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Bilingual comparative judgments: Evidence against the switch hypothesis

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Abstract

The notion that bilinguals possess a language-switching mechanism was examined. Subjects made comparative judgments about concrete concept pairs (e.g., cow-panther) and abstract concept pairs (e.g., joy-sorrow), which were presented either unilingually or in mixed language. There was no significant difference in latencies for unilingual and mixed language concept pairs, whether the pairs were concrete or abstract. The results substantiate neither the general switch hypothesis nor the notion that between-language and within-language associative networks have different transition probabilities.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Queen's University at Kingston, K7L 3N6, Kingston, Ontario, Canada

    Stephen J. Popiel

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  1. Stephen J. Popiel
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Additional information

This research was based in part on the author's master's thesis, submitted to the University of Guelph.

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Popiel, S.J. Bilingual comparative judgments: Evidence against the switch hypothesis. J Psycholinguist Res 16, 563–576 (1987). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01067085

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01067085

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