The present study uses event-related potentials (ERPs) to examine nonlocal agreement processing between native (L1) English speakers and Chinese-English second language (L2) learners, whose L1 lacks number agreement. We manipulated number marking with determiners ("the" vs. "that"/"these") to see how…

The burgeoning field of third language (L3) acquisition has increasingly focused on intermediate stages of language development, aiming to establish the groundwork for comprehensive models of L3 learning that encompass the entire developmental sequence. This article underscores the importance of a robust epistemological foundation, advocating for…

Due in part to its complex nature, there is still much to uncover in the investigation of the neural processes that contribute to synchronization between speakers and listeners during communication in the context of social cognition, specifically between native and nonnative English speakers and listeners. This study used a novel method of…

Recent studies have documented frequency effects for word n-grams, independently of word unigram frequency. Further studies have revealed constructional prototype effects, both at the word level as well as for phrases. The present speech production study investigates the time course of these effects for the production of prepositional phrases in…

Across the languages of a bilingual, translation equivalents can have the same orthographic form and shared meaning (e.g., TABLE in French and English). How such words, called orthographically identical cognates, are processed and represented in the bilingual brain is not well understood. In the present study, late French-English bilinguals…

The current study investigated whether bilingualism affects the processing of sub-lexical representations specifying the sound structure of words. Spanish-English bilinguals, Mandarin-English bilinguals, and English-only monolinguals repeated English tongue twisters. Twister materials had word or nonword targets (thus varying in whether lexical…

This thesis explores how predictions about upcoming language inputs are computed during real-time language comprehension. Previous research has demonstrated humans' ability to use rich contextual information to compute linguistic prediction during real-time language comprehension, and it has been widely assumed that contextual information can…

We employ a linear mixed-effects model to estimate the effects of visual form and the linguistic properties of Chinese characters on M100 and M170 MEG responses from single-trial data of Chinese and English speakers in a Chinese lexical decision task. Cortically constrained minimum-norm estimation is used to compute the activation of M100 and M170…

Many multisyllabic words contain shorter words that are not semantic units, like the CAP in HANDICAP and the DURA ("hard") in VERDURA ("vegetable"). The spaces between printed words identify word boundaries, but spurious identification of these embedded words is a potentially greater challenge for spoken language comprehension, a challenge that is…

Is language processing universal? How do the specific properties of each language influence the way it is processed? In this study, we compare the neural correlates of morphological processing in Hebrew--a Semitic language with a rich and systematic morphology, to those revealed in English--an Indo-European language with a linear morphology. Using…

Repetitive TMS (rTMS) provides a noninvasive tool for modulating neural activity in the human brain. In healthy participants, rTMS applied over the language-related areas in the left hemisphere, including the left posterior temporal area of Wernicke (LTMP) and inferior frontal area of Broca, have been shown to affect performance on word…

The goal of the present study was to investigate the electrophysiological correlates of second-language (L2) morphosyntactic processing in highly proficient late learners of an L2 with long exposure to the L2 environment. ERPs were collected from 22 English-Spanish late learners while they read sentences in which morphosyntactic features of the L2…

We used structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and voxel based morphometry (VBM) to investigate whether the efficiency of word processing in the non-native language (lexical efficiency) and the number of non-native languages spoken (2+ versus 1) were related to local differences in the brain structure of bilingual and multilingual speakers.…

What helps us determine whether a word is a noun or a verb, without conscious awareness? We report on cues in the way individual English words are spelled, and, for the first time, identify their neural correlates via functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). We used a lexical decision task with trisyllabic nouns and verbs containing…

In a neuroimaging study focusing on young bilinguals, we explored the brains of bilingual and monolingual babies across two age groups (younger 4-6 months, older 10-12 months), using fNIRS in a new event-related design, as babies processed linguistic phonetic (Native English, Non-Native Hindi) and nonlinguistic Tone stimuli. We found that phonetic…