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Abstract:
Abstract: Abstract Bilingual Stroop tasks have been
extensively used in the investigation of the bilingual lexicon.
Even though many studies employed virtually almost identical
methods and procedures, they often failed to generate consistent
results. The present study looked at a possible third variable that
might influence the pattern of results obtained from bilingual
Stroop tasks: priming. The effect of language priming on a
bilingual Stroop task was tested using 45 German and French
natives, aged 18-26, whose second language was English. Subjects'
English proficiency was categorized into high or low according to
their score on the TOEFL test (Test of English as a foreign
language). Priming consisted of reading prosaic material in French
or German, however, subjects in the non-priming condition mainly
communicated in English prior to test. Subjects primed by
performing a reading task in their native language showed greater
intralingual interference than subjects who were naturally primed
in English through interactions with an English-speaking
environment, F (1,44) = 3.8, p < .06 . No significant effect
was found for language proficiency, F (1, 44) = .03, p > 6.4
. Findings suggest that a subject's immediate state of language
priming has to be taken into consideration when conducting
bilingual language experiments.
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