Phonological and visual short term memory codification in english mandarin bilinguals

PHONOLOGICAL AND VISUAL SHORT-TERM MEMORY CODIFICATION IN ENGLISH-MANDARIN BILINGUALS LIDIA SUÁREZ (B Psychology, UAB; M.B.A., UPC) A THESIS SUBMITTED FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF SOCIAL SCIENCES DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE 2006 ii Acknowledgements This study has been financially supported by a scholarship from the National University of Singapore, to which I would like to thank for giving me the opportunity to write this dissertation and fulfil one of my dreams I would also like to thank the following people who have enriched my knowledge from an academic and from a personal perspective during the process of creating and writing this dissertation: Dr Winston D Goh, my supervisor and academic guide, for his always wise comments on my work, for being there when most needed, and for his professionalism Fazlin Abdullah and my family, for never doubting that I can make it Prof Ramadhar Singh, Assoc Prof Susan Rickard Liow, Dr Nicholas Hon, for their suggestions and feedback when a preliminary version of this work was presented at the Graduate Seminar Series of the National University of Singapore iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii TABLE OF CONTENTS iii SUMMARY v LIST OF TABLES vi LIST OF FIGURES vii CHAPTER INTRODUCTION The Importance of Studying English-Chinese Bilingualism Processing Differences in English and Chinese Visual Encoding Lexical Access Phonological Awareness 11 Memory 13 Short-term memory, Language and Other Cognitive Processes 17 Theories and Models of STM 23 Symbolic Information Processing Paradigm 23 Connectionist or Neural Networking Paradigm 25 Summary and Overview of the Present Study 27 EXPERIMENT 30 Method 34 Participants 34 Design 34 Materials 35 Procedure 38 Results 39 Discussion 46 iv EXPERIMENT 52 Method 54 Participants 54 Design 54 Materials 55 Procedure 57 Results and Discussion 58 GENERAL DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION 70 Summary of Findings 70 Implications of the Findings 72 Relation to Chinese-English Differences 75 Relation to Memory Models 77 Limitations of the Study and Future Directions 79 Conclusion 83 REFERENCES 84 APPENDICES 91 A Materials for Experiment 92 B Materials for Experiment 104 v SUMMARY Previous research shows that different languages determine the differential use of basic mechanisms for perceptual encoding, memory, and retrieval However, limited research has been carried out with bilingual populations English words seem to be codified in distributed traces at the phoneme level in short-term memory, and this can be evidenced with a proactive interference (PI) task However, there is some evidence that Chinese words may be codified in both phonological and visual forms in short-term memory (STM) The first objective of the present study is to assess the extent to which phonological and visual codes are used for representing Chinese words in STM among English-Mandarin bilinguals The second objective is to explore any differences between bilinguals with different language dominance in the use of these STM codes for Chinese The experiments manipulated phonological and visual features of words and examined their influence on the degree of semantic PI in a short-term