Tamar Degani
Biographic Data
| ID | 1692327 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Tamar Degani |
| GIVEN NAMES | Tamar |
| FAMILY NAME | Degani |
| SIGNATURE | DEGANI T |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Haifa |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-2604-8523 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 14 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 9 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 14 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2015 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
How variability in language experience modulates multilingual listening effort
Multilinguals face greater challenges than monolinguals in speech perception tasks, such as processing noisy sentences. Factors related to multilinguals’ language experience, such as age of acquisition, proficiency, exposure and usage, influence their perceptual performance. However, how language experience variability modulates multilinguals’ listening effort remains unclear. We analyzed data from 92 multilinguals who completed a listening task …
L1 production following brief L2 exposure
Language control allows bilinguals to fluently shift between their languages. Here, we tested whether comprehension and production tasks initiate language control processes to the same extent, and whether these processes operate over specific concepts or globally. Seventy Hebrew–English bilinguals completed an L1 picture-naming production task in the first and third blocks, and either a reading aloud (word production) or an animacy judgment (word…
Competition for selection drives the nature of bilingual language control
The current study tested the hypothesis that bilingual language control mechanisms vary depending on the extent of competition for selection. Forty-eight English-dominant Spanish-English bilinguals switched languages in production of single words, which was elicited with picture naming versus reading aloud in counterbalanced order. Results revealed some key similarities across tasks including: a) significant switch costs, b) larger switch costs i…
Contribution of prior linguistic knowledge to L3 phonological perception and production
Adult phonological processing may be affected by previous linguistic knowledge. Here, we examine how phonological perception and production in a third-language (L3) are affected by multilinguals’ first- (L1) and second-languages (L2). To this end, Arabic-Hebrew-English trilinguals ( n = 41) completed an oddity (perception) task and a word repetition (production) task in English (the L3). Critically, word pairs ( n = 96) targeted phonological cont…
Context effects in the L2
Aims and objectives: We examined how context is used to facilitate reading in the second language (L2) compared with the first language (L1), and how L2 availability and age modulate these context effects. Methodology: Using self-paced reading, participants read high- and low-constraint Hebrew sentences. In Experiment 1, L1 ( n = 45) and L2 ( n = 48) Hebrew readers were compared, whereas in Experiment 2, only L2 readers ( n = 131) were examined, …
Bilingual phonological awareness as a function of language proficiency
Aims and objectives: The present study examined whether phonological awareness reflects a stable construct or whether it varies by the different languages of bilingual speakers. In particular, the study tests to what extent language proficiency determines phonological awareness above and beyond language structural characteristics. Methodology: Bilingual adult speakers were tested as they afford within-participant comparisons to address this issue…
Cross-language interactions during novel word learning
The study examined whether false-cognates, overlapping in form but not meaning across languages, are easier to learn due to form overlap, or more difficult to learn due to meaning competition, compared to unambiguous control and cognate words. Fifty-four native Hebrew speakers learned 14 cognates, 14 false-cognates, and 28 control Arabic words in one session. Cognates were learned better than control items. There was no overall difference in lear…
Influences of bilingualism and developmental language disorder on how children learn and process words
Previous studies found that bilingual children and adults with typical language development (TLD) perform better than monolinguals in novel word learning, but show lower scores on lexical retrieval tasks (e.g., naming known words). Children with developmental language disorder (DLD) lack in their abilities in both tasks compared with children with TLD. The current study tested the interplay between bilingualism and language disorder during novel …
Novel Word Learning Among Bilinguals Can Be Better Through the (Dominant) First Language Than Through the Second Language
When learning novel vocabulary in a third language (L3) through translations in the first language (L1), bilinguals may have more available cognitive resources and more accumulated experience in language regulation compared to when learning through translations in the second language (L2). In a study designed to test language of instruction (LOI) effects, 59 Hebrew-English bilinguals auditorily learned over two sessions 55 words in German, includ…
Cross-lingual phonological effects in different-script bilingual visual-word recognition
To isolate cross-lingual phonological effects during visual-word recognition, Arabic–Hebrew bilinguals who are native speakers of Spoken Arabic (SA) and proficient readers of both Literary Arabic (LA) and Hebrew, were asked to perform a visual lexical-decision task (LDT) in either LA (Experiment 1) or Hebrew (Experiments 2 and 3). The critical stimuli were non-words in the target language that either sounded like real words in the non-target lang…
