Poster E83, Thursday, August 22, 2019, 3:45 – 5:30 pm, Restaurant Hall
Visual simulations in the two cerebral hemispheres during L1 and L2 sentence reading
Tal Norman1, Orna Peleg1;1The Program of Cognitive Studies of Language Use, Tel Aviv University
Embodied theories of language processing hold that sentences are understood by mentally simulating the events described by the sentence. In line with this proposal, several studies have shown that first language (L1) comprehenders automatically activate perceptual (visual) information of verbally described objects, even when this information is not explicitly stated, but merely implied by the described situation (e.g., Zwaan & Yaxley, 2002). The present study had two aims: The first aim was to investigate whether second language (L2) processing involves similar visual simulations. Specifically, we examined whether readers activate visual information regarding objects’ shape during sentence comprehension in L1 and L2. The second aim was to investigate the separate and combined abilities of the two cerebral hemispheres to activate perceptual-visual information during L1 and L2 sentence reading. To accomplish these aims, two experiments were conducted. In both experiments, late proficient Hebrew-English bilinguals performed a sentence-picture verification task in L1-Hebrew and L2-English. In the task, they verified whether a pictured object (e.g., a balloon) was mentioned in the preceding sentence (e.g., The boy saw the balloon in the air). In all critical trials the pictured object was mentioned in the sentence, however, the object’s shape either matched (e.g., an inflated balloon) or did not match (e.g., a deflated balloon) the one implied by the sentence. In the first experiment, pictures were presented centrally to both hemispheres. In the second experiment, pictures were presented either in the right visual field (RVF) to the left hemisphere (LH), or in the left visual field (LVF) to the right hemisphere (RH). In the first experiment (central presentation), responses were significantly faster in the match than in the mismatch condition, but only in L1-Hebrew, and not in L2-English. This indicates that visual simulations during sentence processing are more likely to occur in L1 than in L2. In the second experiment (lateral presentation), irrespective of the experimental target language (L1-Hebrew or L2-English), the shape effect was stronger in the LVF/RH, than in the RVF/LH. This indicates that the RH may be more crucial for the activation of implied visual information, than the LH. Taken together, these findings suggest that under normal reading conditions (central presentation), the RH shows greater involvement in L1 than in L2 sentence comprehension. As a result, embodiment effects may be reduced in L2 in comparison to L1.
Themes: Reading, Multilingualism
Method: Behavioral