Growing Random Forests reveals that exposure and proficiency best account for individual variability in L2 (and L1) brain potentials for syntax and semantics

Abstract

Late second language (L2) learners report difficulties in specific linguistic areas such as syntactic processing, presumably because brain plasticity declines with age (following the critical period hypothesis). While there is also evidence that L2 learners can achieve native-like online-processing with sufficient proficiency (following the convergence hypothesis), considering multiple mediating factors and their impact on language processing has proven challenging. We recorded EEG while native (n = 36) and L2-speakers of French (n = 40) read sentences that were either well-formed or contained a syntactic-category error. a lexical-semantic anomaly, or both. Consistent with the critical period hypothesis, group differences revealed that while native speakers elicited a biphasic N400-P600 in response to ungrammatical sentences, L2 learners as a group only elicited an N400. However, individual data modeling using a Random Forests approach revealed that language exposure and proficiency are the most reliable predictors in explaining ERP responses, with N400 and P600 effects becoming larger as exposure to French as well as proficiency increased, as predicted by the convergence hypothesis.