Xue Jin, Liu Tongtong, Marmolejo-Ramos Fernando, Pei Xuna
School of Foreign Studies, University of Science and Technology BeijingBeijing, China.
School of English Language, Literature and Culture, Beijing International Studies UniversityBeijing, China.
Front Psychol. 2017 May 18;8:818. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00818. eCollection 2017.
The present study aimed at distinguishing processing of early learned L2 words from late ones for Chinese natives who learn English as a foreign language. Specifically, we examined whether the age of acquisition (AoA) effect arose during the arbitrary mapping from conceptual knowledge onto linguistic units. The behavior and ERP data were collected when 28 Chinese-English bilinguals were asked to perform semantic relatedness judgment on word pairs, which represented three stages of word learning (i.e., primary school, junior and senior high schools). A 3 (AoA: early vs. intermediate vs. late) × 2 (regularity: regular vs. irregular) × 2 (semantic relatedness: related vs. unrelated) × 2 (hemisphere: left vs. right) × 3 (brain area: anterior vs. central vs. posterior) within-subjects design was adopted. Results from the analysis of N100 and N400 amplitudes showed that early learned words had an advantage in processing accuracy and speed; there is a tendency that the AoA effect was more pronounced for irregular word pairs and in the semantic related condition. More important, ERP results showed early acquired words induced larger N100 amplitudes for early AoA words in the parietal area and more negative-going N400 than late acquire words in the frontal and central regions. The results indicate the locus of the AoA effect might derive from the arbitrary mapping between word forms and semantic concepts, and early acquired words have more semantic interconnections than late acquired words.
本研究旨在区分以英语为外语的中国母语者对早期习得的第二语言单词和晚期习得的单词的加工情况。具体而言，我们考察了在从概念知识到语言单位的任意映射过程中，是否会出现习得年龄（AoA）效应。当28名汉英双语者被要求对代表单词学习三个阶段（即小学、初中和高中）的单词对进行语义相关性判断时，收集了行为和ERP数据。采用了3（AoA：早期vs.中期vs.晚期）×2（规则性：规则vs.不规则）×2（语义相关性：相关vs.不相关）×2（半球：左vs.右）×3（脑区：前部vs.中部vs.后部）的被试内设计。对N100和N400波幅的分析结果表明，早期习得的单词在加工准确性和速度上具有优势；对于不规则单词对和语义相关条件，AoA效应有更明显的趋势。更重要的是，ERP结果显示，早期习得的单词在顶叶区域对早期AoA单词诱发更大的N100波幅，在额叶和中央区域比晚期习得的单词诱发更负向的N400波幅。结果表明，AoA效应的位点可能源于单词形式和语义概念之间的任意映射，并且早期习得的单词比晚期习得的单词具有更多的语义联系。
