The role of word familiarity in Spanish/English bilingual word recognition

Objective: This study examined the contribution of word familiarity to Spanish/English bilingual listeners' recognition of English and Spanish words. Design: The study employed a counterbalanced design. Three lists of monosyllabic English and bisyllabic Spanish words (50 words per list per language) were presented in two blocks. For each block, word lists were presented in quiet and at +6 and 0 dB SNR. Listeners repeated each word in verbal and written forms. At the end of the experiment, they rated the familiarity of the test words on a seven-point scale. Study Sample: Twenty English-dominant (ED) and 22 Spanish-dominant (SD) normal-hearing adult listeners participated in the study. Results: Most test words, English or Spanish, were familiar to the listeners. However, ED listeners were less familiar with Spanish than English words, whereas SD listeners were less familiar with English than Spanish words. Contribution of word familiarity to word recognition remained largely constant across listening conditions for both English and Spanish tests. Conclusions: Despite high familiarity of most test words, clinicians should be aware of the residual effects of familiarity on the English word test even after most unfamiliar words are removed, regardless of clients' language dominance.