Brain potentials reveal unconscious translation during foreign-language comprehension
Brain potentials reveal unconscious translation during foreign-language comprehension
复制标题
DOI：
10.1073/pnas.0609927104
复制
发表时间：
2007-07-24
影响因子：
11.1
通讯作者：
Wu, Yan Jing
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Thierry, Guillaume;Wu, Yan Jing
双语个体的母语在第二语言理解过程中是否活跃是一个激烈争论的话题。双语研究经常混合使用第一语言和第二语言单词，从而创建一个人为的“双语言”上下文。在这里，利用与事件相关的大脑电位，我们证明了当双语者只用第二语言阅读单词时对第一语言的隐式访问。汉英双语者需要判断成对出现的英语单词在含义上是否相关；他们没有意识到，翻译成中文时，有一半的单词隐藏着重复的字符。尽管隐藏因素未能影响行为表现，但它显着地按照预期方向调节大脑电位，从而确定英语单词会自动且无意识地翻译成中文。重要的是，在中文单语者阅读相同的中文单词时，即当汉字重复明显时，也发现了相同的调制。最后，我们通过使用听力理解任务在听觉模态中复制了这种结果模式。这些发现表明，母语激活是第二语言理解的无意识关联。
Whether the native language of bilingual individuals is active during second-language comprehension is the subject of lively debate. Studies of bilingualism have often used a mix of first- and second-language words, thereby creating an artificial "dual-language" context. Here, using event-related brain potentials, we demonstrate implicit access to the first language when bilinguals read words exclusively in their second language. Chinese-English bilinguals were required to decide whether English words presented in pairs were related in meaning or not; they were unaware of the fact that half of the words concealed a character repetition when translated into Chinese. Whereas the hidden factor failed to affect behavioral performance, it significantly modulated brain potentials in the expected direction, establishing that English words were automatically and unconsciously translated into Chinese. Critically, the same modulation was found in Chinese mono-linguals reading the same words in Chinese, i.e., when Chinese character repetition was evident. Finally, we replicated this pattern of results in the auditory modality by using a listening comprehension task. These findings demonstrate that native-language activation is an unconscious correlate of second-language comprehension.