Making sense of the Sense Model: translation priming with Japanese-English bilinguals

Many studies have reported that first language (L1) translation primes speed responses to second language (L2) targets, whereas L2 translation primes generally do not speed up responses to L1 targets in lexical decision. According to the Sense Model (Finkbeiner, Forster, Nicol & Nakamura, 2004)...

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Main Authors: Allen, David, Conklin, Kathy, van Heuven, Walter J.B.
Format: Article
Published: John Benjamins Publishing Company 2015
Subjects:
Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/28883/
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author Allen, David
Conklin, Kathy
van Heuven, Walter J.B.
author_facet Allen, David
Conklin, Kathy
van Heuven, Walter J.B.
author_sort Allen, David
building Nottingham Research Data Repository
collection Online Access
description Many studies have reported that first language (L1) translation primes speed responses to second language (L2) targets, whereas L2 translation primes generally do not speed up responses to L1 targets in lexical decision. According to the Sense Model (Finkbeiner, Forster, Nicol & Nakamura, 2004) this asymmetry is due to the proportion of senses activated by the prime. Because L2 primes activate only a subset of the L1 translations senses, priming is not observed. In this study we test the predictions of the Sense Model by using Japanese-English cognates, which allow us to manipulate the number of senses that words have in each language. Contrary to the predictions of the Sense Model, our results replicated the typical asymmetrical priming effects, suggesting that it is not the total activation of senses that drives the priming effect. Rather the results are more in line with theories that postulate slower, and thus ineffective, activation of semantics by L2 primes.
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spelling nottingham-288832020-05-04T20:10:26Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/28883/ Making sense of the Sense Model: translation priming with Japanese-English bilinguals Allen, David Conklin, Kathy van Heuven, Walter J.B. Many studies have reported that first language (L1) translation primes speed responses to second language (L2) targets, whereas L2 translation primes generally do not speed up responses to L1 targets in lexical decision. According to the Sense Model (Finkbeiner, Forster, Nicol & Nakamura, 2004) this asymmetry is due to the proportion of senses activated by the prime. Because L2 primes activate only a subset of the L1 translations senses, priming is not observed. In this study we test the predictions of the Sense Model by using Japanese-English cognates, which allow us to manipulate the number of senses that words have in each language. Contrary to the predictions of the Sense Model, our results replicated the typical asymmetrical priming effects, suggesting that it is not the total activation of senses that drives the priming effect. Rather the results are more in line with theories that postulate slower, and thus ineffective, activation of semantics by L2 primes. John Benjamins Publishing Company 2015 Article PeerReviewed Allen, David, Conklin, Kathy and van Heuven, Walter J.B. (2015) Making sense of the Sense Model: translation priming with Japanese-English bilinguals. The Mental Lexicon, 10 (1). pp. 32-52. ISSN 1871-1340 translation priming Sense Model Japanese-English cognates semantic representation lexical processing http://www.jbe-platform.com/content/journals/10.1075/ml.10.1.02all doi:10.1075/ml.10.1.02all doi:10.1075/ml.10.1.02all
spellingShingle translation priming
Sense Model
Japanese-English
cognates
semantic representation
lexical processing
Allen, David
Conklin, Kathy
van Heuven, Walter J.B.
Making sense of the Sense Model: translation priming with Japanese-English bilinguals
title Making sense of the Sense Model: translation priming with Japanese-English bilinguals
title_full Making sense of the Sense Model: translation priming with Japanese-English bilinguals
title_fullStr Making sense of the Sense Model: translation priming with Japanese-English bilinguals
title_full_unstemmed Making sense of the Sense Model: translation priming with Japanese-English bilinguals
title_short Making sense of the Sense Model: translation priming with Japanese-English bilinguals
title_sort making sense of the sense model: translation priming with japanese-english bilinguals
topic translation priming
Sense Model
Japanese-English
cognates
semantic representation
lexical processing
url https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/28883/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/28883/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/28883/