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Identifying hidden cognate effects in L2 lexical retrieval tasks: A tutorial for stimulus design.

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Τίτλος: Identifying hidden cognate effects in L2 lexical retrieval tasks: A tutorial for stimulus design.
Συγγραφείς: Kendro K; Applied Linguistics, Northern Arizona University, 705 S. Beaver Street, Flagstaff, AZ, 86011-6032, USA. kelly.kendro@nau.edu., Holmberg AJ; Applied Linguistics, Northern Arizona University, 705 S. Beaver Street, Flagstaff, AZ, 86011-6032, USA.
Πηγή: Behavior research methods [Behav Res Methods] 2026 Oct 16; Vol. 58 (11). Date of Electronic Publication: 2026 Oct 16.
Τύπος έκδοσης: Journal Article
Γλώσσα: English
Στοιχεία περιοδικού: Publisher: Springer Country of Publication: United States NLM ID: 101244316 Publication Model: Electronic Cited Medium: Internet ISSN: 1554-3528 (Electronic) Linking ISSN: 1554351X NLM ISO Abbreviation: Behav Res Methods Subsets: MEDLINE
Imprint Name(s): Publication: 2010- : New York : Springer
Original Publication: Austin, Tex. : Psychonomic Society, c2005-
Ιατρικοί όροι (MeSH): Psycholinguistics*/methods , Multilingualism*, Humans ; Semantics ; Vocabulary
Περίληψη: Psycholinguistic research involving multilingual participants often examines the extent to which processing of one language is related to processing of another, especially during semantic priming. When choosing crosslinguistic task items in second language (L2) vocabulary research, researchers often control for dimensions such as orthographic or phonetic overlap that may lead to a task advantage that does not represent semantic priming effects from the L2 during lexical retrieval. Prior research shows that cognates may facilitate lexical retrieval across a bilingual's languages by activating both lexical representations of a task item (e.g., Sánchez-Casas et al., 1992; Van Assche et al., 2009). However, the cognate status of words that are semantically related to a target have not been fully considered as potential confounds, even though these pairs may trigger semantic activation that similarly facilitates recognition. In this paper, we detail seven steps researchers can take when evaluating crosslinguistic target pairs to avoid compromising their paradigm due to activation of cognate synonyms. This approach allows language researchers to screen stimuli for several confounding dimensions including semantic similarity, orthographic similarity, and etymological relatedness, ultimately strengthening the validity of crosslinguistic vocabulary tasks to better elicit and evaluate lexical activation in multilinguals. We conclude by showcasing our method to evaluate a sample set of English-Spanish items and provide code for researchers to evaluate their own crosslinguistic stimuli pairs.
(© 2026. The Psychonomic Society, Inc.)
Competing Interests: Declarations: This work has not been published previously. This work is not under consideration for publication in another journal or elsewhere. GenAI has not been used to generate any text of this manuscript. Conflicts of interest/Competing interests: Not applicable. Ethics approval: Not applicable. Consent to participate: Not applicable. Consent for publication: Both authors have read the final version of this manuscript and consent to its publication.
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Contributed Indexing: Keywords: Cognate synonyms; Crosslinguistic priming; L2 semantic priming; Neighborhood effects
Entry Date(s): Date Created: 20261015 Date Completed: 20261016 Latest Revision: 20261015
Update Code: 20261016
DOI: 10.3758/s13428-026-03210-x
PMID: 42881316
Βάση Δεδομένων: MEDLINE
Περιγραφή
ISSN:1554-3528
DOI:10.3758/s13428-026-03210-x