From sonority hierarchy to posterior probability as a measure of lenition: The case of Spanish stops.

A deep learning Phonet model was evaluated as a method to measure lenition. Unlike quantitative acoustic methods, recurrent networks were trained to recognize the posterior probabilities of sonorant and continuant phonological features in a corpus of Argentinian Spanish. When applied to intervocalic and post-nasal voiced and voiceless stops, the approach yielded lenition patterns similar to those previously reported. Further, additional patterns also emerged. The results suggest the validity of the approach as an alternative or addition to quantitative acoustic measures of lenition.

An event-related potential study of self-positivity bias in native and foreign language contexts.

Self-positivity bias is a common psychological phenomenon in which individuals often associate positive information with themselves. However, little is known about how self-positivity bias is modulated by different language contexts (e.g., a first vs. second language). To this end, we analyzed behavioral and electrophysiological data to examine whether first or second languages play differential roles in the self-positivity bias effect. We used a modified self-positivity bias task which required Chinese-English bilinguals to judge strings of letters or characters as realwords or not and match associations between identity (self, other) and a geometric shape (circle, triangle). The target words in the experiment consisted of positive, negative, and neutral emotional words. The results showed that in the L2 context, the self-positivity condition elicited a smaller N400 effect relative to the self-negativity condition and a larger late positive component effect relative to the self-negativity and self-neutrality conditions. Furthermore, the other-positivity condition elicited a stronger N400 effect than the other-neutrality condition. These patterns did not emerge in the L1 context. We discuss the implications and contributions of these findings to better understand the interaction between emotion and self-concept in different language contexts.

Neural circuits underlying language control and modality control in bilinguals: An fMRI study.

Human communication not only involves the need to switch between the modalities of speaking and listening, but for bilinguals, it can also involve switching between languages. It is unknown as to whether modality and language switching share underlying control mechanisms or whether one type of switching affects control processes involved in the other. The present study uses behavioral and fMRI measures to examine neural circuits of control during communicative situations that required Chinese-English bilinguals to switch between modalities and their two languages according to associated color cues. The results showed that for both language and modality control, similar brain regions were recruited during speech production and comprehension. For modality control, the specific control processes partly depended on the corresponding modality. Finally, switching between modalities appears to exert more influence on language control in production compared to comprehension. These findings offer a first detailed characterization of the neural bases involved in control mechanisms in bilingual communication.

Conflicts influence affects: an FMRI study of emotional effects in a conflict task.

Although prior research has confirmed that conflict itself is likely to be aversive, it is unclear whether and how emotional conflicts influence an individual's affective processing. The current fMRI study adopted a lexical valence conflict task via instructing participants to shift lexical valence or not. We found that the involvement of positive emotions enhanced the activation of the middle right temporal gyrus (R-MTG) in the non-conflict condition, whereas such activation attenuated in the conflict condition. In addition, the R-MTG was activated in the opposite way when negative emotions were involved. The functional connectivity and correlation analyses further revealed that the faster the participants processed positive emotional words, the weaker the connectivity between R-MTG and positive emotion-related areas of left MTG in the non-conflict condition would be. In contrast, the faster the participants processed negative emotional words, the stronger the connectivity between R-MTG and negative emotion-related areas of the right cerebellum in the conflict condition would become. These findings suggest that conflicts have different influences on emotional processing.

Uncovering the effects of bilingual language control on rational decisions: An ERP study.

A growing body of research suggests that the language in which bilinguals make decisions affects the rationality of such decisions. Furthermore, bilinguals constantly confront cross-language interference that requires complex language control processes to resolve this competition. However, the relationship between language control and decision-making is unclear. In the current study, we analyze electrophysiological and behavior data elicited from two groups of Chinese-English bilinguals. One group was trained in intensive language switching and then completed the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) and the other group completed the two tasks in the reverse order. We found that bilinguals who first received language switching training significantly scored higher on the IGT, with the score positively correlating with L1 and L2 switch costs. More importantly, training with language switching first led to an N2 component for L1 switching costs that negatively correlated with both loss feedback-related negativity and the P3 component. These effects did not emerge among the group of bilinguals who performed the IGT first. Taken together, the findings suggest that bilinguals are assisted in making rational decisions by language control on feedback evaluation.

First and second languages differentially affect rationality when making decisions: An ERP study.

The present study examined how decision-making is affected by first (L1) and second languages (L2), emotion, and cognitive load. In a cross-task study, 30 Chinese-English bilinguals were asked to implement lexical-semantic judgment and gambling task. The results showed that after lexical decisions under high cognitive load, P3 was more positive for negative words than for neutral words in L1. The reverse was the case in the L2 in which P3 was more positive for neutral words compared to negative words. Critically, under high cognitive load, as the P3 effect increased for negative words relative to neutral words, the rationality of the decisions after these negative words decreased in the L1 but increased in the L2. The results moreover revealed that the increased Granger causal strength predicted more rational choices in the L2 high-load negative condition. Altogether, the findings offer evidence of how L1s and L2s can differentially influence rational decision-making.

Cross-task adaptation effects of bilingual language control on cognitive control: a dual-brain eeg examination of simultaneous production and comprehension.

For bilinguals, speaking and listening are assisted by complex control processes including conflict monitoring and inhibition. However, the extent to which these processes adapt to linguistic and situational needs has been examined separately for language production and comprehension. In the present study, we use a dual-EEG to record the carry-over effects of language control on general cognitive control in three language contexts (single-first language [L1], single-second language [L2], and mixed). Chinese learners of English were placed in dyads in which one participant was asked to name pictures while the other listened. Interleaved after each naming/listening trial were flanker trials. The results from picture naming and listening revealed higher delta and theta synchronization in the single-L2 and mixed contexts compared with the single-L1 context and higher theta synchronization in the mixed context compared with the single-L2 and single-L1 contexts. The results from the interleaved flanker trials demonstrated that inhibition was adaptively generalized in the single-L2 and mixed contexts. Altogether, the findings support the natural adaptation of language control to cognitive control and underscore the importance of linguistic context. We argue that these adaptive patterns have the potential to affect corresponding control processes across language and cognitive control tasks.

Effect of Cognitive Style on Language Control During Joint Language Switching: An ERP Study.

The current study aims to investigate how Field independent (FI) and Field-dependent (FD) cognitive styles modulate bilingual language control during a joint language switching task. The cognitive styles were measured by the Group Embedded Figures Test (GEFT). The FI group with a preference for autonomous information processing was sensitive to role switching earlier at the cue stage, eliciting a more negative-going N2 in the cross-person condition than in the within-person condition. While the FD group, with a holistic processing style, discerned such role switching later, inducing a more positive-going late positive component (LPC) in the cross-person condition. In addition, the FD group exercised more cognitive control to suppress the interference from the L1 lemma, indexed by larger LPC amplitudes for L2 switch trials than L1 switch trials in the within-person condition. These findings suggest that FDI cognitive styles modulate bilingual language control mechanism through different manners of information processing.