Translation-priming effects on tip-of-the-tongue states

Abstract

Bilinguals experience more tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) states than monolinguals, but it is not known if this is caused in part dual-language activation (i.e., co-activation of representations from the bilinguals' two languages). In two translation-priming experiments, bilinguals were given three Spanish primes and produced either semantically- (Experiment 1) or phonologically-related Spanish words (Experiment 2) to each. They then named a picture in English. On critical trials, one of the primes was the Spanish translation of the English picture name. Translation primes significantly increased TOTs regardless of task, and also speeded correct retrievals but only with the semantic task. In both experiments translation-primed TOTs were significantly more likely to resolve spontaneously. These results illustrate an effect of non-dominant language activation on dominant-language retrieval, as well as imply that TOTs can arise during (not after) lexical retrieval, at a level of processing where translation equivalent lexical representations normally interact (possibly competing for selection, or mutually activating each other, or both depending on the locus of retrieval failure).