It is currently unclear whether language switching hurts, facilitates, or has no impact on word learning. In Experiment 1, we observed that while language switching hurt cross-situational word learning at the trial level, it facilitated the acquisition of 2:1 mappings (two words mapping on the same object) when each word belonged to a different language (Experiment 2, a replication, is ongoing). In both experiments, the type of mapping (2:1 mixed languages, translations, and pure language, synonyms) was between participants – each of them saw only mixed or only pure 2:1 mappings. In Experiment 3, currently ongoing, we test whether this advantage generalizes to 1:1 mappings (one word maps to one object). In this Experiment 4, we will instead test whether the effect exists within participants, allowing us to distinguish between a general benefit of language mixing and an effect specific to learning translation-like word pairs. Throughout the experiment, half of the mappings will be pure-language (a quarter English-only and a quarter German-only), and the other half will be mixed-language (one English-like and one German-like). We predict finding the same pattern as in Experiment 1—better performance for mixed-language (translation-like) mappings than for pure-language (synonym-like) mappings. We include here (as in Experiment 2 and 3) a remapping phase in which each object receives a new label (half English, half German) and test whether remapping depends on language match (same vs different). We predict that remapping will be easier when the two languages (for learning and remapping) differ.
Simonetti et al. (Wed,) studied this question.