Interactions between emotion and language of operation on episodic memory in bilinguals

先前的研究表明，情景记忆受到语言的影响。记忆可以用语言编码，语言也是用来回忆这些记忆的主要形式。情景记忆也受到情绪的影响，因此更高的情感显著性导致更好的编码。此外，双语者在用第一语言测试时似乎比用第二语言测试有更好的识别能力。也有证据表明，第一种语言的情绪唤起比第二种语言更高。该项目的目的是研究上述三个因素之间相互作用的本质，即双语者的记忆和回忆、情感显著性和语言使用是如何相互作用的。该项目旨在根据反应时间记录、脑电图测量和对问卷的明确回答，在显性（有意识、元认知）和隐性（无意识、自动）层面上寻找这种相互作用的证据。为此，该项目将在三种不同的实验范式中测试威尔士语-英语双语者（可能还有另一种语言，如西班牙语-英语双语者）。实验将逐步研究不同层次的复杂性和表征，即图片、单词、短语和句子。所使用的任务将邀请参与者观察具有积极、消极或中性情感效价的简短互动的图像或视频。参与者将被要求判断所呈现的刺激是否以前显示过（旧的）或没有显示过（新的），这种差异可以在显性行为测量和由脑电图得出的隐性测量中检测到。我们预测，高情感效价的项目将比中性项目更快、更准确地被识别出来，在积极效价的情况下，效果有更强的趋势。然而，我们也预计情感项目将比中性项目更容易引起错误识别（新项目被识别为旧项目）。预期操作语言会调节这些影响，因此第一语言的击中和假警报都比第二语言更突出，表明参与者对第一语言的敏感度很高。

Previous studies have shown that episodic memory is affected by language. Memories can be coded with language and language is also the main modality used to recall those memories. It is also well established that episodic memory is affected by emotion, so that higher affective salience leads to better encoding. In addition, bilinguals seem to have better recognition abilities when tested in their first than in their second language. There is also evidence that emotional arousal is higher in the the first than the second language. The aim of this project is to investigate the nature of the interaction between the three factors described above, that is, how memorisation and recall, affective salience and language use interact in bilinguals. The project aims to find evidence for such interactions both at an explicit (conscious, metacognitive) and an implicit (unconscious, automatic) level, based on records of reactions times, EEG measures and explicit answers to questionnaires.To do so, the project will test Welsh-English bilinguals (and possibly another pair of languages, such as Spanish-English bilinguals) in three different experimental paradigms. The experiments will gradually investigate different levels of complexity and representation, namely pictures, words, phrases, and sentences. The tasks used will invite participants to observe images or videos of short interactions that could have positive, negative, or neutral affective valence. Participants will be asked to determine whether the stimuli presented have previously been shown (old) or not (new), a difference which can be detected both in overt behavioural measures and implicit measures derived from EEG.We predict that items of higher affective valence will be recognised faster and more accurately than neutral items, with a tendency for effects to be stronger in the case of positive valence. However, it is also expected that affective items will be more likely to induce false recognition (new items identified as old) than neutral items. Language of operation is expected to modulate these effects, so that both hits and false alarms are more prominent in the first language than the second, indicative of a great sensitivity of the participant in the first language.