How Individual Differences Affect Learning of Translation-Ambiguous Vocabulary
This study examined interactions of word and learner characteristics during foreign vocabulary learning, focusing on translation ambiguity and individual differences in cognitive resources and linguistic background (language proficiency, multilingual experience). Fifty-three native Hebrew speakers and Russian-Hebrew multilinguals learned the phonological form of target Arabic words along with their Hebrew translations and definitions. The mapping…
Direct and indirect effects of multilingualism on novel language learning
Determinants of translation ambiguity
Ambiguity in translation is highly prevalent, and has consequences for second-language learning and for bilingual lexical processing. To better understand this phenomenon, the current study compared the determinants of translation ambiguity across four sets of translation norms from English to Spanish, Dutch, German and Hebrew. The number of translations an English word received was correlated across these different languages, and was also correl…
Transfer of L1 visual word recognition strategies during early stages of L2 learning
The present study examined visual word recognition processes in Hebrew (a Semitic language) among beginning learners whose first language (L1) was either Semitic (Arabic) or Indo-European (e.g. English). To examine if learners, like native Hebrew speakers, exhibit morphological sensitivity to root and word-pattern morphemes, learners made an off-line graded lexical decision task on unfamiliar letter strings. Critically, these letter strings were …
Influences of bilingualism and developmental language disorder on how children learn and process words
Previous studies found that bilingual children and adults with typical language development (TLD) perform better than monolinguals in novel word learning, but show lower scores on lexical retrieval tasks (e.g., naming known words). Children with developmental language disorder (DLD) lack in their abilities in both tasks compared with children with TLD. The current study tested the interplay between bilingualism and language disorder during novel …
Novel Word Learning Among Bilinguals Can Be Better Through the (Dominant) First Language Than Through the Second Language
When learning novel vocabulary in a third language (L3) through translations in the first language (L1), bilinguals may have more available cognitive resources and more accumulated experience in language regulation compared to when learning through translations in the second language (L2). In a study designed to test language of instruction (LOI) effects, 59 Hebrew-English bilinguals auditorily learned over two sessions 55 words in German, includ…
Transfer of L1 visual word recognition strategies during early stages of L2 learning
The present study examined visual word recognition processes in Hebrew (a Semitic language) among beginning learners whose first language (L1) was either Semitic (Arabic) or Indo-European (e.g. English). To examine if learners, like native Hebrew speakers, exhibit morphological sensitivity to root and word-pattern morphemes, learners made an off-line graded lexical decision task on unfamiliar letter strings. Critically, these letter strings were …
Cross-lingual phonological effects in different-script bilingual visual-word recognition
To isolate cross-lingual phonological effects during visual-word recognition, Arabic–Hebrew bilinguals who are native speakers of Spoken Arabic (SA) and proficient readers of both Literary Arabic (LA) and Hebrew, were asked to perform a visual lexical-decision task (LDT) in either LA (Experiment 1) or Hebrew (Experiments 2 and 3). The critical stimuli were non-words in the target language that either sounded like real words in the non-target lang…
How Individual Differences Affect Learning of Translation-Ambiguous Vocabulary
This study examined interactions of word and learner characteristics during foreign vocabulary learning, focusing on translation ambiguity and individual differences in cognitive resources and linguistic background (language proficiency, multilingual experience). Fifty-three native Hebrew speakers and Russian-Hebrew multilinguals learned the phonological form of target Arabic words along with their Hebrew translations and definitions. The mapping…
Transfer of L1 visual word recognition strategies during early stages of L2 learning
The present study examined visual word recognition processes in Hebrew (a Semitic language) among beginning learners whose first language (L1) was either Semitic (Arabic) or Indo-European (e.g. English). To examine if learners, like native Hebrew speakers, exhibit morphological sensitivity to root and word-pattern morphemes, learners made an off-line graded lexical decision task on unfamiliar letter strings. Critically, these letter strings were …
Determinants of translation ambiguity
Ambiguity in translation is highly prevalent, and has consequences for second-language learning and for bilingual lexical processing. To better understand this phenomenon, the current study compared the determinants of translation ambiguity across four sets of translation norms from English to Spanish, Dutch, German and Hebrew. The number of translations an English word received was correlated across these different languages, and was also correl…
Direct and indirect effects of multilingualism on novel language learning
Cross-lingual phonological effects in different-script bilingual visual-word recognition
