Working Memory Capacity and Contextual Novel Linguistic Input: A Cross‑Modal Priming Study on Persian–English Subordinate Bilinguals

Abstract

The present study investigated the effect of verbal working memory capacity (VWMC) on the processing of semantic information during on-line lexical ambiguity resolution of bilinguals. Seventeen Persian-English subordinate bilinguals of similar proficiency level were recruited to perform two experimental tasks: (1) a multi-load-level reading span task designed to measure their VWMC and (2) a cross-modal semantic priming task (CMPT), 24h subsequent to the last encoding session, to assess their performance on semantic processing of L2 homographs whose subordinate readings were deemed “novel” for them. An overall 2 x 3 repeated-measures ANOVA revealed a statistically significant difference in the processing of the encoded semantic information between high and low WMC participants. The findings of the experiments lend support to the veracity of the assumptions made by Reordered Access Model in that biasing semantic context facilitates the ambiguity resolution of lexical items. Lastly, the pedagogical implications of the findings were expounded on.