Bilingual equivalence priming

Type Thesis

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Summary

Equivalence priming, priming with language equivalent numerals, was examined in Hindi-English bilinguals. Targets were always Arabic numerals, but the primes could be Arabic numerals, Hindi numerals, or dots (control), at random. Participants classified the targets as odd or even under instructions to respond as quickly and as accurately as possible. In Experiment 1, prime-target pairs were always identical. As expected, priming occurred only with Arabic numerals among monolinguals (non-Hindi readers) but with both Arabic and Hindi numerals among bilinguals (Hindi and English readers). In Experiment 2, primes were either the dot control, identical, produced the same response (e.g., both the target and prime were even but different from one another), or produced different response (e.g., the target was odd and the prime was even), at random. No cross-language priming was found. Experiment 3 used these same pairings but trials were blocked by prime type. Still, no cross-language priming was found. The conclusion is that cross-language priming does occur but is a brittle phenomenon.