The Impact of Language Control State on the Cognate Effect: A Replication – Experiment 3

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 facilitation effect may depend on the exact task demands and language control state a bilingual is in. To investigate further the mechanisms behind the cognate facilitation effect, Benini et al. (in preparation) 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, they 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), who did not observe such a modulation of the cognate effect. In the present study, we intend to shed light on the factors that may have produced such an inconsistent pattern of results. In Experiment 1 in this series (preregistration: https://doi.org/10.23668/psycharchives.21221), we set out to replicate the findings of Benini et al. introducing some minor methodological changes to make the experiment more similar to the one conducted by Spinelli and Sulpizio (2024). As expected, we replicated a larger cognate facilitation in majority-cognate blocks. In Experiment 2, we investigated the role of cognate similarity in producing such proportion-cognate effect. While cognates in Benini et al.’s study were identical to their translation equivalent, Spinelli and Sulpizio (2024) used non-identical cognates. Therefore, in Experiment 2 we employed non-identical cognates to assess whether this would disrupt the proportion-cognate effect. Contrary to this prediction, the effect was replicated. In the present experiment (Experiment 3 of this series) we set out to investigate the role of production modality. So far, all experiments showing the proportion-cognate effect relied on written responses. In the present experiment, similarly to Spinelli and Sulpizio (2024), we asked participants to name the presented pictures vocally.