Golestani Narly, Rosen Stuart, Scott Sophie K
Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience University College London & University Medical School, Geneva.
Biling (Camb Engl). 2009 Jul;12(3):385-92. doi: 10.1017/S1366728909990150.
Bilinguals are better able to perceive speech-in-noise in their native compared to their non-native language. This benefit is thought to be due to greater use of higher-level, linguistic context in the native language. Previous studies showing this have used sentences and do not allow us to determine which level of language contributes to this context benefit. Here, we used a new paradigm that isolates the SEMANTIC level of speech, in both languages of bilinguals. Results revealed that in the native language, a semantically related target word facilitates the perception of a previously presented degraded prime word relative to when a semantically unrelated target follows the prime, suggesting a specific contribution of semantics to the native language context benefit. We also found the reverse in the non-native language, where there was a disadvantage of semantic coext on word recognition, suggesting that such top-down, contextual information results in semantic interference in one's second language.
与使用非母语相比，双语者在使用母语时更能感知噪音中的语音。这种优势被认为是由于在母语中更多地使用了更高层次的语言语境。此前表明这一点的研究使用的是句子，无法让我们确定语言的哪个层次促成了这种语境优势。在此，我们采用了一种新范式，该范式在双语者的两种语言中分离出语音的语义层次。结果显示，在母语中，与语义不相关的目标词跟在启动词之后相比，语义相关的目标词会促进对之前呈现的 degraded 启动词的感知，这表明语义对母语语境优势有特定贡献。我们还在非母语中发现了相反的情况，即语义共现对单词识别有不利影响，这表明这种自上而下的语境信息会在第二语言中造成语义干扰。
