Order effects in bilingual recognition memory partially confirm predictions of the frequency-lag hypothesis

ABSTRACT

The present study examined task order, language, and frequency effects on list memory to investigate how bilingualism affects recognition memory. In Experiment 1, 64 bilinguals completed a recognition memory task including intermixed high and medium frequency words in English and another list in Spanish. In Experiment 2, 64 bilinguals and 64 monolinguals studied lists with only high frequency English words and a separate list with only low frequency English words, in counterbalanced order followed by a recognition test. In Experiment 1, bilinguals who completed the task in the dominant language first outperformed bilinguals tested in the nondominant language first, and order effects were not stronger in the dominant language. In Experiment 2, participants who were tested with high frequency word lists first outperformed those tested with low frequency word lists first. Regardless of language and testing order, memory for English and high frequency words was lower than memory for Spanish and medium frequency (in Experiment 1) or low frequency (in Experiment 2) words. Order effects on recognition memory patterned differently from previously reported effects on picture naming in ways that do not suggest between language interference and instead invite an analogy between language dominance and frequency of use (i.e., dominant language = higher frequency) as the primary factor affecting bilingual recognition memory.

KEYWORDS:

• Bilingualism
• list memory
• list composition
• frequency effects
• testing order

Acknowledgements

We thank Mayra Murillo Beltran, Jocelyn Vargas, Jasmin Hernandez Santacruz, Diana Cervantes, Amparo A. Davalos-Chomina, and Rosemary Vela for help with data collection. The research reported herein was supported by grants from the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (011492) and the National Science Foundation (BCS1923065). Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the NIH or NSF. There were no conflicts of interest in completing this research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Bilinguals show reduced category fluency (Gollan et al., 2002; Rosselli et al., 2000; Portocarrero et al., 2007), slower word recognition (Ransdell & Fischler, 1987; but see Gollan et al., 2011), slower and less accurate picture-naming responses (Gollan et al., 2005; Gollan & Silverberg, 2001; Gollan et al., 2007; Roberts et al., 2002), and bilinguals also have smaller receptive vocabularies (Bialystok et al., 2010; Bialystok & Luk, 2012).

2 Consistent results have been found in bilingual memory for expository texts, similar to those typically encountered in academic settings. Bilinguals recalled less information in their nondominant language relative to their dominant language. However, the same participants performed at the same level on recognition memory tests in both languages (Vander Beken & Brysbaert, 2017; Vander Beken, Woumans, & Brysbaert, 2017).

3 Note that although bilinguals in the present study learned Spanish first and English second, they were English-dominant because of extended immersion in English and schooling primarily in English (see Table 1).

4 The means for bilingual d′ are different from those shown in Table 3 because it is d′ for words in that language collapsed across list order and frequency.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders [grant number 011492]; National Science Foundation [grant number BCS1923065].