Geukes, S. & Zwitserlood, P.
Institute of Psychology. Westphalian Wilhelm-University. Muenster, Germany
The picture-word interference (PWI) and blocked naming (BN) paradigms have been frequently applied in mono- and bilingual settings to index lexical and semantic relationships between native and second language words, and their respective concepts. They allow to distinguish subtle differences in the processing of languages learned earlier and later in life. However, due to the historic focus on mid- to long-term bilinguals, relatively little is known so far about semantic integration of newly learned words immediately after learning. In our study, we therefore looked at short-term lexico-semantic effects of word-to-concept learning, using an artificial vocabulary. Over a few days, participants learned a set of pseudowords as names for common objects by means of a statistical learning procedure. These newly learned names, along with corresponding native language names, were used in PWI and BN tasks. Semantic inhibition effects were found for both native and novel object names, indicating that the novel names were rapidly integrated with conceptual memory after few exposures. These results conflict with models of bilingual representation that predict conceptual integration of novel words only for advanced stages of learning.