State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning and IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, China.
State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning and IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, China.
Neuropsychologia. 2020 Nov;148:107655. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2020.107655. Epub 2020 Oct 14.
A person's native language background exerts constraints on the brain's automatic responses while learning a second language. It remains unclear, however, whether and how musical experience may help the brain overcome such constraints and meet the requirements of a second language. This study compared native Chinese English learners who were musicians, non-musicians and native English readers on their automatic brain automatic integration of English letter-sounds with an ERP cross-modal audiovisual mismatch negativity paradigm. The results showed that native Chinese-speaking musicians successfully integrated English letters and sounds, but their non-musician peers did not, despite of their comparable English learning experience and proficiency level. However, native Chinese-speaking musicians demonstrated enhanced cross-modal MMN for both synchronized and delayed letter-sound integration, while native English readers only showed enhanced cross-modal MMN for synchronized integration. Moreover, native Chinese-speaking musicians showed stronger theta oscillations when integrating English letters and sounds, suggesting that they had better top-down modulation. In contrast, native English readers showed stronger delta oscillations for synchronized integration, and their cross-modal delta oscillations significantly correlated with English reading performance. These findings suggest that long-term professional musical experience may enhance the top-down modulation, then help the brain efficiently integrating letter-sounds required by the second language. Such benefits from musical experience may be different from those from specific language experience in shaping the brain's automatic responses to reading.
一个人的母语背景会对大脑在学习第二语言时的自动反应施加限制。然而，目前尚不清楚音乐经验是否以及如何帮助大脑克服这些限制，以满足第二语言的要求。本研究采用 ERP 跨模态视听失匹配负波范式，比较了母语为汉语的英语学习者、非音乐家母语为英语的读者和母语为汉语的音乐家在自动整合英语字母-音方面的差异。结果表明，母语为汉语的音乐家成功地整合了英语字母和发音，而他们的非音乐家同伴尽管有相似的英语学习经验和熟练程度，但却无法做到这一点。然而，母语为汉语的音乐家在同步和延迟的字母-音整合方面都表现出增强的跨模态 MMN，而母语为英语的读者仅在同步整合方面表现出增强的跨模态 MMN。此外，母语为汉语的音乐家在整合英语字母和发音时表现出更强的θ振荡，这表明他们有更好的自上而下的调制。相比之下，母语为英语的读者在同步整合时表现出更强的δ振荡，并且他们的跨模态δ振荡与英语阅读成绩显著相关。这些发现表明，长期的专业音乐经验可能会增强自上而下的调制，从而帮助大脑有效地整合第二语言所需的字母-音。这种来自音乐经验的好处可能与特定语言经验在塑造大脑对阅读的自动反应方面的好处不同。
