Psychology ETDs

Publication Date

8-23-1977

Abstract

Spanish-English bilingual subjects performed in a memory search task which required them to determine whether test words were members or nonmembers of previously learned memory sets. For some trials, memory set and test words were from the same language, but for other trials, they were from opposite languages. Test items were blocked into either pure or mixed sequences. Pure blocks contained test items from a single language only, while mixed blocks contained either 2, 4, or 6 words which were nouns from a single semantic class. Some negative stimuli were semantically related to memory set words, while others were unrelated. Memory set language had no effect on the time required to decide whether a particular test word was positive or negative. However, reaction time did increase with memory set size, and per item increase was larger for Spanish than for English test words. Responses were faster to unrelated than to related negative stimuli, but performance was no faster for pure blocks than for mixed blocks. These data support the hypothesis that translation equivalent words are stored as single lexical codes. Each lexical code is assumed to include information about semantic characteristics of the concept, as well as information about the physical characteristics of the Spanish and English words associated with the concept. Steeper slopes for Spanish test word functions suggested that the subjects, who were less literate in Spanish, had less detailed literal Spanish than English information on which to base a decision for each trial. Thus, Spanish search took longer, even though the same lexical memory set codes were compared against Spanish and English test item codes.

Degree Name

Psychology

Level of Degree

Doctoral

Department Name

Psychology

First Committee Member (Chair)

Carol Elizabeth Conrad

Second Committee Member

Thomas Patrick Friden

Third Committee Member

Henry Carleton Ellis

Fourth Committee Member

G. Robert Grice

Sponsors

The Research and Fellowship Services office and the Graduate Student Association

Language

English

Document Type

Dissertation

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