A influência do ruído informativo e do ruído energético no acesso lexical em bilíngues falantes de espanhol como língua estrangeira

Abstract

In the process of capturing linguistic information through sound stimuli, humans tend to filter the target information amid signal degradation caused by noise in order to recognize, retrieve, and access words from the mental lexicon (Bronkhorst, 2015). However, overcoming or shielding signal distortions depends on several factors and does not always go beyond informative noise (such as background conversations) or acoustic/energetic noise (caused by non-linguistic noises) while the individual is turning their attention to linguistic comprehension of the target signal (Meyer; Dentel; Meunier, 2013). Thus, speech signal losses due to degradation can hinder lexical access and, more specifically, the detection of the minimal units that comprise them, that is, the distinctive features followed by phonemes. Thus, the general objective of this research was to investigate the influence of masking by energetic noise and informative noise on the lexical access of Portuguese/Spanish bilinguals. Specifically, we aim to verify whether the effects under background noise are similar at low and high frequencies and whether there is an interaction with the frequency variable; to examine whether bilinguals need more time to decide whether a lexical item exists or is in which language; to determine whether L2 proficiency level interferes with lexical access amid noise; and to compare data from energetic noise with those from an unknown language. Thus, the hypothesis of this research is that masking caused by energetic or informative noise interferes with lexical access, primarily by degrading the target signal. Methodologically, three experiments were applied: two lexical decision experiments (in Portuguese and Spanish) and one language decision experiment. A total of 52 Portuguese/Spanish bilinguals participated in the experiments. Confirming the alternative hypothesis, the main results indicated a significant effect in the conditions with noise compared to the condition without background noise. Comparing the experiments, he observed that language access has a shorter latency than lexical item decision, but also showed significant differences between the first and second languages, indicating the possibility of two representational zones in the bilingual mental lexicon. The frequency of use variable remained robust in the lexical decision experiment in Spanish amid noise, which may demonstrate that word recognition in the second language operates by frequency.