Mentor
Dr. Daniel Tranel
Participation year
2006
Project title

Bilingual Lexical Retrieval

Abstract

In English speakers, lexical retrieval has been found to involve partially segregated brain regions depending on the conceptual category (e.g. fruits, tools) of the object to be names. These regions are outside of the classical language regions, and are also separate from areas involved in the retrieval of conceptual knowledge for the same concrete entities. Are the neural correlates for lexical retrieval the same for bilinguals? Before this question can be answered, more data needs to be collected related to bilingual performance on picture naming tasks. Factors involving bilingual proficiency and task difficulty have led to different conclusions in neuroimaging studies about the organization of the bilingual lexicon. The current studies about the organization of the bilingual lexicon. The current study targeted Spanish/English bilinguals. Participants answered questionnaires regarding current language use and language history and then completed a naming task in both languages in which they named 300 pictures from various categories. As expected from previous research, age of English acquisition, and self-ratings of Spanish and English ability had significant relationships to naming ability. Comparisons of the Spanish naming data to the current English category analysis will allow for further investigations of the neural basis of the bilingual lexicon. The data also have clinical applications. Picture naming is a standard measure to test for impaired language abilities and it is important to obtain normative data for bilinguals.

Matthew  Calamia
Education
Louisiana State University