Representational deficit or processing effect? An electrophysiological study of noun-noun compound processing by very advanced L2 speakers of English

Abstract

The processing of English noun-noun compounds (NNCs) was investigated to identify the extent and nature of differences between the performance of native speakers of English and advanced Spanish and German non-native speakers of English. The study sought to establish whether the word order of the equivalent structure in the non-native speakers' mothertongue (L1) had an influence on their processing of NNCs in their second language (L2), and whether this influence was due to differences in grammatical representation (i.e., incomplete acquisition of the relevant structure) or processing effects. Two mask-primed lexical decision experiments were conducted in which compounds were presented with their constituent nouns in licit vs. reversed order. The first experiment used a speeded lexical decision task with reaction time registration, and the second a delayed lexical decision task with EEG registration. There were no significant group differences in accuracy in the licit word order condition, suggesting that the grammatical representation had been fully acquired by the non-native speakers. However, the Spanish speakers made slightly more errors with the reversed order and had longer response times, suggesting an L1 interference effect (as the reverse order matches the licit word order in Spanish). The EEG data, analyzed with generalized additive mixed models, further supported this hypothesis. The EEG waveform of the non-native speakers was characterized by a slightly later onset N400 in the violation condition (reversed constituent order). Compound frequency predicted the amplitude of the EEG signal for the licit word order for native speakers, but for the reversed constituent order for Spanish speakers—the licit order in their L1—supporting the hypothesis that Spanish speakers are affected by interferences from their L1. The pattern of results for the German speakers in the violation condition suggested a strong conflict arising due to licit constituents being presented in an order that conflicts with the expected order in both their L1 and L2.

Autocorrelated Errors in Experimental Data in the Language Sciences: Some Solutions Offered by Generalized Additive Mixed Models

“…A reanalysis that brings the autocorrelation under statistical control leads to conclusions that differ substantially from those of the original analysis. The third case study follows up on a model reported by DeCat et al (2014DeCat et al ( , 2015 fitted to the amplitude over time of the brain's electrophysiological response to visually presented compound words. We begin with a short general introduction to gamms.…”

Presaccadic EEG activity predicts visual saliency in free‐viewing contour integration

“…Advanced computer graphics tools are needed for visually exploring various aspects of the data. A first step in this direction was made by De Cat et al (), who applied GAMM in a psycholinguistic context. Figures and in their paper can only be viewed by zooming in on a monitor screen, because their details are beyond the resolution of any standard printer.…”

“…Another property of GAMM that makes it particularly valuable for EEG research is its ability to account for nonlinearity of time series data. In addition, by including random-effect variables, the modeling enabled us to appropriately deal with structural variation across participants and images in EEG amplitude (for other ERP research that applied GAMM, see De Cat, Klepousniotou, & Baayen, 2015;Kryuchkova, Tucker, Wurm, & Baayen, 2012;Meulman et al, 2015;Tremblay & Newman, 2015). Not unexpectedly, a large proportion of the variance in the data is accounted for by the random-effect variables, Participant and Image.…”

English compound and non-compound processing in bilingual and multilingual speakers: Effects of dominance and sequential multilingualism

“…The second view maintains that native and nonnative speakers do employ substantially different mechanisms (e.g., Clahsen et al, 2013). Results of recent studies on English compounds (De Cat et al, 2015;González Alonso, Baquero Castellanos & Müller, submitted) suggest that, at a certain level of proficiency, the nonnative lexicon already contains information on morphemic structure for complex words.…”