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Component changes in ERP profiles during language acquisition
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International Journal of Psychophysiology 94 (2014) 120–261
bootstrapping assumes that rhythmic properties contribute to specific word forms emerging already at the second half of first year of life. The objective of our ERP study was to reveal the ability of 6 and 10 month-old infants to use acoustically rich stress information. We aimed to separate ERP (event-related brain potentials) changes elicited by salient acoustic features (bottom-up process) and by violating the assumed pattern- or template-based representation (top-down process) reported for adults (Honbolygó and Csépe, 2013). A total of 48 infants (6 and 10 months old) participated, all born to monolingual families and raised in monolingual environment. Two types of stimuli, a Hungarian pseudo-word (‘bebe’) and its stress variant, were given in blocks in a passive oddball paradigm. They differed only in the stress pattern that is the syllabic position of accentuation. Stimuli were frequent standards and rare deviants presented in a passive oddball paradigm and delivered in random order (deviant: 20%, SOA: 730–830 ms). Two stimulus presentation conditions were used; one using legal standards and illegal deviants and one with opposite assignment. Robust age-related ERP differences were found, especially in the legal standard condition. Moreover, a significant legality-stimulus interaction was found for the first mismatch response. It had larger amplitude to the illegal than to the legal stress pattern. This difference was even larger in the younger infants investigated and a delicate response dynamics could be seen introduced by significant differences by the illegal standard. The ERP changes obtained in the different conditions speak for the emergence of a stress template fragile in nature. This might explain why no age differences were found in the legal standard condition and why no significant differences were found in the legal one. A possible explanation may rely on the robust age difference found between the ERPs elicited by the different type standard stimuli.
(LAN-P600) ERP components. Offline grammaticality judgement data for the same structures allow us to tease apart age and L1 proficiency effects. Comparisons with our data from adult speakers reveal the impact of factors such as age and proficiency on ERPs in both L1 and L2. References Clahsen, H., 1988. Parametrized grammatical theory and language acquisition: a study of the acquisition of verb placement and inflection by children and adults. In: Flynn, O’Neil (Eds.), Linguistic Theory in Second Language Acquisition. Kluwer, Dordrecht. Courteau, E., Royle, P., Gascon, A., Marquis, A., Drury, J.E., Steinhauer, K., 2013. Gender concord and semantic processing in French children: an auditory ERP study. In: Baiz, Goldman, Hawkes (Eds.), BUCLD 37 Proceedings. vol. 1. Cascadilla, Sommerville, MA, pp. 87–99. Friederici, A.D., 2005. Neurophysiological markers of early language acquisition: from syllables to sentences. TICS 9 (10), 481–488. Morgan-Short, K., Steinhauer, K., Sanz, C., Ullman, M.T., 2012. Explicit and implicit second language training differentially affect the achievement of native-language brain patterns. JCN 24 (4), 933–947. Osterhout, L., McLaughlin, J., Pitkanen, I., Frenck-Mestre, C., Molinaro, N., 2006. Novice learners, longitudinal designs, and event-related potentials: a means for exploring the neurocognition of second language processing. Lang. Learn. 56, 199–230. Steinhauer, K., White, E., Drury, J.E., 2009. Temporal dynamics of late second language acquisition: evidence from event-related brain potentials. Second. Lang. Res. 25 (1), 13–41.
doi:10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2014.08.697
Reference Honbolygó, F., Csépe, V., 2013. Saliency or template? ERP evidence for long-term representation of word stress. Int. J. Psychophysiol. 87, 165–172.
