, C. (Eds.) Beyond decoding: The biological and behavioral foundations of reading comprehension (pp. 75–106). New York: Guildford Press.Google Scholar
Rayner, K. (1998). Eye movements in reading and information processing: 20 years of research. Psychological Bulletin, 124, 372–422.Google Scholar
Rayner, K. (2009). The Thirty-Fifth Sir Frederick Bartlett Lecture: Eye movements and attention in reading, scene perception, and visual search. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 62, 1457–1506.Google Scholar
Rayner, K., Sereno, S. C., & Raney, G. E. (1996). Eye movement control in reading: a comparison of two types of models. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 22, 1188–1200.Google Scholar
Schotter, E. R., Angele, B., & Rayner, K. (2012). Parafoveal processing in reading. Attention Perception and Psychophysics, 74, 5–35.Google Scholar
Starreveld, P. A., de Groot, A. M. B., Rossmark, B. M. M. & van Hell, J. G. (2014). Parallel language activation during word processing in bilinguals: Evidence from word production in sentence context. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 17, 258–276.Google Scholar
Tarlowski, A., Wodniecka, Z., & Marzecová, A. (2013). Language switching in the production of phrases. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 42, 103–118.Google Scholar
Thomas, M. S. C., & Allport, A. (2000). Language switching costs in bilingual word recognition. Journal of Memory and Language, 43, 44–66.Google Scholar
Van der Meij, M., Cuetos, F., Carreiras, M., & Barber, H.A. (2011). Electrophysiological correlates of language switching in second language learners. Psychophysiology, 48, 44–54.Google Scholar
Van Hell, J. G., Litcofsky, K. A., & Ting, C. Y. (in press). Intra-sentential code-switching: cognitive and neural approaches. In Schwieter, J. W. (Ed.), The Cambridge Handbook of Bilingual Processing.Google Scholar
Vanhoutte, S., De Letter, M., Corthals, P., Van Borsel, J., & Santens, P. (2012). Quantitative analysis of language production in Parkinson's disease using a cued sentence generation task. Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics, 26, 863–881.Google Scholar
Verhoef, K. M. W., Roelofs, A., & Chwilla, D. J. (2009). Role of inhibition in language switching: Evidence from event-related brain potentials in overt picture naming. Cognition, 110, 84–99.Google Scholar
Warren, T., White, S. J., & Reichle, E. D. (2009). Investigating the causes of wrap-up effects: Evidence from eye movements and E-Z Reader. Cognition, 111, 132–137.Google Scholar
Whitford, V., & Titone, D. (2012). Second-language experience modulates first- and second-language word frequency effects: evidence from eye movement measures of natural paragraph reading. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 19, 73–80.Google Scholar