Posted on Jan 21, 2005

Seth Greenberg, Gilbert Livingston Professor of
Psychology, has authored an article with Jean Saint-Aubin of Moncton University
in Canada
titled “Letter detection for homographs with different meanings in different
languages.” It appeared in the December 2004 edition of Bilingualism:
Learning and Cognition. Material included in the paper was contributed by
former Union student Jessica Zuehlke. The paper considers whether words with
the same spellings in two languages, but with different meanings (e.g., “pour”
in English and French), activate both meanings when read in a particular
language (e.g., French) or only the meaning appropriate to the text's language.
Results suggest both meanings are activated though the inappropriate (non-text
language) is rapidly suppressed.