Two languages in one brain - slower phonological processing

Abstract

Event Abstract Back to Event Two languages in one brain - slower phonological processing Maija Peltola1, 2*, H. Tamminen1, 2, H. Lehtola1, 2, T. Kujala3 and R. Näätänen3, 4, 5 1 Department of Phonetics, University of Turku, Finland 2 Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Turku, Finland 3 Department of Psychology, University of Helsinki, Finland 4 Department of Psychology, University of Tartu, Estonia 5 Center of Functionally Integrative Neuroscience, University of Aarhus, Denmark Phoneme perception is known to be language-specific so that mother tongue contrasts are discriminated easily and preattentively on the basis of long term memory traces. Behavioral and psychophysiological studies have established that discrimination sensitivity is at its peak at the native language phoneme boundaries and lowest near the native speech sound category prototypes. Bilinguals have a large amount of phonological categories that need to be kept apart. The aim of the present study was to determine whether monolinguals and bilinguals perceive speech sounds similarly or whether the two systems in bilinguals interact in a manner that one native language may be affected by the other. Two groups participated in the experiment: Group 1 consisted of 10 native speakers of Finnish and Group 2 of 12 balanced Finnish-Swedish bilinguals. Both groups were tested by the same Finnish speaking researcher. The stimuli were individually chosen on the basis of a prior identification experiment, which covered the rounded closed vowel continuum ranging form /y/ to /u/. The stimulus pair crossed the Finnish phoneme boundary /y/-/u/, but it was within the Swedish fronted /u/ vowel. We analyzed both the MMN peak latency (150-300 ms) and amplitude (two consecutive time windows 180-230 ms and 230-280 ms). The latency analysis revealed a significant effect of group resulting from a longer MMN latency in the bilingual than monolingual group. Consistently, the amplitude analysis revealed a significant interaction between the time window and group, again showing the lateness of the bilingual response. In addition, the amplitude analysis showed a group main effect suggesting a reduced MMN amplitude in the bilingual group. The groups differed significantly in their responses in the fist time window, where the monolinguals’ response was larger, but no group differences were found in the second time window. These results suggest slower preattentive processing in bilinguals than in monolinguals. This might be due to the more extensive intertwined phonological system from which items are accessed more slowly. The result showing a reduced MMN amplitude in bilinguals may be explained by interference from the other system, where the same contrast is non-phonemic, thus resulting in a small response. Conference: MMN 09 Fifth Conference on Mismatch Negativity (MMN) and its Clinical and Scientific Applications, Budapest, Hungary, 4 Apr - 7 Apr, 2009. Presentation Type: Poster Presentation Topic: Poster Presentations Citation: Peltola M, Tamminen H, Lehtola H, Kujala T and Näätänen R (2009). Two languages in one brain - slower phonological processing. Conference Abstract: MMN 09 Fifth Conference on Mismatch Negativity (MMN) and its Clinical and Scientific Applications. doi: 10.3389/conf.neuro.09.2009.05.149 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 26 Mar 2009; Published Online: 26 Mar 2009. * Correspondence: Maija Peltola, Department of Phonetics, University of Turku, Turku, Finland, maipie@utu.fi Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Maija Peltola H. Tamminen H. Lehtola T. Kujala R. Näätänen Google Maija Peltola H. Tamminen H. Lehtola T. Kujala R. Näätänen Google Scholar Maija Peltola H. Tamminen H. Lehtola T. Kujala R. Näätänen PubMed Maija Peltola H. Tamminen H. Lehtola T. Kujala R. Näätänen Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.