To isolate cross-lingual phonological effects during visual-word recognition, Arabic–Hebrew bilinguals who are native speakers of Spoken Arabic (SA) and proficient readers of both Literary Arabic (LA) and Hebrew, were asked to perform a visual lexical-decision task (LDT) in either LA (Experiment 1) or Hebrew (Experiments 2 and 3). The critical stimuli were non-words in the target language that either sounded like real words in the non-target lang…
How Individual Differences Affect Learning of Translation-Ambiguous Vocabulary
This study examined interactions of word and learner characteristics during foreign vocabulary learning, focusing on translation ambiguity and individual differences in cognitive resources and linguistic background (language proficiency, multilingual experience). Fifty-three native Hebrew speakers and Russian-Hebrew multilinguals learned the phonological form of target Arabic words along with their Hebrew translations and definitions. The mapping…
Novel Word Learning Among Bilinguals Can Be Better Through the (Dominant) First Language Than Through the Second Language
When learning novel vocabulary in a third language (L3) through translations in the first language (L1), bilinguals may have more available cognitive resources and more accumulated experience in language regulation compared to when learning through translations in the second language (L2). In a study designed to test language of instruction (LOI) effects, 59 Hebrew-English bilinguals auditorily learned over two sessions 55 words in German, includ…
Cross-language interactions during novel word learning
The study examined whether false-cognates, overlapping in form but not meaning across languages, are easier to learn due to form overlap, or more difficult to learn due to meaning competition, compared to unambiguous control and cognate words. Fifty-four native Hebrew speakers learned 14 cognates, 14 false-cognates, and 28 control Arabic words in one session. Cognates were learned better than control items. There was no overall difference in lear…
Influences of bilingualism and developmental language disorder on how children learn and process words
Previous studies found that bilingual children and adults with typical language development (TLD) perform better than monolinguals in novel word learning, but show lower scores on lexical retrieval tasks (e.g., naming known words). Children with developmental language disorder (DLD) lack in their abilities in both tasks compared with children with TLD. The current study tested the interplay between bilingualism and language disorder during novel …
Bilingual phonological awareness as a function of language proficiency
Aims and objectives: The present study examined whether phonological awareness reflects a stable construct or whether it varies by the different languages of bilingual speakers. In particular, the study tests to what extent language proficiency determines phonological awareness above and beyond language structural characteristics. Methodology: Bilingual adult speakers were tested as they afford within-participant comparisons to address this issue…
Context effects in the L2
Aims and objectives: We examined how context is used to facilitate reading in the second language (L2) compared with the first language (L1), and how L2 availability and age modulate these context effects. Methodology: Using self-paced reading, participants read high- and low-constraint Hebrew sentences. In Experiment 1, L1 ( n = 45) and L2 ( n = 48) Hebrew readers were compared, whereas in Experiment 2, only L2 readers ( n = 131) were examined, …
L1 production following brief L2 exposure
Language control allows bilinguals to fluently shift between their languages. Here, we tested whether comprehension and production tasks initiate language control processes to the same extent, and whether these processes operate over specific concepts or globally. Seventy Hebrew–English bilinguals completed an L1 picture-naming production task in the first and third blocks, and either a reading aloud (word production) or an animacy judgment (word…
Competition for selection drives the nature of bilingual language control
The current study tested the hypothesis that bilingual language control mechanisms vary depending on the extent of competition for selection. Forty-eight English-dominant Spanish-English bilinguals switched languages in production of single words, which was elicited with picture naming versus reading aloud in counterbalanced order. Results revealed some key similarities across tasks including: a) significant switch costs, b) larger switch costs i…
Contribution of prior linguistic knowledge to L3 phonological perception and production
Adult phonological processing may be affected by previous linguistic knowledge. Here, we examine how phonological perception and production in a third-language (L3) are affected by multilinguals’ first- (L1) and second-languages (L2). To this end, Arabic-Hebrew-English trilinguals ( n = 41) completed an oddity (perception) task and a word repetition (production) task in English (the L3). Critically, word pairs ( n = 96) targeted phonological cont…
How variability in language experience modulates multilingual listening effort
Multilinguals face greater challenges than monolinguals in speech perception tasks, such as processing noisy sentences. Factors related to multilinguals’ language experience, such as age of acquisition, proficiency, exposure and usage, influence their perceptual performance. However, how language experience variability modulates multilinguals’ listening effort remains unclear. We analyzed data from 92 multilinguals who completed a listening task …
Linguistics (14 works) · Psychology (14 works) · Neurobiology of Language and Bilingualism (9 works) · Reading and Literacy Development (9 works) · Cognitive psychology (8 works) · Hebrew (8 works) · Cognition (5 works) · Language Development and Disorders (5 works) · Phonology (5 works) · Word recognition (5 works)