Iconic culture-specific images influence language non-selective translation activation in bilinguals

Two experiments using the visual-world paradigm examined whether culture-specific images influence the activation of translation equivalents during spoken-word recognition in bilinguals. In Experiment 1, the participants performed a visual-world task during which they were asked to click on the target after the spoken word (L1 or L2). In Experiment 2, the participants were presented with culture-specific images (faces representing L1, L2 and Neutral) during the visual world task. Time-course analysis of Experiment 1 revealed that there were a significantly higher number of looks to TE-cohort member compared to distractors only when participants heard to L2 words. In Experiment 2, when the cultural-specific images were congruent with the spoken word’s language, participants deployed higher number of looks to TE-cohort member compared to distractors. This effect was seen in both the language directions but not when the culture-specific images were incongruent with the spoken word. The eyetracking data suggest that culture-specific images influence cross-linguistic activation of semantics during bilingual audio-visual language processing.