The cognate advantage in bilingual aphasia: Now you see it, now you don't.

• Main Author: Emma Hughes
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Frontiers Media S.A. 2015-05-01
• Series: Frontiers in Psychology
• Subjects: Anomia; Aphasia; bilingualism; language processing; cognate effect
• Online Access: http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/conf.fpsyg.2015.65.00086/full

Background: The role of cognateness in bilingual language production has been the focus of much investigation. Many studies have found a cognate facilitation effect for reaction times and accuracy in naming in control participants (Costa, Caramazza & Sebastien-Galles, 2000; Rosselli, Ardila, Jurado,& Salvatierra, 2012 ) but the findings are by no means unequivocal e.g. Siyambalapitiya et al, 2009 observed a reversal of the cognate facilitation effect in older participants. The effect of cognateness has also been investigated in aphasic participants; Roberts & Deslauriers (199) observed a strong picture naming advantage for cognate words over non-cognate words, though no individual data were reported. Several case studies have reported cognate advantage in individuals, though results vary dependent on task and on the individual (Detry, Pillon & De Partz, 2005; Lalor & Kirsner, 2001). Furthermore, an inhibitory effect for cognate words has also been observed (Tiwari & Krishnan 2015). Overall, the above findings serve to illustrate that the facilitatory effect of cognate words is uncertain, and further investigation is required. Research Question: Does task type affect the cognate advantage in Welsh-English bilingual speakers? It is expected that patients will present with a picture naming advantage for cognate items. The expectations for a cognate advantage in translation are less assured, as the presentation of a cognate word in one language may inhibit access to its translation equivalent due to the phonological overlap, or the similarity may be facilitatory in activating the phonological representation of the target. Participants: 7 Welsh-English early proficient bilingual aphasic participants were selected for participation. Each patient scored significantly lower (p<.05) than age-matched controls (N=37) on at least one task using the modified t-tests for single cases (Crawford & Howell, 1998) Methods: Picture naming and translation tasks were administered in each language. Each task included 80 items, matched across languages for frequency, word length and number of cognate items; both naming and translation probed the same words. Results and discussion: As can be seen in the Figure, the effect of cognate status was highly variable across participants, languages and tasks. Only one participant showed a robust advantage in the 4 conditions. Overall, there was little evidence for cognate facilitation in the translation task, with 4 patients even showing an inhibitory effect of cognateness. This study on an unselected group of participants suggests that cognateness effects may partly reflect a publication bias and that a full understanding of the effects of cognate status will require future investigation.