FMRI evidence for the involvement of the procedural memory system in morphological processing of a second language.

ABSTRACT: Behavioural evidence suggests that English regular past tense forms are automatically decomposed into their stem and affix (played  = play+ed) based on an implicit linguistic rule, which does not apply to the idiosyncratically formed irregular forms (kept). Additionally, regular, but not irregular inflections, are thought to be processed through the procedural memory system (left inferior frontal gyrus, basal ganglia, cerebellum). It has been suggested that this distinction does not to apply to second language (L2) learners of English; however, this has not been tested at the brain level. This fMRI study used a masked-priming task with regular and irregular prime-target pairs (played-play/kept-keep) to investigate morphological processing in native and highly proficient late L2 English spe

SUBMITTER: Pliatsikas C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4018348 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature