Abstract Language can influence cognition in domains as varied as temporal processing, spatial categorization, and color perception (Casasanto & Boroditsky, 2008; Levinson & Wilkins, 2006; Winawer et al., 2007). Here, we provide converging behavioral and neural evidence that bilingual experience can change semantic associations. In Experiment 1, Spanish- and English-speaking bilinguals rated semantically unrelated picture pairs (e.g., cloud-present) as significantly more related in meaning than English monolinguals. Experiment 2 demonstrated that bilinguals who were highly proficient in Spanish and English rated both semantically related (e.g., door-window) and unrelated picture pairs (e.g., dress-snail) as more related than monolinguals and low-proficiency bilinguals. Experiment 3 added ERP measures to provide a more sensitive test of the bilingual effect on semantic ratings, which was assessed through the use of linguistic stimuli (related and unrelated words instead of pictures) and a different bilingual population (Korean-English bilinguals). Bilingualism was associated with a significantly smaller N400 effect (i.e., N400 for unrelated - related), suggesting that bilinguals processed related and unrelated pairs more similarly than monolinguals; this result was coupled with a non-significant behavioral trend of bilinguals judging unrelated words as more related than monolinguals did. Across the three experiments, results show that bilingual experience can influence perceived semantic associations. We propose that bilinguals’ denser and more interconnected phonological, orthographic and lexical systems may change the links between semantic concepts. Such an account is consistent with connectionist models of language that allow for phonological and lexical influences on conceptual representations, with implications for models of bilingual language processing.

中文翻译：

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关于语言和思维：双语经验影响语义关联


摘要 语言可以影响时间处理、空间分类和颜色感知等不同领域的认知（C​​asasanto & Boroditsky，2008；Levinson & Wilkins，2006；Winawer 等，2007）。在这里，我们提供了行为和神经证据，证明双语体验可以改变语义关联。在实验1中，讲西班牙语和英语的双语者认为语义上不相关的图片对（例如，云呈现）在含义上比英语单语者更相关。实验2表明，高度精通西班牙语和英语的双语者将语义相关的（例如，门窗）和不相关的图片对（例如，衣服-蜗牛）评价为比单语者和低水平双语者更相关。实验3添加了ERP测量，以提供对双语对语义评分的影响的更灵敏的测试，通过使用语言刺激（相关和不相关的单词而不是图片）和不同的双语人群（韩语-英语双语者）来评估。双语与显着较小的 N400 效应相关（即，N400 代表不相关 - 相关），这表明双语者处理相关和不相关对的方式比单语者更相似；这一结果与双语者判断不相关单词比单语者更相关的不显着行为趋势相结合。这三个实验的结果表明，双语体验可以影响感知到的语义关联。我们认为，双语者更密集、更相互关联的语音、拼写和词汇系统可能会改变语义概念之间的联系。 这样的解释与联结主义语言模型一致，允许语音和词汇对概念表征的影响，并对双语语言处理模型产生影响。