The Contributions of Word-Form and Semantic Information to Grammatical Gender Activation and Retrieval: Evidence from L2 French Visual Words

Recent research has highlighted the role of word form in gender processing by integrating a dual-route mechanism for grammatical gender activation into the AUSTRAL (Activation Using Structurally Tiered Representations and Lemmas) model of lexical access previous models. However, prior research on this mechanism has mainly used explicit tasks with monolingual participants. Moreover, the contributions of semantic features to gender activation and retrieval in comprehension remain underexplored. This study investigated grammatical gender activation in French visual word recognition among Chinese-French bilinguals through two incremental masked priming experiments. Experiment 1 examined the sublexical route using phonologically transparent unfamiliar nouns, while Experiment 2 investigated lexical route and semantic influences, comparing gender-opaque simple nouns with semantic gender features to those with abstract gender features. Results revealed robust gender congruency effects for both gender-transparent and gender-opaque nouns at stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs) from 80 ms onward, supporting sublexical and lexical routes in gender activation. Additionally, a semantic feedback mechanism was observed at longer SOAs, particularly for nouns with semantic gender features. These findings extend previous models by incorporating a semantic feedback mechanism for gender activation, offering a more comprehensive framework for understanding grammatical gender processing in language comprehension.