cued recall task The results suggest that bilinguals process their two languages according to their language dominance Particularly, Mixed and English dominant bilinguals showed evidence of phonological influence on PI, implicating phonological codification There was also evidence of visual influences on PI for English dominant bilinguals, implicating visual codification Mandarin dominant bilinguals did not show any evidence of phonological or visual influences on semantic PI, which may suggest that they have a very integrated phonological, visual and semantic memory system vi LIST OF TABLES Page 2.1 Table 2.1 Average word frequency, number of strokes, and number of transparent and nontransparent characters (Experiment 1, Chinese) 37 2.2 Number of participants for each level of proficiency in each experiment (Experiment 1) 44 3.1 Spearman’s rho correlations between critical responses in the language dominance questionnaire (Experiment 2) 59 3.2 Characteristics of the groups of language dominance (Experiment 2) 62 3.3 LDT results for the groups of language dominance 63 vii LIST OF FIGURES Page 1.1 Relationship between cued recall and proactive interference 21 1.2 Relationship between cued recall and proactive interference with foil inserted in phonological context 22 1.3 Working Memory model (Baddeley, 2000) 24 1.4 Cued-recall network architecture (Chappel & Humphreys, 1994) 26 2.1 Experimental conditions in Tehan and Humphreys’s (1998) third experiment 31 2.2 Experimental conditions in Experiment (Chinese) 33 2.3 Average probability (+SEs) of interference errors in the Chinese experiment (Experiment 1) 41 2.4 Average probability (+SEs) of interference errors in the English experiment (Experiment 1) 42 2.5 Average probability (+SEs) of interference errors by participants with different proficiency in Chinese in the Chinese experiment (Experiment 1) 44 2.6 Average probability (+SEs) of interference errors by participants with different proficiency in Chinese in the English experiment (Experiment 1) 45 3.1 Experimental conditions in Experiment 53 3.2 Average probability (+SEs) of interference errors by participants with different language dominance (Experiment 2) 67 CHAPTER INTRODUCTION The first objective of the present study is to assess the extent to which phonological and visual codes are used for representing Chinese words in short-term memory among English-Mandarin bilinguals The second objective is to explore any differences between bilinguals with different language dominance in the use of these short-term memory codes for Chinese Before approaching these research questions in the subsequent chapters, this introduction will start with a discussion on the importance of studying EnglishChinese bilingualism Next, findings in visual encoding, lexical access, phonological awareness and memory for English and Chinese will be reported with the aim of providing a greater understanding of processing differences in the two languages The introduction will also emphasise the importance of short-term memory—hereafter called STM—for language processing as well as for other cognitive processing Then, two theoretical models of STM, Baddeley’s (2000) working memory model and Chappel and Humphreys’s (1994) auto-associative neural network for sparse representation model, will be briefly described as they