Consolidation as a mechanism for word learning in sequential bilinguals. Issue 5 (30th November 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Tartaro, Giacomo; Takashima, Atsuko; McQueen, James M.
• Is Part Of: Bilingualism. Volume 24:Issue 5(2021)
• Page Start: 864
• Page End: 878
• Publication Date: 2021-11-30
• Subjects: word learning -- memory consolidation -- lexical integration -- Italian–English sequential bilinguals; Bilingualism -- Periodicals; Psycholinguistics -- Periodicals; Language acquisition -- Periodicals; 404.2
• DOI: 10.1017/S1366728921000286
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1366-7289

Abstract

Abstract: First-language research suggests that new words, after initial episodic-memory encoding, are consolidated and hence become lexically integrated. We asked here if lexical consolidation, about word forms and meanings, occurs in a second language. Italian–English sequential bilinguals learned novel English-like words (e.g., apricon, taught to mean "stapler"). fMRI analyses failed to reveal a predicted shift, after consolidation time, from hippocampal to temporal neocortical activity. In a pause-detection task, responses to existing phonological competitors of learned words (e.g., apricot for apricon ) were slowed down if the words had been learned two days earlier (i.e., after consolidation time) but not if they had been learned the same day. In a lexical-decision task, new words primed responses to semantically-related existing words (e.g., apricon-paper ) whether the words were learned that day or two days earlier. Consolidation appears to support integration of words into the bilingual lexicon, possibly more rapidly for meanings than for forms.