Reduced Cross-Modal Affective Priming in the L2 of Late Bilinguals Depends on L2 Exposure

TY - JOUR

T1 - Reduced Cross-Modal Affective Priming in the L2 of Late Bilinguals Depends on L2 Exposure

AU - Tenderini, Miriam S.

AU - de Leeuw, Esther

AU - Eilola, Tiina M.

AU - Pearce, Marcus T.

N1 - Funding Information: This research was supported by grants from the Center for Mind in Society, the School of Biological and Chemical Sciences, and the School of Languages Linguistics and Film at Queen Mary University of London Publisher Copyright: © 2022. American Psychological Association

PY - 2022/2

Y1 - 2022/2

N2 - Processing of emotional meaning is crucial in many areas of psychology, including language and music processing. This issue takes on particular significance in bilinguals because it has been suggested that bilinguals process affective words differently in their first (L1) and second, later acquired languages (L2). We undertook a series of five experiments examining affective priming between emotionally valenced language and emotionally valenced music. Adult English monolinguals and two groups of proficient adult late bilinguals (German-English and Italian-English) with recent L2 exposure were examined. Priming effects were investigated using music to prime word targets and words to prime music targets. For both groups of bilinguals, music showed equivalent affective priming of L1 and L2 words, suggesting no difference in deliberate processing of affective meaning. Conversely, when words primed music, L2 words lacked the affective priming strength of L1 words for both late bilingual groups. Among various language background factors, only greater length of residence in the L2 context was positively related to the affective priming strength of L2 words.

AB - Processing of emotional meaning is crucial in many areas of psychology, including language and music processing. This issue takes on particular significance in bilinguals because it has been suggested that bilinguals process affective words differently in their first (L1) and second, later acquired languages (L2). We undertook a series of five experiments examining affective priming between emotionally valenced language and emotionally valenced music. Adult English monolinguals and two groups of proficient adult late bilinguals (German-English and Italian-English) with recent L2 exposure were examined. Priming effects were investigated using music to prime word targets and words to prime music targets. For both groups of bilinguals, music showed equivalent affective priming of L1 and L2 words, suggesting no difference in deliberate processing of affective meaning. Conversely, when words primed music, L2 words lacked the affective priming strength of L1 words for both late bilingual groups. Among various language background factors, only greater length of residence in the L2 context was positively related to the affective priming strength of L2 words.

KW - Affective priming

KW - Bilinguals

KW - Emotion

KW - Music

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85128298662&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1037/xlm0000889

DO - 10.1037/xlm0000889

M3 - Journal article

C2 - 35420873

AN - SCOPUS:85128298662

SN - 0278-7393

VL - 48

SP - 284

EP - 303

JO - Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning Memory and Cognition

JF - Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning Memory and Cognition

IS - 2

ER -