Martin, C. 1 , Thierry, G. 2 , Kuipers, J. 2 & Costa, A. 1, 3
1 Universitat Pompeu Fabra
2 Bangor University
3 Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats
The goal of the present study was to investigate if being bilingual affects the way people predict words to come when they read sentences. Using Event-Related Potentials (ERPs), DeLong and collaborators have shown that reading a predicted word at the end of a sentence elicits smaller N400 amplitudes than words that are not predicted, albeit being semantically congruent with the sentence context. Interestingly, prediction effects were also observed on the article preceding the final word, i.e., the N400 was more negative for the article ‘an’ when the most expected final word started with a consonant, and inversely for the article ‘a’ (DeLong et al., 2005). In this study, we investigated prediction effects in early English-Welsh bilinguals, late Spanish-English bilinguals and English monolinguals. Participants were asked to read English sentences while undergoing 64-channel ERP recording. Sentences ended with a predicted noun starting with (a) a vowel or (b) a consonant; a non-predicted noun starting with (c) a vowel or (d) a consonant. In monolinguals, we found a significant prediction effect both on the final noun of the sentence and the preceding article. The N400 modulation elicited by the article was similar in early bilinguals and monolinguals. The final noun failed to modulate the N400 in early bilinguals but elicited a significant P600 effect for non-predicted final nouns. As for late bilinguals, no prediction effect was observed on the article while the final noun produced a typical N400 integration effect. We interpret these results as evidence that early bilinguals predict the noun ending a sentence as monolinguals do. This prediction effect has a cost as early bilinguals show a late integration effect on the final noun of the sentence. On the contrary, late bilinguals do not predict words to come during sentence reading.