Emotion Word Processing in Immersed Spanish-English/English-Spanish Bilinguals: An ERP Study

Emotion Word Processing in Immersed Spanish-English/English-Spanish Bilinguals: An ERP Study

We conducted a lexical decision task to measure Spanish-English/English-Spanish bilinguals’ behavioral (RT) and electrophysiological (EPN, Early Posterior Negativity and LPC, Late Positive Complex) responses to English emotion words and their Spanish translation equivalents. Bilingual participants v...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Languages (Basel) Vol. 8; no. 1; p. 42
Main Authors: Cieślicka, Anna B., Guerrero, Brenda L.
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Basel MDPI AG 01-01-2023
Subjects:
Age of acquisition
bilingual
Bilingualism
Code switching
Cognition & reasoning
dominance
early posterior negativity
emotion words
Emotions
English language
Evaluation
Language acquisition
Language dominance
Language status
late positive complex
Lexical decision task
Lexical processing
Multiculturalism & pluralism
Nervous system
proficiency
Psychological aspects
Research design
Semantics
Spanish language
Word processing
United States
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Description
Summary:We conducted a lexical decision task to measure Spanish-English/English-Spanish bilinguals’ behavioral (RT) and electrophysiological (EPN, Early Posterior Negativity and LPC, Late Positive Complex) responses to English emotion words and their Spanish translation equivalents. Bilingual participants varied in age of acquisition (AoA of Spanish/English: early, late), language status (L1 Spanish, L1 English) and language dominance (English-dominant, Spanish-dominant, balanced) but were all highly immersed bicultural individuals, uniformly more proficient in English than Spanish. Behavioral data showed faster and more accurate responses to English than Spanish targets; however, the emotion effect was only present for Spanish, with positive Spanish words recognized significantly faster than those that were negative or neutral. In the electrophysiological data, the emotion response was affected by language of the target stimulus, with English targets eliciting larger EPN amplitudes than Spanish targets. The reverse effect was found on the LPC component, where Spanish targets elicited a higher positivity than English targets. Dominance did not turn out to be a significant predictor of bilingual performance. Results point to the relevance of proficiency in modulating bilingual lexical processing and carry implications for experimental design when examining immersed bilinguals residing in codeswitching environments.
ISSN:2226-471X
2226-471X
DOI:10.3390/languages8010042