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Category: Project

Description: The accumulating evidence suggests that prior usage of a second language (L2) leads to processing costs on the subsequent production of a native language (L1). However, it is unclear what mechanism drives this effect. It has been proposed that the L1 cost reflects active inhibition of L1 representation; however, previous studies exploring this issue were inconclusive. It is also unsettled whether the mechanism operates on the whole-language level or is restricted to translation equivalents in the two languages. We report a study that allowed us to address both issues behaviorally and using ERPs. In our experiment, native speakers of Polish (L1) and learners of English (L2) named a set of pictures in L1 following a set of pictures in either L1 or L2. Half of the pictures were repeated from the preceding block and half were new; this enabled dissociation of the effects on the level of the whole language from those specific to individual lexical items. Our results are consistent with the notion that language after-effects operate at a whole-language level. Behaviorally, we observed a clear processing cost on the whole-language level and a small facilitation on the item-specific level. The whole-language effect was accompanied by an enhanced, fronto-centrally distributed negativity in the 250–400ms time-window which we identified as the N3 (in previous research it was probably misidentified as the N2), a component that reflects the difficulty of word retrieval during picture naming. Moreover, our ERP results warrant reconsideration of the mechanism underlying language after-effects in bilingual language production. They suggest that the language after-effects reflect the reduced L1 activation that occurs as a result of L2 production, rather than an inhibitory process that acts during L1 production.