Self-generated strategies in the phonological similarity effect

Strategy use is an important source of individual differences during immediate serial reconstruction. However, not all strategies are equally suited for all tasks. Therefore, assessing participants' dynamic strategy selection across contexts is an important next step for reliable interpretation of individual differences in short-term memory span - in both experimental and clinical settings. Strategy use during reconstruction of phonologically similar and phonologically distinct word sets was directly assessed using a self-report questionnaire. In two experiments, participants reported consistent use of phonological strategies across word sets; however, participants reported additionally using non-phonological strategies (i.e., mental imagery and sentence generation) when tasked with remembering phonologically similar words. In particular, strategy selection was most impacted when the phonologically similar word set was either the only word set or the first word set participants received. When the phonologically similar lists were presented after a classic list of phonologically distinct words, participants continued using the phonological strategies that had been effective for the distinct lists. Moreover, in both experiments, accuracy of phonologically similar lists was better predicted by use of non-phonological strategies than use of phonological strategies. Specifically, reported use of verbalization or rehearsal did not predict accuracy, but participants who reported regularly using mental imagery and/or sentence generation (typically in conjunction with rehearsal) displayed greater serial memory for similar words. These results do not undermine the general assumptions of the phonological similarity effect, but they do indicate that its interpretation is less straightforward than previously thought.

PHOR-in-One: A multilingual lexical database with PHonological, ORthographic and PHonographic word similarity estimates in four languages

A large body of research seeking to explore how form affects lexical processing in bilinguals has suggested that orthographically similar translations (e.g., English-Portuguese "paper-papel") are responded to more quickly and accurately than words with little to no overlap (e.g., English-Portuguese "house-casa"). One of the most prominent algorithms to estimate orthographic similarity, the normalized Levenshtein distance (NLD), returns an index of the proportion of identical characters of two strings, and is an efficient and invaluable tool for the selection, manipulation, and control of verbal stimuli. Notwithstanding its many advantages for second-language research, the absence of a comparable measure for phonology has resulted in the adoption of different strategies to assess the degree of interlanguage phonological similarity across the literature, with profound implications for the interpretation of results on the relative role of orthographic and phonological similarity in bilingual lexical access. In the present work, we introduce PHOR-in-One, a multilingual lexical database with a set of phonological and orthographic NLD estimates for 6160 translation equivalents in American and British English, European Portuguese, German and Spanish in a total of 30,800 words. We also propose a new measure of phonographic NLD, a pooled index of orthographic and phonological similarity, particularly useful for researchers interested in controlling for and/or manipulating both estimates at once. PHOR-in-One includes a comprehensive characterization of its lexical entries, namely Part-of-Speech-dependent and independent frequency counts, number of letters and phonemes, and phonetic transcription. PHOR-in-One is thus a valuable tool to support bilingual and multilingual research.

Using Network Science and Psycholinguistic Megastudies to Examine the Dimensions of Phonological Similarity

Network science was used to examine different dimensions of phonological similarity in English. Data from a phonological associate task and an identification of words in noise task were used to create a phonological association network and a misperception network. These networks were compared to a network formed by a computational metric widely used to assess phonological similarity (i.e., one-phoneme metric). The phonological association network and the misperception network were topographically more similar to each other than either were to the one-phoneme metric network, but there were several network features in common between the one-phoneme metric network and the phonological association network. To assess the influence of network structure on processing, we compared the influence of degree (i.e., neighborhood density) from each of the networks on visual and auditory lexical decision reaction times obtained from two psycholinguistic megastudies. The effect of degree differed across network types and tasks. We discuss the use of each approach to determine phonological similarity and a possible direction forward for language research through the use of multiplex networks.

Age-related differences in the retrieval of phonologically similar words during sentence processing: Evidence from ERPs

We investigated how phonologically similar words are encoded and retrieved from memory during sentence processing across younger and older adults. Critical sentences included two phonologically similar or dissimilar noun phrases (henceforth NPs) followed by a pronoun. We examined brain activity time-locked to the onsets of the second NP, and the pronoun to investigate the encoding and retrieval of the NPs, respectively. Encoding the second NP resulted in smaller N400 amplitudes when the preceding NP was phonologically similar, for both younger and older adults, suggesting age-invariant encoding facilitation with increasing phonological similarity. However, when processing the pronoun, younger adults exhibited greater negativity following phonologically similar NPs, suggesting retrieval difficulty, whereas older adults showed greater negativity for pronouns following dissimilar NPs, suggesting an apparent retrieval facilitation. A post-hoc behavioral experiment suggested that older adults perform shallow processing during retrieval. The results suggest age-related decline in retrieval, but not encoding, of phonological information.

