WA Friday Lunch Talks are monthly meetings with presentations of current research results or research in progress by WA faculty, PhD students and guests. Each talk is of 45 minutes (+15 minutes for discussion). This time the Department of Studies in Culture has the pleasure to welcome all to a talk "Mood effects on bilingual language processing: Behavioural and electrophysiological evidence" by mgr Marcin Naranowicz, dr Katarzyna Jankowiak, prof. Katarzyna Bromberek-Dyzman, and prof. Guillaume Thierry (Friday, February 25, 13:15-14:15, Aula Heliodori and MS Teams).
Mood effects on bilingual language processing:
Behavioural and electrophysiological evidence
February 25, 13:15-14:15, AULA HELIODORI
LINK TO THE TALK on MS Teams
ABSTRACT
Despite growing evidence pointing to dampened sensitivity to affective stimuli in bilingual speakers, little is known to date about how positive and negative moods alter native (L1) and non-native (L2) language processing.
In two experiments employing an EEG method, we tested how film-induced positive and negative moods affect lexico-semantic mechanisms engaged in sentence processing (Experiment 1), additionally focusing on novel metaphor comprehension (Experiment 2) in L1 and L2 of highly proficient Polish–English bilinguals. We analysed five event-related potential (ERP) components, marking consecutive stages of language processing: P1 (i.e., perceptual processing), N1 (i.e., lexical processing), N2 (i.e., early lexico-semantic processing), N400 (i.e., lexico-semanic processing), and late positive complex (LPC; i.e., semantic integration and re-analysis).
In Experiment 1, we observed a reduced N400 response for L1 compared to L2 meaningless sentences in a positive mood only, followed by an enhanced LPC response for L2 compared to L1 meaningful sentence in a negative mood only. In Experiment 2, we found a more pronounced LPC response for anomalous compared to literal and novel metaphoric sentences in a positive mood only.
Altogether, we observed differential language-driven mood effects within different stages of bilingual language processing, with a language-independent effect limited to the late semantic processing stage in creative meaning processing. Such results suggest that unbalanced bilinguals display different sensitivity to mood fluctuations in their L1 and L2. Our observations are consistent with previous accounts of mood-dependent processing and emotion down-regulation observed in bilinguals.
Marcin Naranowicz is a PhD student of the Interdisciplinary PhD Programme POWR, Faculty of English, AMU, Poznań. In his research, he concentrates on how mood, emotion, stereotypes, and creativity modulate bilingual language processing.
Katarzyna Jankowiak is an assistant professor at the Department of Psycholinguistic Studies, Faculty of English, AMU, Poznań. In her research, she investigates psychophysiological correlates of bilingual language processing. In particular, she is interested in the interplay between language, creativity, and emotions in the bilingual context.
Katarzyna Bromberek-Dyzman is the head of the Department of Pragmatics of English, Faculty of English, AMU, Poznań. She has been exploring factors that influence meaning making, e.g., how people come to understand what others mean, and how affective contents shape meaning comprehension.
Guillaume Thierry is a visiting researcher within the NAWA Chair Programme at the Faculty of English, AMU, Poznań and a professor of cognitive neuroscience at Bangor University, Wales. He investigates language comprehension in the auditory and visual modalities, particularly the processing of meaning by the human brain.