doi:10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2014.08.696
Component changes in ERP profiles during language acquisition Phaedra Roylea, Karsten Steinhauerb Université de Montréal, CRBLM, Canada b McGill University, CRBLM, Canada
a
First language (L1) acquisition has been characterized as ‘continuous’ and contrasted with ‘dis-continuous’ second language (L2) acquisition in late learners (Clahsen, 1988). Event-related potentials have proven to be an excellent tool to reveal the dynamic neurocognitive changes in language processing as a function of proficiency in L2 (e.g., Osterhout et al, 2006; Steinhauer et al, 2009). ERP evidence for systematic neurocognitive changes in L1 development is surprisingly sparse, but has led to some tentative ERP profiles (e.g., Friederici, 2005) that show similarities to those of L2 learners. An additional problem in interpreting L1 acquisition data is that language proficiency is highly correlated with brain maturation and age, all of which may contribute to changing ERP profiles. Our audio-visual ERP study tested 52 children aged 5–9 years in conceptual-semantic and grammatical gender mismatch conditions (le/*la poisson vert/*verte 'the.m/f. fish green.m/f) embedded in highly controlled and natural sounding spoken French sentences (Courteau et al., 2013). Even in the absence of grammaticality judgments, we observed phonological (frontal), semantic (N400) and morphosyntactic
Two languages in one brain: Competition and control in the syntax of late acquired L2 John E. Drury Experimental Linguistics Lab, Department of Linguistics, Stony Brook University, United States Overview: We present findings showing L1/L2-interference in syntactic processing using eyetracking/ERPs. Three cases will be discussed: (i) L1/ L2 word order conflicts (e.g., French/English “le vase bleu”/“the blue vase”), (ii) cross-linguistic gender (in)congruency (e.g., in French/ Arabic bilinguals, cases where a noun that is masculine in one language is feminine in the other, or vice-versa), and (iii) cases where the languages of bilinguals differ in encoding MANNER or PATH information for motion events as “central” (realized as the head of the verb-phrase) or “peripheral” (realized via adjuncts/modifiers). Methods: Experiment-1 was an ERP sentence-reading study examining violations of English adjective/noun-order (e.g., He put [the vase *blue] on the table) with English natives and two L2 groups (French-L1/Mandarin-L1). Experiment-2 used ERPs to investigate processing of gender-agreement in French noun-phrases with French natives and an Arabic-L1/French-L2 group. Determiner–noun pairs were visually presented which either matched in gender (la table) or not (le *table). Half of the items were incongruent in gender-marking between Arabic/French. Experiment-3 used eyetracking during presentation of short animations depicting motion events and tested both monolingual English natives and Korean-L1/English-L2 participants. In two experimental blocks, bilinguals had to first describe these events in Korean (Block1) and then in English (Block2). Results: Experiments-1/-2 demonstrated ERP effects consistent with immediate/online activation of the L1 during L2 processing (i.e., interference of L1-French word-order in L2-English processing; activation of
International Journal of Psychophysiology 94 (2014) 120–261
bootstrapping assumes that rhythmic properties contribute to specific word forms emerging already at the second half of first year of life. The objective of our ERP study was to reveal the ability of 6 and 10 month-old infants to use acoustically rich stress information. We aimed to separate ERP (event-related brain potentials) changes elicited by salient acoustic features (bottom-up process) and by violating the assumed pattern- or template-based representation (top-down process) reported for adults (Honbolygó and Csépe, 2013). A total of 48 infants (6 and 10 months old) participated, all born to monolingual families and raised in monolingual environment. Two types of stimuli, a Hungarian pseudo-word (‘bebe’) and its stress variant, were given in blocks in a passive oddball paradigm. They differed only in the stress pattern that is the syllabic position of accentuation. Stimuli were frequent standards and rare deviants presented in a passive oddball paradigm and delivered in random order (deviant: 20%, SOA: 730–830 ms). Two stimulus presentation conditions were used; one using legal standards and illegal deviants and one with opposite assignment. Robust age-related ERP differences were found, especially in the legal standard condition. Moreover, a significant legality-stimulus interaction was found for the first mismatch response. It had larger amplitude to the illegal than to the legal stress pattern. This difference was even larger in the younger infants investigated and a delicate response dynamics could be seen introduced by significant differences by the illegal standard. The ERP changes obtained in the different conditions speak for the emergence of a stress template fragile in nature. This might explain why no age differences were found in the legal standard condition and why no significant differences were found in the legal one. A possible explanation may rely on the robust age difference found between the ERPs elicited by the different type standard stimuli.