Big data suggest strong constraints of linguistic similarity on adult language learning

When adults learn new languages, their speech often remains noticeably non-native even after years of exposure. These non-native variants ('accents') can have far-reaching socio-economic consequences for learners. Many factors have been found to contribute to a learners' proficiency in the new language. Here we examine a factor that is outside of the control of the learner, linguistic similarities between the learner's native language (L1) and the new language (Ln). We analyze the (open access) speaking proficiencies of about 50,000 Ln learners of Dutch with 62 diverse L1s. We find that a learner's L1 accounts for 9-22% of the variance in Ln speaking proficiency. This corresponds to 28-69% of the variance explained by a model with controls for other factors known to affect language learning, such as education, age of acquisition and length of exposure. We also find that almost 80% of the effect of L1 can be explained by combining measures of phonological, morphological, and lexical similarity between the L1 and the Ln. These results highlight the constraints that a learner's native language imposes on language learning, and inform theories of L1-to-Ln transfer during Ln learning and use. As predicted by some proposals, we also find that L1-Ln phonological similarity is better captured when subcategorical properties (phonological features) are considered in the calculation of phonological similarities.

False recognition modality effects in short-term memory: Reversing the auditory advantage

The auditory advantage in short-term false recognition - reduced false memories for auditory compared to visually presented words (Olszewska, Reuter-lorenz, Munier, & Bendler, 2015), has been attributed to greater item distinctiveness in auditory compared to visual memory traces. If so, varying auditory trace distinctiveness should influence false recognition rates. Phonologically and semantically related words were presented visually or aurally. The auditory advantage for semantic lists was replicated but a reversal was observed for phonological lists. Reducing modality-specific acoustic and phonological distinctiveness by increasing phonological similarity led to increased false memory. The findings are consistent with a framework positing the generation of input-dependent memory traces and the role of relative distinctiveness in influencing short-term memory.

The Similarities Between the Target and the Intruder in Naturally Occurring Person Naming Errors: A Comparison Between Repeated and Single Naming Confusions

This study investigated the phenomenon of personal name confusion, i.e. calling a familiar person by someone else's name. Two types of name confusion were considered: single confusions (i.e. confusions that appeared only once) and repeated confusions (i.e. confusions that appeared repeatedly). The main purpose of the present study was to compare these two types of personal name confusion and to identify the similarities and differences between them. Participants were asked to fill in two questionnaires (one for each type of confusion) in order to collect information about the properties of the confusions. Results indicated that single and repeated confusions shared some similarities (the similarity of the gender and age of the bearers of the confused names, the phonological similarity between the confused names, the positive or negative valence of the relationship between the participant and the bearers of the names, the frequency of encountering the bearers of the names, and the low level of stress on the part of the participant when the confusions were made). However, some differences were also found between single and repeated confusions (the context of encountering, the length of time that the participant had known the two bearers of the names, the presence of the inverse confusion, the facial resemblance between the two bearers, the kind of relationship shared by the participant and the two bearers, and the state of tiredness on the part of the participant when the confusions were made). In addition, regression analysis indicated that the facial resemblance between the target person and the intruder, the phonological similarity of the names and the difference in age between the two bearer of the names were significant predictors of the frequency of the repeated confusions.

Breaking Down the Bilingual Cost in Speech Production

Bilinguals have been shown to perform worse than monolinguals in a variety of verbal tasks. This study investigated this bilingual verbal cost in a large-scale picture-naming study conducted in Spanish. We explored how individual characteristics of the participants and the linguistic properties of the words being spoken influence this performance cost. In particular, we focused on the contributions of lexical frequency and phonological similarity across translations. The naming performance of Spanish-Catalan bilinguals speaking in their dominant and non-dominant language was compared to that of Spanish monolinguals. Single trial naming latencies were analyzed by means of linear mixed models accounting for individual effects at the participant and item level. While decreasing lexical frequency was shown to increase naming latencies in all groups, this variable by itself did not account for the bilingual cost. In turn, our results showed that the bilingual cost disappeared when naming words with high phonological similarity across translations. In short, our results show that frequency of use can play a role in the emergence of the bilingual cost, but that phonological similarity across translations should be regarded as one of the most important variables that determine the bilingual cost in speech production. Low phonological similarity across translations yields worse performance in bilinguals and promotes the bilingual cost in naming performance. The implications of our results for the effect of phonological similarity across translations within the bilingual speech production system are discussed.