will be used to discuss the findings from the present study It should be noted that the present study does not attempt to empirically test any of the assumptions of these two models These two models, the former from the symbolic processing approach and the latter from the connectionist approach, are used to situate the present study in the broader context of STM and working memory research The introduction will end with a summary of the cognitive findings in English and Chinese and an overview of the goals of the present study The Importance of Studying English-Chinese Bilingualism Describing language processing in English-Chinese bilinguals is not irrelevant English is spoken by 312 million people and Chinese (Mandarin) by 874 million people (Central Intelligence Agency [CIA], 2006) Chinese and English are two of the most spoken languages of the world and bilingualism between these two speakers tends to be the norm On one hand, in China nowadays many children are exposed to English, which has become an asset for accessing higher education and promising jobs On the other hand, an increasing number of colleges and secondary schools in the U.K offer Chinese as an elective or a compulsory subject (Neo, 2006) Besides, in places such as Singapore and Hong Kong, English plays an important role especially in education, official, and business matters, although Chinese is taught and used daily by a large part of the population The English and Chinese languages are particularly interesting because processing of an alphabetic and a logographic language may involve different mental operations due to the features of the different writing systems Regarding the physical traits of Chinese, one of the prominent features is its visual complexity Moreover, each character occupies the same square space evenly, and the space between compound characters is not differentiated from the space between simple characters This structure allows Chinese to be written horizontally and vertically In contrast, English words are different in length and each word forms a string Additionally, English is only written and read horizontally The elementary unit of reading Chinese is the character, which represents a syllable and a morpheme (McBride-Chang & Kail, 2002, p 1393; Lin & Akamatsu, 1997, p 371), and happens to be better at representing meaning than sound (Chitiri, Sun, Willows, & Taylor, 1992, p 290; Chen, 1996, p 50); but in English the elementary unit of reading is the grapheme, which represents a speech sound or phoneme (McBride-Chang & Kail, 2002, p 1393; Chen, 1996, p 50; Lin & Akamatsu, 1997, p 371) Furthermore, Chinese characters are less abstract (e.g., Chinese has a relative lack of particular affixes, such as –poly, -tion, -ment, that serve to increase a word’s abstractness in English; Chinese use a group of concrete words such as turn over one’s body instead of a single word to express the English abstract word emancipate; finally, Chinese often lacks an abstract superordinate term such as carry but have many modes and means of carrying [Palij & Aaronson, 1992]), Chinese also has more overlap among grammatical categories (i.e., the same word, gēn, 跟, can play different syntactic roles depending on its meaning: with, together, and, to follow, to go with) and Chinese words are more optional—vs obligatory— than