Cross-Language Activation and Executive Control Modulate Within-Language Ambiguity Resolution: Evidence From Eye Movements

An important question within psycholinguistics is how knowledge of multiple languages impacts the coactivation of word forms and meanings during language comprehension. To the extent that a bilingual's known languages are always partially active, as predicted by models such as the bilingual interactive activation plus model (Dijkstra & Van Heuven, 2002), cross-language activation should influence which meanings are accessed and in which order. Here, we monitored the eye movements of 48 French-English and 40 English-French bilingual adults as they read within-language homonyms embedded in more or less semantically constraining English sentences. The within-language homonyms were either cognate homonyms, whose subordinate meanings were also French cognates (e.g., sage, "herb" or, less frequently, "wise man" in English and, also, "wise man" in French), or uniquely English (e.g., chest). French-English bilinguals processed cognate homonyms with subordinate meanings more quickly than uniquely English homonyms with subordinate meanings, and individual differences in executive control capacity modulated their processing of uniquely English homonyms only. In contrast, English-French bilinguals processed all within-language homonyms similarly, regardless of cognate status and executive control capacity. Our findings suggest that cross-language activation impacts within-language ambiguity resolution by changing the relative dominance of the meanings associated with a word form, and that cross-language activation varies as a function of the language tested (first or second language).