Riding the (brain) waves! Using neural oscillations to inform bilingualism research

Rossi, Eleonora; Soares, Sergio Miguel Pereira; Prystauka, Yanina; Nakamura, Megan; Rothman, Jason

doi:10.1017/s1366728922000451

Cited by 12 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 212 publications

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“…Future studies may also want to consider alternative methods of speech artifact correction to increase generalizability (Abbasi et al, 2021). Finally, researchers investigating production of emotional language in bilinguals may want to use more naturalistic stimuli for both emotional cues (e.g., faces, sounds) and targets (e.g., sentences, narratives) as well as look into different EEG metrics (see Janssen et al, 2020 for temporal dynamics of independent components; Rossi et al, 2022 for brain oscillations).…”

Section: Limitations and Future Directionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Brain potentials reveal reduced sensitivity to negative content during second language production

Jończyk,

Naranowicz,

Bel-Bahar

et al. 2024

Bilingualism

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Prior research suggests that bilinguals show reduced sensitivity to negative content when operating in the second language (L2). The available evidence, however, is limited to language comprehension. We tested the production of emotional words in Polish (L1)–English (L2) bilinguals in two EEG studies that manipulated emotional cueing. In Experiment 1 (neutral context), white or black circles indicated whether participants should read aloud (shadow) or translate a subsequently presented word. N400 amplitudes were selectively reduced for negative L2 words regardless of the task. In Experiment 2 (emotional context), we used black or white emojis, either sad or neutral, as cues. The previous interaction between word valence and language of operation vanished, but late positive potential amplitudes elicited by negative words were larger for translation from L2 to L1 (i.e., production in Polish) than L1 to L2. These results validate and extend to production previous findings of attenuated emotional response in L2 comprehension.

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Section: Limitations and Future Directionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Brain potentials reveal reduced sensitivity to negative content during second language production

Jończyk,

Naranowicz,

Bel-Bahar

et al. 2024

Bilingualism

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“…Time frequency representations index the ongoing oscillatory dynamics of the EEG signal and reflect the (de)synchrony of functional neural networks. In these analyses, power, or activity, in different frequency bands (delta, theta, alpha, beta, and gamma) in response to stimuli is of interest; power changes in each frequency band are associated with specific cognitive processes (for more details and application to L2 research, see Rossi et al., 2023). For example, testing English late L2 learners of Spanish and Spanish native speakers, Rossi and Prystauka (2020) investigated neural oscillatory activity associated with the processing of Spanish gender and number (expressed via agreement on clitic pronouns), which is a structure unique to the learners’ L2 Spanish and does not occur in English.…”

Section: Electrophysiological Studies: Current Status and Future Dire...mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Neurocognitive Underpinnings of Second Language Processing: Knowledge Gains From the Past and Future Outlook

Hell

2023

Language Learning

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The past decades have seen an explosion of research using electrophysiological or neuroimaging techniques for studying the neurocognitive underpinnings of second language (L2) processing. Although this field has a shorter history than does research on language learning more generally, important insights into the neurocognitive basis of L2 processing have driven it to the center stage of language science. In this target article for Language Learning’s 75th Jubilee volume, I illustrate the field's impressive achievements by selectively reviewing electrophysiological and neuroimaging research on L2 processing and bilingual brain organization. I also review changing perspectives in the field (including individual difference and experience‐based perspectives, neural network approaches, neuroplasticity, and L2‐learning related neural changes) and identified challenges, promises, and future directions (revisit native‐speaker benchmark, increase linguistic diversity, enhance ecological validity, intensify research on child L2 learners’ brain, adopt lifelong approach to L2 learning) that can lead to a better understanding of the neural underpinnings of L2 learning and processing.

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“…This makes it an excellent tool for understanding the neuronal basis of higher-order cognitive processes, such as, but not limited to, language processing. Although there are several types of analyses one can do with EEG to study bilingual language processing and related neurocognition (see Rossi et al, 2022), the most common in psycholinguistic research is to analyze the EEG signal in the time domain as Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) in order to extract neural responses to a specific event (stimuli) by averaging the time-locked signal over multiple experimental trials (Luck and Kappenman, 2011). ERPs are thus represented as waveform components of the signal at a precise time in response to a given stimulus.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Morphological transparency and markedness matter in heritage speaker gender processing: an EEG study

et al. 2023

Self Cite

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The present study investigated the qualitative nature of grammatical gender knowledge and processing in heritage speakers (HSs) of Spanish living in the United States. Forty-four adult Spanish HS bilinguals participated, completing a behavioral grammatical gender assignment task and a grammaticality judgment task (GJT) while their brain activity was recorded using electroencephalography (EEG). The EEG GJT task included grammatical and ungrammatical sentences with grammatical gender violations on inanimate nouns, where transparency of the morpho(phono)logical cue and markedness were manipulated. The results of this study revealed that grammatical gender violations elicited the typical P600 effect across all relevant conditions, indicating that the grammatical representations and processing of grammatical gender in HSs are qualitatively similar to those in Spanish-dominant native speakers. Given the experimental manipulation in this study, these findings also suggest that both morphological transparency and markedness play significant roles in how grammatical gender is processed. However, the results of this study differ from those reported in previous studies with Spanish-dominant native speakers, as the P600 effect found was accompanied by a biphasic N400 effect. This pattern of results is interpreted as further evidence that the bilingual experience of HSs modulates certain aspects of morphosyntactic processing, particularly conferring a greater reliance on morphology. Additionally, the results of this study highlight the importance of incorporating neurolinguistic online processing methods to better understand what underlies HS bilingual competence and processing outcomes.

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Riding the (brain) waves! Using neural oscillations to inform bilingualism research

Cited by 12 publications

References 212 publications

Brain potentials reveal reduced sensitivity to negative content during second language production

Brain potentials reveal reduced sensitivity to negative content during second language production

The Neurocognitive Underpinnings of Second Language Processing: Knowledge Gains From the Past and Future Outlook

Morphological transparency and markedness matter in heritage speaker gender processing: an EEG study

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