English words (i.e., it is syntactically permissible to omit most Chinese function words in a sentence without impairing its grammar) (Palij & Aaronson, 1992) Chinese is orthographically deep compared to English because conversion rules between character and pronunciation are not unequivocally 116 I can't read it I don't know meaning I can't read it 美好 区域 妹妹 权威 美妙 圈 每月 让 梦 日出 荣 拖鞋 沙漠 外出 上 玩具 伤 完全 上海 旺 商谈 王国 身 危机 师傅 围巾 诗歌 未来 时候 微笑 十四 纹 狮子 温柔 十八 蜗牛 十五 握拳 收缩 西瓜 手套 喜剧 书法 戏剧 舒服 峡谷 叔叔 下雨 数学 狭窄 死亡 象 四肢 享 松 相同 素菜 消化 算了 小麦 态度 小猫 特点 消息 田 心理 I don't know meaning 117 I can't read it I don't know meaning I can't read it 大 星 头脑 形 投资 胸 突出 宏伟 土豆 袖子 突击 学科 学期 祝福 学徒 祝贺 学校 助手 学者 竹子 熏 捉到 压迫 走开 淹 组织 演出 和平 演讲 幸福 严厉 恐惧 演奏 晚上 野生 后天 一般 疾病 一定 安全 一千 迁居 银色 革新 赢得 性别 右边 批评 油饼 矛盾 圆盘 香蕉 运气 眼睛 杂志 火山 杂货 松鼠 暂 棕色 站 服装 战 滑板 章 迷阵 I don't know meaning 118 I can't read it I don't know meaning I can't read it 珍珠 车辆 正义 裙子 指挥 口红 之后 枕头 执照 蜘蛛 中午 I don't know meaning 119 Questionnaire B2 Language questionnaire QUESTIONNAIRE Short-term Proactive Interference Task with Chinese Words Experiment Psychology National University of Singapore Kindly fill up this brief questionnaire on language The word “Chinese” includes any Chinese dialect Use the following scale to answer questions 1-3: Exclusively English Mostly English but Chinese in rare occasions Frequently English but sometimes Chinese Slightly more English than Chinese Both languages equally Slightly more Chinese than English Frequently Chinese but sometimes English Mostly Chinese but English in rare occasions score In general, I speak… In general, I read in… In general, I write in… Rank the following questions 4-6 according to the scale below: Very Low Low Average High Very High score My proficiency at speaking Chinese (fluency) is… My proficiency at reading Chinese is… My proficiency at writing Chinese is… Please fill up the gaps below Write “NO” if you did not take the subject Please try to remember the grades, if you not remember the grades put a “?” in the box Levels O A Subjects English language English literature Chinese as 2nd language Chinese as 1st language Chinese literature General Paper English literature Chinese as 2nd language Chinese as 1st language Chinese literature Grades Any remark Exclusively Chinese 120 Table B1 Cues, foils, targets and critical fillers in the phonological experimental condition of Experiment Critical Fillers Cue Foil Target 情绪 忧愁 妒忌 右边 甲虫 温柔 EMOTION yōu chóu 颜色 红 COLOUR hóng 时间 上午 TIME OF DAY shàng wǔ 水果类 苹 TYPE OF FRUIT píng 衣物 裤子 ARTICLE OF CLOTHING kù zi 露营用具 背包 ITEM OF CAMPING EQUIPMENT bēi bāo 车类 跑车 TYPE OF VEHICLE pǎo chē 花类 玫瑰 TYPE OF FLOWER méi guī 职业 医生 PROFESSION yī shēng sadness dù jì red qīng jealousy 青 bàn yè chéng midnight jiā kè orange huǒ chái jacket bā shì bǎi zuò zhĕ dish bǔ jiù pù bù mào zi yī bān dìng yì mín coffee fù mǔ remedy jú bù worm mèng waterfall lǎo jiā definition people dà shà fifteen shàng top 抽屉 parents chōu ti drawer 小猫 part xiǎo māo kitten 学科 home xué kē subject 指挥 kingdom 大厦 ordinary shí wǔ 上 王国 wáng guó dream 十五 老家 cap gentle 梦 局部 一般 writer chóng 父母 帽子 lily 作者 doctor kā fēi wēn róu 民 瀑布 bus 百合 rose shrink 补救 matches 巴士 sport car pán beetle 定义 咖啡 火柴 backpack shōu suō jiǎ chóng 虫 horizontal 盘 夹克 pants héng 收缩 橙 apple right 横 green 半夜 morning yòu bian zhǐ huī conduct 表扬 edifice biǎo yáng to praise 121 房子-房间种类 卧室 ROOM IN