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dc.contributor.authorBañón, José Alemán
dc.contributor.authorFiorentino, Robert
dc.contributor.authorGabriele, Alison
dc.date.accessioned2018-09-20T18:50:45Z
dc.date.available2018-09-20T18:50:45Z
dc.date.issued2018-07-27
dc.identifier.citationAlemán Bañón J, Fiorentino R, Gabriele A (2018) Using event-related potentials to track morphosyntactic development in second language learners: The processing of number and gender agreement in Spanish. PLoS ONE 13(7): e0200791. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0200791en_US
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/1808/26741
dc.description.abstractWe used event-related potentials to investigate morphosyntactic development in 78 adult English-speaking learners of Spanish as a second language (L2) across the proficiency spectrum. We examined how development is modulated by the similarity between the native language (L1) and the L2, by comparing number (a feature present in English) and gender agreement (novel feature). We also investigated how development is impacted by structural distance, manipulating the distance between the agreeing elements by probing both within-phrase (fruta muy jugosa “fruit-FEM-SG very juicy-FEM-SG”) and across-phrase agreement (fresa es ácida “strawberry-FEM-SG is tart-FEM-SG”). Regression analyses revealed that the learners’ overall proficiency, as measured by a standardized test, predicted their accuracy with the target properties in the grammaticality judgment task (GJT), but did not predict P600 magnitude to the violations. However, a relationship emerged between immersion in Spanish-speaking countries and P600 magnitude for gender. Our results also revealed a correlation between accuracy in the GJT and P600 magnitude, suggesting that behavioral sensitivity to the target property predicts neurophysiological sensitivity. Subsequent group analyses revealed that the highest-proficiency learners showed equally robust P600 effects for number and gender. This group also elicited more positive waveforms for within- than across-phrase agreement overall, similar to the native controls. The lowest-proficiency learners showed a P600 for number overall, but no effects for gender. Unlike the highest-proficiency learners, they also showed no sensitivity to structural distance, suggesting that sensitivity to such linguistic factors develops over time. Overall, these results suggest an important role for proficiency in morphosyntactic development, although differences emerged between behavioral and electrophysiological measures. While L2 proficiency predicted behavioral sensitivity to agreement, development with respect to the neurocognitive mechanisms recruited in processing only emerged when comparing the two extremes of the proficiency spectrum. Importantly, while both L1-L2 similarity and hierarchical structure impact development, they do not constrain it.en_US
dc.publisherPublic Library of Scienceen_US
dc.rights© 2018 Alemán Bañón et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.en_US
dc.rights.urihttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/en_US
dc.titleUsing event-related potentials to track morphosyntactic development in second language learners: The processing of number and gender agreement in Spanishen_US
dc.typeArticleen_US
kusw.kuauthorFiorentino, Robert
kusw.kuauthorGabriele, Alison
kusw.kudepartmentLinguisticsen_US
dc.identifier.doi10.1371/journal. pone.0200791en_US
kusw.oaversionScholarly/refereed, publisher versionen_US
kusw.oapolicyThis item meets KU Open Access policy criteria.en_US
dc.rights.accessrightsopenAccessen_US


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© 2018 Alemán Bañón et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as: © 2018 Alemán Bañón et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.