This study investigates how reading proficiency in an orthographically opaque foreign language (L2 English) modulates word recognition and decoding strategies of Italian adolescents with and without developmental dyslexia (DD), whose native language orthography is highly transparent. The size of the visual and phonological units that are processed while reading is modulated by the orthographic depth of the language being read. In the case of early biliterate readers, reading strategies are characterized by cross-linguistic transfer. It is an open question whether this is also the case for late biliterate bilinguals, and whether such cross-linguistic modulations are also discernible in the presence of dyslexia-related impairments, such as phonological and visual attentional span deficits. By means of eye-tracking, this study shows that cross-linguistic interactions in the reading system also emerge in late biliterates, though this effect is limited in individuals with DD.

Successful use of word-formation strategies is fundamental for children’s language development and vocabulary expansion (Clark, 2009, First language acquisition. Cambridge University Press). Notably, English-speaking children tend to use compounding (i.e., the joining of two roots/free morphemes) to form new words, a word-formation device highly productive in English. In contrast, Polish-speaking children rely more on derivation (i.e., the addition of an affix/bound morpheme to a root), a device which is highly productive in Polish. Less is known about how bilingual children apply word-formation devices. Thus, monolingual (English) and bilingual (English/Polish) children completed a word-formation task designed to elicit compounding (root, synthetic) and derivation (noun, verb, adjective). Results showed that bilingual children tested in Polish used more derivation and less compounding than children tested in English (monolingual, bilingual). These findings and others are discussed in terms of how bilingual children’s input and testing languages may influence their use of word-formation devices.

This study examines how linguistic differences between Chinese and European languages influence cognitive functions. Two experiments compared cognitive performance between Chinese and European undergraduates. Experiment 1 compared Chinese and European bilinguals (e.g., Chinese-English versus French-English) studying at an English university. Chinese bilinguals exhibited stronger executive control, inhibitory control and mental rotation, suggesting that greater linguistic distance enhances cognitive control. Experiment 2 examined native Chinese and English speakers in their respective countries, isolating language-script effects. Chinese speakers performed better in visual attention (i.e., orienting and facilitation) and mental rotation, while English speakers exhibited superior performance in auditory attention (i.e., attentional switching). These differences likely stem from language-script characteristics: logographic Chinese engages visuospatial processing, while alphabetic English reinforces auditory attention flexibility. Collectively, these findings underscore specific cognitive effects associated with linguistic distance and language script and provide comprehensive insights into how language structure modulates domain-specific cognitive adaptations.

Evidence that certain semantic and pragmatic skills follow a similar developmental trajectory cross-linguistically suggests an important role for semantic-pragmatic tasks in the assessment of bilingual children. This study investigates whether quantifiers constitute a language-neutral linguistic category in this context. Forty-three Polish–English bilingual children aged 4–7 years completed the Quantifier Comprehension Task (QCT) and the Test for Reception of Grammar (TROG-2), a standardized morphosyntactic assessment, in both languages. The results indicated that children’s performance on QCT is strongly correlated between their two languages. This correlation was significantly stronger than that observed for the TROG-2, indicating that quantifier comprehension may be less language dependent than general grammar comprehension measures. These findings highlight the diagnostic value of semantic-pragmatic tasks, particularly quantifier interpretation, in evaluating bilingual language development. While the children in this study are all typically developing bilinguals, our goal is to explore whether quantifier comprehension tasks can support the development of language-neutral tools for assessing bilingual language skills.

Language, emotion, and environment jointly shape how words are processed in real life. This study tested how valence and simulated weather influence bilingual lexical access in virtual reality (VR). Forty Spanish–English bilinguals completed a language-decision task with negative high-arousal and neutral low-arousal words under sunny and rainy conditions. Accuracy was high, with no reliable effects. Reaction times were faster for negative than for neutral words and slower under rain than sun, with no significant language effect. A Weather by Trial Order interaction reflected a practice-related speeding under sun under sunny weather. Valence and weather exerted additive influences, and weather did not modulate language or valence effects. These findings suggest that realistic perceptual load imposes general costs without altering emotional or language-related processing. The study underscores VR’s potential to integrate ecological validity into psycholinguistic paradigms, revealing how intrinsic and extrinsic factors jointly constrain bilingual emotional word processing.

The study examines the influence of bilingual experience, age and verbal working memory (WM) on the comprehension of passive voice by 116 typically developing (TD) and 65 autistic children aged 3 to 13, who were tested in their societal languages, German or French. Some children were mainly exposed to the societal language while some children were also exposed to other languages. We adopt a continuous approach to bilingual experience and operationalize it as a balance of cumulative exposure, measured through entropy scores. We found that the comprehension of passive voice improved with age in both groups, and higher verbal WM predicted better performance in autistic but not TD children. Although autistic children were less accurate than TD children, bilingual experience did not contribute to the differences between the two groups. These findings suggest that bilingualism has no detrimental effect on the comprehension of complex syntactic structures in autistic children.