A HOUSE wò shì 四季 春 SEASON OF THE YEAR chūn 脸部 鼻子 PART OF A FACE bí zi 大自然 海洋 NATURAL EARTH FORMATION hǎi yáng 形状 方 GEOMETRIC SHAPE fāng 马戏团-角色 小丑 CIRCUS ACT xiǎo chǒu 布料 丝绸 TYPE OF CLOTH sī chóu 肉类 猪肉 TYPE OF MEAT zhū ròu 运动种类 足球 PROFESSIONAL SPORT zú qiú 建筑 房屋 TYPE OF BUILDING fáng wū 建筑材料 砖 BUILDING MATERIAL zhuān 地窖 bedroom dì jiào spring dōng 握拳 basement 冬 xià bā yán shí square yuan clown zá jì silk yáng máo rock zuò circle fĕn xué zhĕ wool sù cài 羊毛 house yī yuàn cooperation dǎi tú powder bāng zá huò féi zào zhāng shī gē bó ruò groceries qi soap chéng wéi drawer jiǎ chóng beetle chóng worm 助手 zhù shǒu poetry wēn róu weak yǎn zòu assistant 温柔 gentle 演奏 play instr 潮流 polite cháo liú to become bèi zhù 成为 trend 备注 捐 juān chōu ti elsewhere 和气 chapter ring 虫 state 薄弱 justice 章 nail ganster 诗歌 veg dish qūan 甲虫 别处 bié chù magazine 抽屉 death 邦 scholar zá zhì 圈 village 歹徒 肥皂 hospital 钉 dīng zhèng yì knob 死亡 杂货 swimming 医院 brick sǐ wáng 正义 ham 游泳 yóu yǒng shell 素菜 火腿 football cūn 学者 acrobatics 杂志 村 粉 杂技 huǒ tuǐ bèi ké bǎ shou length 合作 圆 pork cháng 贝壳 chin 岩石 ocean to make a fist 长 winter 下巴 nose wò quán 把手 remarks 单 donate dān single 122 武器 枪 WEAPON qiāng 家具 沙发 LIVING ROOM FURNITURE shā fā 农业牲口 母牛 FARM ANIMAL mǔ niú 啮齿动物 老鼠 TYPE OF RODENT lǎo shǔ 亲属 祖母 TYPE OF RELATIVE zǔ mǔ 罪案 谋杀 CRIME móu shā 水上飞禽 鸭子 WATER BIRD yā zi 树身 树枝 PART OF A TREE shù zhī 化学元素 氧气 CHEMICAL ELEMENT yǎng qì 首饰 戒指 PIECE OF JEWELRY jiè zhi 方向 东 COMPASS DIRECTION dōng 剑 gun jiàn 圈 sword 桌子 sofa zhuō zi huǒ jī table tù zi grandmother biǎo mèi murder tōu qiè léi dá cousin zá zhì mào zi swan yā pò yè zi leaf shī gē shuǐ yín shǒu biǎo east nán magazine mǔ jī yǎn zòu cap bǔ jiù jiā jù south diàn 南 bā ba brains pái qiú oppression fù zá poetry bù xiǔ home xiá gǔ hen lèi gǔ shop kōng 店 rib chū fā departure 抽屉 complex chōu ti drawer 学者 immortal xué zhĕ win dài tì scholar 代替 大致 dà zhì canyon 出发 remedy 赢得 furniture volleyball 肋骨 不朽 yíng dé father 峡谷 复杂 play instrument to rely on 排球 补救 家具 watch eldest brother 母鸡 演奏 mercury 手表 ring lǎo jiā 诗歌 水银 oxygen tóu nǎo radar 压迫 叶子 dà gē píng 爸爸 老家 帽子 steal side 头脑 stopwatch 杂志 天鹅 branch miǎo biǎo rabbit 偷窃 tiān é poetry 雷达 表妹 duck shī gē biān 凭 大哥 秒表 turkey 兔子 mouse ring 诗歌 火鸡 cow quān 边 instead 车子 approximately 空 chē zi car 凭 empty píng based on 123 能源 电 SOURCE OF ENERGY diàn 皇族成员 国王 MEMBER OF ROYALTY guó wáng 冲凉房 装置 厕所 BATHROOM FIXTURE cè suǒ 畜牲 老虎 WILD ANIMAL lǎo hǔ 木匠工具 锯开 CARPENTER'S TOOL jū kāi 风 electricity fēng king tài zi 党 wind dǎng prince gāo dù 太子 yù gang1 bào zi chǐ zi 鸟类 老鹰 BIRD OF PREY lǎo yīng 餐具 叉子 EATING UTENSIL chā zi 坟地 墓地 BURIAL PLACE mù dì 厨房用具 炉子 KITCHEN APPLIANCE lú zi 鱼类 金鱼 TROPICAL FISH jīn yú 美国-货币 美元 AMERICAN CURRENCY mĕi yuán 金属 钢 TYPE OF METAL gāng 乳制品 牛奶 DAIRY PRODUCT niú nǎi duó dé cuī huǐ léi dá eagle fork cemetery stove goldfish dollar steel milk jiào shì qín snatch fā yáng shí radar huā classroom tū jī hardworking 发扬 十四 destroy develop 花朵 fourteen 荷花 教室 ruler 勤 read aloud 夺得 雷达 leopard 尺子 saw height 摧毁 bathtub 豹子 tiger niàn 高度 浴缸 toilet 念 political party huā duǒ bloom 雇主 lotus 突击 gù zhǔ employer 球拍 rush qiú pāi racket 124 正食 午餐 DAILY MEAL wǔ cān 菜类 萝卜 VEGETABLE luó bo 酸性水果 石灰 CITRUS FRUIT shí huī 酒类 啤酒 KIND OF LIQUOR pí jiǔ 花生类 栗子 TYPE OF NUT lì zi 乐器 吉他 MUSICAL STRING INSTRUMENT jí tā 时间单位 年 UNIT OF TIME nián 玩具 气球 TOY qì qiú 消防局器材 梯子 PIECE OF FIREFIGHTING EQUIPMENT