Comprehension exposures to words in sentence contexts impact spoken word production.

Comprehension or production of isolated words and production of words embedded in sentence contexts facilitated later production in previous research. The present study examined the extent to which contextualized comprehension exposures would impact later production. Two repetition priming experiments were conducted with Spanish-English bilingual participants. In Experiment 1 (N = 112), all encoding stimuli were presented visually, and in Experiment 2 (N = 112), all encoding stimuli were presented auditorily. After reading/listening or translating isolated words or words embedded in sentences at encoding, pictures corresponding to each target word were named aloud. Repetition priming relative to new items was measured in RT and accuracy. Relative to isolated encoding, sentence encoding reduced RT priming but not accuracy priming. In reading/listening encoding conditions, both isolated and embedded words elicited accuracy priming in picture naming, but only isolated words elicited RT priming. In translation encoding conditions, repetition priming effects in RT (but not accuracy) were stronger for lower-frequency words and with lower proficiency in the picture-naming response language. RT priming was strongest when the translation response at encoding was produced in the same language as final picture naming. In contrast, accuracy priming was strongest when the translation stimulus at encoding was comprehended in the same language as final picture naming. Thus, comprehension at encoding increased the rate of successful retrieval, whereas production at encoding speeded later production. Practice of comprehension may serve to gradually move less well-learned words from receptive to productive vocabulary.

Word-context associations in episodic memory are learned at the conceptual level: Word frequency, bilingual proficiency, and bilingual status effects on source memory.

[Correction Notice: An Erratum for this article was reported in Vol 45(10) of Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition (see record 2019-53018-001). In the article, a formula error in the scoring spreadsheet for bilingual participants in Experiment 3 systematically inflated their accuracy scores. Therefore, statistical information for analyses involving the bilingual sample, and bilingual portions of Table 7 and Figure 3 have been corrected. All versions of this article have been corrected.] Three source-memory experiments were conducted with Spanish-English bilinguals and monolingual English speakers matched on age, education, nonverbal cognitive ability and socioeconomic status. Bilingual language proficiency and dominance were assessed using standardized objective measures. In Experiment 1, source was manipulated visuo-spatially, in Experiment 2, source was manipulated temporally, and in Experiment 3, source was manipulated by presenting stimuli in different modalities. Bilingual source discrimination was more accurate for low-frequency words than for high-frequency words, but it did not differ for the more fluent and less fluent languages (L1 and L2, respectively). These results contrast with the L2 advantage observed in item recognition (Francis & Gutiérrez, 2012; Francis & Strobach, 2013), adding to evidence that the bases of performance for item and source memory differ. The dissociation of word frequency and language effects indicates that word-context associations are made at the conceptual level rather than the word-form level. Bilinguals exhibited more accurate source discrimination than monolinguals, both under intentional and incidental encoding conditions, indicating that this effect cannot be explained entirely by differences in encoding strategies. We reason that relative to monolinguals, bilinguals more efficiently encode associations between word concepts and contexts or other types of information that do not convey meaning preexperimentally. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).