The Impact of Language Control State on the Cognate Effect: A Replication

Cognates are translation-equivalent words that are similar or even identical across languages in phonological and orthographic form (e.g., BABY/BABY [English/German]). Previous research has shown that pictures of cognates are more easily named (i.e., fewer errors, faster RTs) by bilinguals than non-cognates. However, such cognate effect may depend on the exact task demands and language control state a bilingual is in. To investigate further the mechanisms behind the cognate effect, we manipulated the proportion of cognates versus non-cognates within blocks of a L2 picture naming task (preregistration: https://doi.org/10.23668/psycharchives.14636). As hypothesized, we observed a larger cognate effect in blocks with more cognates, suggesting that people proactively adapt languages activation to optimize ease of language production. That is, if more cognates are encountered, bilinguals may be able to maintain activation of both languages without much cost, while down-tuning co-activation if the proportion of non-cognates is high. However, these results stand in contrast with the findings by Spinelli and Sulpizio (2024), which did not observe such a modulation of the cognate effect. Thus, we will conduct a replication of our experiment (with some slight adjustments) to better understand why different result patterns were observed across studies.