When Feelings Arise with Meanings: How Emotion and Meaning of a Native Language Affect Second Language Processing in Adult Learners

Abstract

To determine when and how L2 learners start to process L2 words affectively and semantically, we conducted a longitudinal study on their interaction in adult L2 learners. In four test sessions, spanning half a year of L2 learning, we monitored behavioral and ERP learning-related changes for one and the same set of words by means of a primed lexical-decision paradigm with L1 primes and L2 targets. Sensitivity rates, accuracy rates, RTs, and N400 amplitude to L2 words and pseudowords improved significantly across sessions. A semantic priming effect (e.g, prime “driver”facilitating response to target “street”) was found in accuracy rates and RTs when collapsing Sessions 1 to 4, while this effect modulated ERP amplitudes within the first 300 ms of L2 target processing. An overall affective priming effect (e.g., “sweet” facilitating”taste”) was also found in RTs and ERPs (posterior P1). Importantly, the ERPs showed an L2 valence effect across sessions (e.g., positive words were easier to process than neutral words), indicating that L2 learners were sensitive to L2 affective meaning. Semantic and affective priming interacted in the N400 time-window only in Session 4, implying that they affected meaning integration during L2 immersion together. The results suggest that L1 and L2 are initially processed semantically and affectively via relatively separate channels that are more and more linked contingent on L2 exposure.

Affective Priming by Eye Gaze Stimuli: Behavioral and Electrophysiological Evidence

“…A few prior affective priming studies have reported priming effects on the P1 and EPN (Hietanen and Astikainen, 2013; Rampone et al, 2014; Sianipar et al, 2015). The reasons for the discrepant findings may be related to differences in the methods between the studies.…”

“…Previous studies employing a similar methodology have suggested that P1 is the earliest component to be modulated in affective priming studies, with larger P1 amplitudes in response to affectively incongruent vs. congruent targets (Hietanen and Astikainen, 2013; Sianipar et al, 2015). The following N170 component, with time window around 150–200 ms after target onset (earlier for face and later for word targets), has also been reported to be modulated in affective priming studies with words (Comesaña et al, 2013) and faces (Hietanen and Astikainen, 2013; Hinojosa et al, 2015) as affective targets.…”

Do you wish to waive your rights? Affect and decision-making in multilingual speakers

“…In the early stages, semantic processing is decoupled from the assignment of affective valence and somatovisceral responses. With the rise in the L2 proficiency and frequency of use, we see an increase in automaticity and integration of semantic and affective valence processing [9,11 ] and perceptual prioritization [12,13]. In contrast, somatovisceral responses may remain more pronounced in the L1 [24,26].…”

“…bread-baker) is observed in both languages, while affective priming is evident only in participants with high levels of immersion and frequency of L2 use [9,10]. A longitudinal study of adult L2 learners further found that learners begun extracting affective valence in the first weeks of L2 learning but the integration of semantic and affective processing did not occur until 6 months into their stay in the L2 context [11 ].…”

Variations in Bilingual Processing of Positive and Negative Information

“…Currently, more than half the world's population is bilingual and each culture has its own emotional lexicon for the classification of experiences [37] [38]. The way bilinguals deal with their two languages has long been the topic of psychological research and the main focus has been the simultaneous activation of the two language systems (L1 and L2), or the cognitive costs of switching between L1 and L2 for ERP studies [39] [40][30] [41].…”