A Proposal for Senior NRSA Training in Cognitive Neuroscience

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The PI is a cognitive psychologist whose work examines the processes that support the acquisition and proficient use of a second language by learners and bilinguals. The goal of the present proposal for a senior NRSA fellowship is to gain additional training in cognitive neuroscience. The new training will allow the PI to extend her research program, which has relied on behavioral measures of language processing, to electrophysiological measures using event-related potentials (ERPs). Recent studies investigating adult L2 performance have shown that even among the most proficient bilinguals, there is parallel activity of both languages when only one language is required. The aim of the planned research is to acquire training in electro-physiological methods that will allow the PI to examine the behavioral and neural specific consequences of cross-language activation for comprehension and production in both the L1 and L2. A specific aim is to identify conditions that give rise to cross-language competition, to map the time course of activation of each of the bilingual's language, and to begin to consider the factors that may reduce competition to allow bilinguals to effectively choose the language the intended language. Two series of experiments using both behavioral and ERP methods are planned for the training period. One addresses the issue of cross-language activation in sentence context. The other seeks to extend the PI's past research on language production. A distributed training model is proposed to accomplish these goals, with extended visits to the primary sponsor, Dr. Phillip Holcomb, a leading ERP researcher at Tufts University, and to the co-sponsors, over a two year period that will allow the PI to integrate the new training into her research program at the home institution. The proposed research will contribute important foundational knowledge about multilingualism that will inform educational issues in an increasingly diverse society in which many individuals are faced with the task of learning to speak a second language past the earliest stages of childhood. The planned training will also contribute to the infrastructure of science. The language science of bilingualism attracts a more diverse group of students than is typical in cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience. The proposed training will enable the PI to extend the reach of her current research program in a way that will potentially impact a broad range of students. The planned research and training will also foster international scientific collaboration.