In this work, we use language modeling to investigate the factors that influence insertional code-switching. Code-switching occurs when a speaker alternates between one language variety (the primary language) and another (the secondary language), and is widely observed in multilingual contexts. Recent work has shown that code-switching is often correlated with areas of low predictability in the primary language, but it is unclear whether low primary language predictability only makes the secondary language relatively easier to produce at code-switching points – that is, purely speaker-driven code-switching – or whether code-switching is additionally used by speakers for other purposes, for instance to signal the need for greater attention on the part of listeners. In this paper, we use bilingual Chinese–English online forum posts and transcripts of spontaneous Chinese–English speech to replicate prior findings that low primary language (Chinese) predictability is correlated with insertional switches to the secondary language (English). We then demonstrate that the predictability of the English productions is even lower than that of meaning-equivalent Chinese alternatives, and these are therefore not easier to produce, rejecting the purely speaker-driven theory of code-switching in both writing and speech.

This study evaluated English and Spanish language proficiency, and balance among these proficiencies, in relation to reading achievement in a sample of 161 middle school current and former English learners known to be struggling readers. Students were administered English and Spanish language assessments and also reported on their language usage; English reading outcomes (word reading, reading fluency, reading comprehension) were also assessed. Findings support the role of English proficiency in all three reading outcomes in this population. However, Spanish language skills, or indices that reflected the relative balance of these proficiencies, were not uniquely predictive. The present study adds nuance to the current literature and offers considerations for future work.

This study investigated the role of linguistic similarity in the foreign language effect (FLE) on decision-making and emotional resonance. Previous research has found that using a foreign language (L2) leads to reduced emotionality and increased rationality compared to a first language (L1). We report two experiments with different target languages: Experiment 1 investigated L1 and L2 speakers of English, and Experiment 2 investigated L1 and L2 speakers of Swedish. Participants in both experiments completed three decision-making tasks, including the Asian disease problem, a moral dilemma, and the Cognitive reflection test. The L2 speakers also reported their emotional resonance using the Reduced Emotional Resonance in LX scale (RER-LX). Results from Experiment 1 showed no significant FLE in the decision-making tasks but indicated that linguistic similarity affects emotional resonance. Experiment 2 found a classic FLE in all decision-making tasks, with participants in L2 contexts making more rational and utilitarian decisions. However, linguistic similarity did not consistently affect the magnitude of the FLE. The study highlights the complexity of the FLE and suggests that factors such as age of acquisition and immersion may influence its manifestation.

We investigated how bilingual adults lexicalized novel words (bloksom) derived from existing English words (blossom), over a 24-h interval that included sleep, as a function of word-related factors (lexical frequency), task-related factors (inferencing during encoding), and individual differences in compartmentalized versus integrated bilingual use (language entropy). In Experiment 1, 48 bilingual adults explicitly learned novel word–picture pairings. In Experiment 2, 50 bilingual adults implicitly learned the same pairings. Both experiments manipulated task conditions to require an inference (Inference +) versus absence of inference (Inference −). Participant performance was responsive to word-related factors (word frequency). However, participants who use multiple languages in a low-entropy, compartmentalized manner were most responsive to explicitly tuned task factors. In contrast, participants who use their languages in a high entropy, integrated manner were most responsive to implicitly tuned task factors. These data suggest that bilingual experience modulates preferred novel word learning styles in adult bilinguals.

Examining 62 college students who are bilingual in Spanish and English, this study assessed key predictors of irregular English word spelling accuracy, including cognates and non-cognates. Explanatory item response models tested the contributions of word-level (e.g., orthographic similarity [OS] and phonemic similarity [PS] between English and Spanish word forms) and person-level predictors (e.g., literacy skills in English and Spanish) to item-level spelling accuracy. In line with prior investigations of cognate spelling in English, spelling accuracy was predicted by generally stronger English decoding skill and higher OS, with no significant influence of Spanish abilities. However, OS effects diminished after removing identical cognates from the outcome variable. An exploratory analysis revealed similar effects of English and Spanish decoding fluency on the likelihood of non-cognate spelling accuracy. These results have implications for understanding how orthographic representations of cognates are stored and accessed in the bilingual lexicon, particularly in alphabetic orthographies.

Does L2 production involve adaptive control? Previous research drawing on a parallel between Stroop effects in L1 and cognate effects in L2 produced no support for this idea when inducing adaptive control implicitly (i.e., involuntarily). Reasoning that adaptive control might be hard to implement implicitly in L2 production, here, we induced adaptive control explicitly by presenting informative cues revealing whether the upcoming stimulus would be congruent/incongruent (in L1 Stroop) or cognate/noncognate (in L2 picture naming). Adaptive control was successfully induced in L1 Stroop, with informative cues, relative to uninformative ones, having a facilitatory effect. Such was not the case for L2 picture naming, in which informative cues had an inhibitory effect. While there might be several reasons for this reverse cueing effect, this finding represents another dissociation between L2 production and conflict tasks, which likely has implications for theories assuming a close connection between domain-general and bilingualism-specific control.