School of Foreign Languages, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu 611731, China.
Faculty of English, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan 61712, Poland.
Cereb Cortex. 2023 Jun 20;33(13):8783-8791. doi: 10.1093/cercor/bhad161.
It is now well established that reading words in a second language (L2) automatically activates native language (L1) translations in bilinguals. Although there is evidence that access to such representations is inhibited when words have a negative emotional valence, the mechanism underlying such inhibition is elusive, and it is unknown whether inhibition arises online as L2 is being processed or whether negative valence affects subsequent L1 processing. Here, we recorded event-related brain potentials in Chinese-English bilinguals engaged in an implicit translation-priming paradigm involving L2 (English) word pairs. Participants performed a semantic relatedness task, unaware that word pairs could conceal a sound repetition if translated into Chinese. When emotional valence was manipulated in prime position (first word), we observed form repetition priming through L1 translations for positive but not for negative words. However, when emotional valence was manipulated in target position (second word), priming occurred for both positive and negative word valences. This result begins to elucidate the mechanism by which emotion regulates language processing in bilinguals: Negative words in L2 induce a refractory period during which cross-language lexical access is blocked. These findings show that despite being neuroanatomically distinct in the human brain, emotional (limbic) regulation systems can penetrate language processing.
现在已经证实，双语者在阅读第二语言（L2）的单词时，会自动激活母语（L1）的翻译。尽管有证据表明，当单词具有负情绪效价时，这种表示的访问会受到抑制，但这种抑制的机制尚不清楚，也不知道抑制是在处理 L2 时在线产生的，还是负效价会影响随后的 L1 处理。在这里，我们在参与涉及 L2（英语）单词对的内隐翻译启动范式的中国-英语双语者中记录了事件相关的脑电位。参与者执行了一个语义相关性任务，不知道如果将单词对翻译成中文，它们可能会隐藏声音重复。当在启动位置（第一个单词）操纵情绪效价时，我们观察到通过 L1 翻译对正性词进行了形式重复启动，但对负性词则没有。然而，当在目标位置（第二个单词）操纵情绪效价时，正性和负性词效价都会引发启动。这一结果开始阐明情绪调节双语者语言处理的机制：L2 中的负性词会在跨语言词汇访问受到抑制的时期内产生。这些发现表明，尽管在人类大脑中神经解剖学上是不同的，但情绪（边缘）调节系统可以渗透到语言处理中。