ti1 zi 昆虫 蚊子 INSECT wén zi lunch radish lime beer chestnut guitar year balloon ladder mosquito Note The last eighteen cues, with no foil, pertain to the categories used for one-block trials 125 Table B2 Cues, foils, targets and critical fillers in the visual experimental condition of Experiment Critical Fillers Cue Foil Target 情绪 忧愁 妒忌 EMOTION yōu chóu 颜色 红 COLOUR hóng 时间 上午 TIME OF DAY shàng wǔ 水果类 苹 TYPE OF FRUIT píng 衣物 裤子 ARTICLE OF CLOTHING kù zi 露营用具 背包 ITEM OF CAMPING EQUIPMENT bēi bāo 车类 跑车 TYPE OF VEHICLE pǎo chē 花类 玫瑰 TYPE OF FLOWER méi guī 职业 医生 PROFESSION yī shēng sadness dù jì red qīng 怀孕 jealousy huái yùn green wén 青 bàn yè chéng pants jiā kè wáng guó orange bàn jacket qí dǎo sport car bā shì rose bǎi matches kĕn dìng bus zú qiú wō niú half hǎn to pray mĕi hǎo to confirm jù jué football hǎi jūn 作者 shōu suō shrink dǔ bó qū yù area zhōng wǔ prosperous ràng snail yī qiān discuss 让 permit 一千 one thousand 荣 rare 美好 róng honor 储存 happy chǔ cún to refuse yín sè 拒绝 to store 银色 海军 silver 冰冻 navy bīng dòng gamble xīn lǐ 赌博 区域 writer shāng tán 罕 收缩 lily guess 蜗牛 足球 百合 zuò zhĕ kingdom 商谈 旺 肯定 巴士 doctor wàng 祈祷 火柴 huǒ chái line 半 夹克 backpack cāi xiǎng 王国 midnight 橙 apple to be pregnant 纹 半夜 morning 猜想 freeze 心理 中午 psychological 雇主 noon gù zhǔ employer 126 房子-房间种类 卧室 ROOM IN A HOUSE wò shì 四季 春 SEASON OF THE YEAR chūn 脸部 鼻子 PART OF A FACE bí zi 大自然 海洋 NATURAL EARTH FORMATION hǎi yáng 形状 方 GEOMETRIC SHAPE fāng 马戏团-角色 小丑 CIRCUS ACT xiǎo chǒu 布料 丝绸 TYPE OF CLOTH sī chóu 肉类 猪肉 TYPE OF MEAT zhū ròu 运动种类 足球 PROFESSIONAL SPORT zú qiú 建筑 房屋 TYPE OF BUILDING fáng wū 建筑材料 砖 BUILDING MATERIAL zhuān 地窖 bedroom dì jiào spring dōng nose xià bā ocean yán shí 外出 basement 冬 zhāng chin fù zá rock mĕi yue4 clown zá jì lì acrobatics dōng xi wool zǔ zhī 杂技 yáng máo huǒ tuǐ football yóu yǒng house yī yuàn liè swimming zhuō xióng wĕi biān thing jū kāi jú bù nail kǎn 钉 let it be jī yú organization dì jié hunter xiāng tóng capture ĕr huán side dòng saw àn niǔ conclude jiē nà pèng to move push button 接纳 admit 国内 identical guó nèi domestic 珍珠 ear-ring zhēn zhū drawer jié wĕi 抽屉 to chop remarks 按钮 耳环 砍 bèi zhù 动 相同 chōu ti because of 备注 grand 缔结 part body 基于 锯开 局部 hospital shēn 边 strength complete 身 宏伟 捉到 医院 dīng monthly wán quán night patrol 算了 猎人 ham 游泳 brick suàn le 组织 火腿 pork complex 东西 羊毛 silk gēng 力 circle 完全 certain 更 每月 圆 yī dìng chapter 复杂 岩石 yuan 一定 to go out 章 winter 下巴 square wài chū pearl 结尾 碰 ending 垮 to touch kuǎ collapse 127 武器 枪 WEAPON qiāng 家具 沙发 LIVING ROOM FURNITURE shā fā 农业牲口 母牛 FARM ANIMAL mǔ niú 啮齿动物 老鼠 TYPE OF RODENT lǎo shǔ 亲属 祖母 TYPE OF RELATIVE zǔ mǔ 罪案 谋杀 CRIME móu shā 水上飞禽 鸭子 WATER BIRD yā zi 树身 树枝 PART OF A TREE shù zhī 化学元素 氧气 CHEMICAL ELEMENT yǎng qì 首饰 戒指 PIECE OF JEWELRY jiè zhi 方向 东 COMPASS DIRECTION dōng 能源 电 SOURCE OF ENERGY diàn 剑 gun jiàn sofa zhuō zi 松 sword sōng table miǎo biǎo 桌子 秒表 火鸡 cow huǒ jī turkey tù zi rabbit biǎo mèi murder tōu qiè cousin xiāng tóng steal kè bĕn swan jiǎ chóng branch yè zi oxygen shuǐ yín ring shǒu biǎo east nán leaf quán wēi mercury pàn jué chéng wéi south jǐn wind xīng 南 fēng textbook jù lí friend bào fèi chǔ cún noon péng you rainy bàn lǚ to become qiú pāi disk star yān 星 electric current shàng hǎi Shanghai 混淆 hùn xiáo to store mĕi hǎo obscure 美好 happy 报废 friend bào fèi scrap 飞机 companion fēi jī racket dài tì aeroplane 代替 连 lián diàn liú distance 