The study evaluated whether the direction (inhibitory or facilitative) of the phonological neighborhood density effect in English spoken word recognition was modulated by the relative strength of competitor activation (neighborhood type) in two groups of English-dominant learners of Spanish who differed in language experience. Classroom learners and heritage learners of Spanish identified spoken English words from dense (e.g., BEAR) and sparse (e.g., BOAT) phonological neighborhoods presented in moderate noise. The phonological neighborhood was separately manipulated at word onset (cohort) and word offset (rhyme). Classroom learners were overall slower in recognizing spoken words from denser neighborhoods. Strongly active (onset) neighbors exerted inhibitory effects in both classroom and heritage learners. Critically, weakly active (offset) neighbors exerted inhibitory effects in classroom learners but facilitative effects in heritage learners. The results suggest that the activation of both within and cross-language neighbors should be considered in determining the direction of neighbor effects in bilingual lexical processing.

该研究评估了两组语言体验不同、以英语为主的西班牙语学习者中英语口语单词识别中语音邻域密度效应的方向（抑制性或促进性）是否受到竞争者激活（邻里类型）的相对强度的调节。 。西班牙语的课堂学习者和传统学习者从中等噪音中呈现的密集（例如，BEAR）和稀疏（例如，BOAT）音系邻域中识别出英语口语单词。音系邻域在词开始（队列）和词偏移（韵）处分别进行操作。课堂学习者识别来自人口密集社区的口语单词的速度总体上较慢。强烈活跃（发作）的邻居对课堂学习者和传统学习者都产生抑制作用。至关重要的是，弱活跃（抵消）邻居对课堂学习者产生抑制作用，但对传统学习者产生促进作用。结果表明，在确定双语词汇处理中邻居效应的方向时，应考虑语言内和跨语言邻居的激活。