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Abstract:
Abstract: Bilingual speakers experience language switches
during conversations; dealing with these reportedly involves a
processing cost. We used event-related potentials to compare
language switches and within-language lexical switches as
Spanish-English bilinguals read sentences for comprehension.
Stimuli included congruent English sentences and idioms which ended
with the expected English word, the expected word in Spanish
(code-switch), or an unexpected English synonym (lexical switch).
Bilinguals more or less fluent in Spanish were identified based on
their scores in a "Spanish" Boston Naming Test. Overall,
code-switches elicited slightly larger N400s, and a large,
widely-distributed positivity, while lexical switches elicited
larger N400s and a small frontal positivity; both effects varied
with sentence type and fluency. In idioms, code-switches and
lexical switches elicited increased late positivity (more frontal
for lexical switches) regardless of fluency, suggesting that such
switches were surprising but not difficult to integrate (no N400).
In regular sentences, English-dominant (less Spanish fluent)
individuals showed a large N400 to both types of switches plus a
late positivity (~625 ms) to code switches. In contrast, fluent
Spanish speakers showed a late positivity (~525 ms) to
code-switches and a small frontal positivity to lexical switches
but no N400 modulations, suggesting that they might not use English
contexts predictively. Overall, the cost of code-switching is a
function of an individual's fluency and the material. For some
bilinguals, code-switching may sometimes be no more costly than
processing a less predictable within-language word.
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