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Similar and distinct neural mechanisms underlying semantic priming in the languages of the French–Spanish bilingual children

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 November 2017

LOUAH SIRRI  and
PIA RÄMÄ
LOUAH SIRRI*
Affiliation:
Université Paris Descartes, Sorbonne Paris Cité, Paris, France
PIA RÄMÄ
Affiliation:
Université Paris Descartes, Sorbonne Paris Cité, Paris, France CNRS, Laboratoire Psychologie de la Perception (UMR 8242), Paris, France
*
Address for correspondence: Louah Sirri, Laboratoire Psychologie de la Perception, CNRS – UMR (8242), Université Paris Descartes, 45, rue des Saints-Pères, 75006 Paris, Francelouah.sirri@gmail.com
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Abstract

Recent evidence demonstrates that lexical-semantic connections emerge over the second year of life for monolingual children. Yet, little is known about the developing lexical-semantic organization of children acquiring two languages simultaneously. Two- to 4 year-old French–Spanish bilingual children completed a within-language auditory semantic priming task in both of their languages, while event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded. The results revealed that bilingual children exhibited sensitivity to taxonomic relationships between words in each of their languages, but the pattern of brain activity varied across the dominant (DL) and the non-dominant (NDL) languages. While the N2 occurred for both languages, the N400 appeared for target words in the DL only and the late anterior negativity for target words in the NDL only. These findings indicate that words are organized taxonomically in the bilinguals’ lexicons. However, the patterns of brain activity suggest that common and distinct neural resources underlie lexical-semantic processing in each language.

Keywords

bilingualismlexical-semantic processinglanguage-related ERPs
Type
Research Article
Information
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition , Volume 22 , Issue 1 , January 2019 , pp. 93 - 102
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

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Footnotes

We thank all families for their participation and contribution to this research. This research was funded by the Sorbonne Paris Cite Grant, PME DIM Cerveau et Pensée 2013, and LABEX EFL (ANR-10-LABX-0083).

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