Do both WRAP and TRAP inhibit the recognition of the French word DRAP? Impact of orthographic markedness on cross-language orthographic priming

We investigated lexical and sub-lexical orthographic coding in bilingual visual word recognition by examining interactions between orthographic neighbourhood and markedness. In three experiments, French/English bilinguals performed a masked lexical decision task in French (L1) in which orthographically related prime words could be either marked or unmarked English (L2) words, compared to unrelated primes (e.g., wrap, trap, gift-DRAP, meaning sheet). The results yielded an overall inhibition priming effect, which was unexpectedly more robust in the marked condition than in the unmarked one. This result highlights the need to integrate both lexical competition and orthographic markedness in bilingual models such as BIA/+ and determine how the latter may modulate lexical processing in bilinguals.

Automated summary

The study investigates the interaction between orthographic neighbourhood and markedness in bilingual visual word recognition. The results show a stronger inhibition priming effect in the marked condition compared to the unmarked condition. This highlights the importance of considering both lexical competition and orthographic markedness in bilingual models like BIA/+ to understand how they affect lexical processing in bilinguals.