Memory for concrete and abstract words in bilingual speakers

The dual-code hypothesis of Paivio was taken to imply that bilingual speakers should show poorer memory for the language in which concrete words appeared than the language in which abstract words appeared. The results of two experiments with German-English bilinguals, one using a recognition memory procedure and the other using the free recall task, found the opposite state of affairs. Semantic recognition, free recall, and memory for language of occurrence were all found to be superior for concrete words. Two hypotheses were advanced. One, called the "cultural imagery hypothesis," assumes that images may be culture specific, while the other hypothesis interprets the outcome in terms of the relations between stored attributes. An analysis of the experiment as an attribute-memory procedure is presented.