球拍 tight wild 上海 伴侣 judgment yĕ shēng 电流 朋友 authority scrap 野生 储存 beetle cabin 报废 距离 紧 风 xià yǔ yuán pán 成为 watch zhōng wǔ identical 判决 手表 péng you 圆盘 权威 水银 electricity walk away 甲虫 叶子 cāng 下雨 课本 天鹅 tiān é monthly 相同 偷窃 duck zǒu kāi 舱 sore 中午 走开 表妹 grandmother mĕi yuè chuāng 朋友 stopwatch 每月 兔子 mouse 疮 pine instead 轮 to link lún drown nán 淹 wheel 男 male 128 皇族成员 国王 MEMBER OF ROYALTY guó wáng 冲凉房 装置 厕所 BATHROOM FIXTURE cè suǒ 畜牲 老虎 WILD ANIMAL lǎo hǔ 木匠工具 锯开 CARPENTER'S TOOL jū kāi 太子 king tài zi 围巾 prince 浴缸 toilet yù gang1 bào zi saw chǐ zi shī leopard huā duǒ ruler lǚ bó 老鹰 BIRD OF PREY lǎo yīng 餐具 叉子 EATING UTENSIL cha1 zi 坟地 墓地 BURIAL PLACE mù dì 厨房用具 炉子 KITCHEN APPLIANCE lú zi 鱼类 金鱼 TROPICAL FISH jīn yú 美国-货币 美元 AMERICAN CURRENCY mĕi yuán 金属 钢 TYPE OF METAL gāng 乳制品 牛奶 DAIRY PRODUCT niú nǎi 正食 午餐 DAILY MEAL wǔ cān fork cemetery stove goldfish dollar steel milk lunch 中午 employer 之后 zhī hòu bloom tài dù aluminium foil yǎn jiǎng zhōng wǔ noon 公斤 after 态度 铝箔 eagle gù zhǔ cook 花朵 尺子 鸟类 雇主 scarf 厨师 bathtub 豹子 tiger wéi jīn gōng jīn kilogram 白痴 attitude 演讲 bái chī idiot 油饼 lecture yóu bǐng deep-fried pancake 129 菜类 萝卜 VEGETABLE luó bo 酸性水果 石灰 CITRUS FRUIT shí huī 酒类 啤酒 KIND OF LIQUOR pí jiǔ 花生类 栗子 TYPE OF NUT lì zi 乐器 吉他 MUSICAL STRING INSTRUMENT jí tā 时间单位 年 UNIT OF TIME nián 玩具 气球 TOY qì qiú 消防局器材 梯子 PIECE OF FIREFIGHTING EQUIPMENT ti1 zi 昆虫 蚊子 INSECT wén zi radish lime beer chestnut guitar year balloon ladder mosquito Note The last eighteen cues, with no foil, pertain to the categories used for one-block trials 130 Table B3 List of words and nonwords for the lexical decision task Words Nonwords Abstract Concrete Standard Special 暴力 悲剧 比赛 补救 耻辱 定义 合作 嫉妒 歧视 死亡 未来 正义 祝福 和平 幸福 恐惧 晚上 后天 疾病 安全 迁居 革新 性别 批评 矛盾 把手 报纸 贝壳 歹徒 肚子 肥皂 蝴蝶 课本 辣椒 朋友 手套 杂志 竹子 香蕉 眼睛 火山 松鼠 棕色 服装 滑板 迷阵 车辆 裙子 口红 枕头 白注 报酒 表处 不壶 长为 车莓 出辱 发博 父皂 歌烧 国独 海法 火肉 结格 舅道 距啡 咖绝 老烛 肋椒 排地 十法 头点 蜗瓜 学出 严迫 裱值 叉弧 翅到 地节 冬误 俘昊 工语 骨泪 雇值 荷砝 肌汽 叫市 辣舳 每庙 美乐 目才 歧济 师割 头仔 完据 维金 危肖 狭古 晓迈 祝首 [...]... was English- Mandarin bilingual, and the term Chinese is used for written language as well as in the cited articles which employed the term Chinese and not Mandarin The term Chinese dominance and not Mandarin dominance is used in this study because dominance in one language can include areas such as reading and writing proficiency A description of the cognitive operations of both languages in the bilingual... procedures involved in word recognition, since words are formed by strings of letters In their experiments, English 6 monolinguals and English- Mandarin bilinguals had to decide whether or not a selected letter was present in a subsequent string of five letters Correct reaction time (RT) for target position showed M-shaped letter search function in both the monolingual and bilingual samples, indicating that visual. .. stored in phonological code, in Chinese and English However, in Chinese the visual traces maintain salient, maybe as a strategy to discern among characters since Chinese is a very homophonic language The results on memory suggest that English is recoded mainly phonologically but Chinese can be stored phonologically and visually too To summarise, this brief review of several studies on memory, visual. .. probability of interference will increase because phonological units stopped discerning between the two animal words Summary and Overview of the