(LAN-P600) ERP components. Offline grammaticality judgement data for the same structures allow us to tease apart age and L1 proficiency effects. Comparisons with our data from adult speakers reveal the impact of factors such as age and proficiency on ERPs in both L1 and L2. References Clahsen, H., 1988. Parametrized grammatical theory and language acquisition: a study of the acquisition of verb placement and inflection by children and adults. In: Flynn, O’Neil (Eds.), Linguistic Theory in Second Language Acquisition. Kluwer, Dordrecht. Courteau, E., Royle, P., Gascon, A., Marquis, A., Drury, J.E., Steinhauer, K., 2013. Gender concord and semantic processing in French children: an auditory ERP study. In: Baiz, Goldman, Hawkes (Eds.), BUCLD 37 Proceedings. vol. 1. Cascadilla, Sommerville, MA, pp. 87–99. Friederici, A.D., 2005. Neurophysiological markers of early language acquisition: from syllables to sentences. TICS 9 (10), 481–488. Morgan-Short, K., Steinhauer, K., Sanz, C., Ullman, M.T., 2012. Explicit and implicit second language training differentially affect the achievement of native-language brain patterns. JCN 24 (4), 933–947. Osterhout, L., McLaughlin, J., Pitkanen, I., Frenck-Mestre, C., Molinaro, N., 2006. Novice learners, longitudinal designs, and event-related potentials: a means for exploring the neurocognition of second language processing. Lang. Learn. 56, 199–230. Steinhauer, K., White, E., Drury, J.E., 2009. Temporal dynamics of late second language acquisition: evidence from event-related brain potentials. Second. Lang. Res. 25 (1), 13–41.
doi:10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2014.08.697
Reference Honbolygó, F., Csépe, V., 2013. Saliency or template? ERP evidence for long-term representation of word stress. Int. J. Psychophysiol. 87, 165–172.
doi:10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2014.08.696
Component changes in ERP profiles during language acquisition Phaedra Roylea, Karsten Steinhauerb Université de Montréal, CRBLM, Canada b McGill University, CRBLM, Canada
a
First language (L1) acquisition has been characterized as ‘continuous’ and contrasted with ‘dis-continuous’ second language (L2) acquisition in late learners (Clahsen, 1988). Event-related potentials have proven to be an excellent tool to reveal the dynamic neurocognitive changes in language processing as a function of proficiency in L2 (e.g., Osterhout et al, 2006; Steinhauer et al, 2009). ERP evidence for systematic neurocognitive changes in L1 development is surprisingly sparse, but has led to some tentative ERP profiles (e.g., Friederici, 2005) that show similarities to those of L2 learners. An additional problem in interpreting L1 acquisition data is that language proficiency is highly correlated with brain maturation and age, all of which may contribute to changing ERP profiles. Our audio-visual ERP study tested 52 children aged 5–9 years in conceptual-semantic and grammatical gender mismatch conditions (le/*la poisson vert/*verte 'the.m/f. fish green.m/f) embedded in highly controlled and natural sounding spoken French sentences (Courteau et al., 2013). Even in the absence of grammaticality judgments, we observed phonological (frontal), semantic (N400) and morphosyntactic
Two languages in one brain: Competition and control in the syntax of late acquired L2 John E. Drury Experimental Linguistics Lab, Department of Linguistics, Stony Brook University, United States Overview: We present findings showing L1/L2-interference in syntactic processing using eyetracking/ERPs. Three cases will be discussed: (i) L1/ L2 word order conflicts (e.g., French/English “le vase bleu”/“the blue vase”), (ii) cross-linguistic gender (in)congruency (e.g., in French/ Arabic bilinguals, cases where a noun that is masculine in one language is feminine in the other, or vice-versa), and (iii) cases where the languages of bilinguals differ in encoding MANNER or PATH information for motion events as “central” (realized as the head of the verb-phrase) or “peripheral” (realized via adjuncts/modifiers). Methods: Experiment-1 was an ERP sentence-reading study examining violations of English adjective/noun-order (e.g., He put [the vase *blue] on the table) with English natives and two L2 groups (French-L1/Mandarin-L1). Experiment-2 used ERPs to investigate processing of gender-agreement in French noun-phrases with French natives and an Arabic-L1/French-L2 group. Determiner–noun pairs were visually presented which either matched in gender (la table) or not (le *table). Half of the items were incongruent in gender-marking between Arabic/French. Experiment-3 used eyetracking during presentation of short animations depicting motion events and tested both monolingual English natives and Korean-L1/English-L2 participants. In two experimental blocks, bilinguals had to first describe these events in Korean (Block1) and then in English (Block2). Results: Experiments-1/-2 demonstrated ERP effects consistent with immediate/online activation of the L1 during L2 processing (i.e., interference of L1-French word-order in L2-English processing; activation of