Cognitive and neurocognitive individual differences in native and nonnative language processing

University Of Illinois At Urbana-Champaign, Urbana IL

Investigators

Abstract

High proficiency in multiple languages provides economic advantages, as linguistic flexibility in business and government discourse facilitates communication in an increasingly globalized world. However, the ability to reach high levels of proficiency and fluency in a second language (L2) during adulthood is notoriously variable, with individuals showing marked differences in the rate of L2 acquisition and the eventual level of proficiency. A complete understanding of the roots and implications of these differences - including documenting individual differences in the brain mechanisms supporting nonnative language comprehension and learning - is crucial for the development of targeted language instruction methods and interventions. Such targeted interventions can lead to tangible gains in language learning outcomes. Moreover, emerging research now shows that even monolinguals show systematic, qualitative individual differences in the neural mechanisms responsible for language comprehension. However, as with L2 learning, the causes and consequences of these differences are poorly understood. The investigators will use a multidimensional approach to investigate individual differences in language comprehension and language learning across several populations: monolinguals, classroom-instructed L2 learners of Spanish, and Spanish-English bilinguals in the United States. The research will combine novel behavioral and brain-based measures of language processing, cognitive executive functions, and cortical organization for language. The investigators will link these with measures of language proficiency and language experience to isolate the cognitive, neural, linguistic, and experiential factors related to differences in how individuals build interpretations during the course of sentence comprehension. In particular, electroencephalographic recordings during language comprehension and executive processing will allow the investigators to document how these processes unfold in the brain millisecond-by-millisecond. Novel multivariate statistical models will be used to identify factors related to how different individuals make use of semantic and grammatical cues during reading. The aim is to elucidate the cognitive, neural, and linguistic bases of individual differences in language learning and language comprehension, and tie them closely to a neurobiological model of language. As such, the findings will have clear and practical implications for language training.