Present Study English and Mandarin are two of the most spoken languages of the world and the number of English- Mandarin bilinguals is increasing rapidly However, few 28 studies have approached the study of word processing for this type of bilinguals Most of... PI, visual PI, etc.) not detectable in monolingual populations 29 The aim of the present study is to describe word codification in STM of English- Mandarin bilinguals and to explore the differences between bilinguals with different language dominance The following experiments will examine the nature of STM codes for Chinese and English in more detail within Tehan and Humphreys’ STM cued recall procedure... that, at naming, English speakers engage in recoding written words into sounds automatically without lexical access, that is, without accessing word meaning However, in deciding between a word and nonword in LDT, participants need to access meaning, resulting in longer RTs Contrary to English, RTs in Chinese LDT are faster than in naming (Chen, 1996) These results suggest that Chinese—unlike English participants... has shown the phonological and semantic properties of STM for Chinese making use of PI effects Moreover, the visual complexity of Chinese might lead to visual PI effects that are not detectable in English Thus, PI effects should be useful to describe the visual, 23 phonological and semantic properties of Chinese and investigate processing differences in STM for English and Chinese Theories and Models... out meaning and pronunciation Although the same simplified Chinese script is used by all Chinese people (except in Taiwan and Hong Kong) the pronunciation varies due to the existence of different Chinese dialects Mandarin is the spoken Chinese dialect taught in Singapore schools and is used for these experiments In this paper, the term Mandarin is used for spoken language, particularly to indicate... differences in processing (visual vs phonological) found in children are also found in undergraduate students who are expected to be relatively good readers of English independently from their language dominance Memory There are many studies on STM codification in English However, codification in Chinese has hardly been tested Furthermore, no study has previously compared STM codification of English and Chinese... codification of English and Chinese in bilinguals, and no study has contrasted STM codification between English- Mandarin bilinguals with different language dominance The presence of phonological traces in memory has been demonstrated in STM tasks in which participants must memorise a list of alphabetic words or nonwords The phonological similarity effect (recall impairment due to phonological resemblance of ... English and Chinese in bilinguals, and no study has contrasted STM codification between English-Mandarin bilinguals with different language dominance The presence of phonological traces in memory. .. findings in English and Chinese and an overview of the goals of the present study The Importance of Studying English-Chinese Bilingualism Describing language processing in English-Chinese bilinguals. .. phonological codification There was also evidence of visual influences on PI for English dominant bilinguals, implicating visual codification Mandarin dominant bilinguals did not show any evidence of phonological