Dataset Information

How words ripple through bilingual hands: Motor-language coupling during L1 and L2 writing.

ABSTRACT: The speed of our hand movements can be affected by concurrent processing of manual action verbs (MaVs). Whereas this phenomenon is well established for native languages (L1s), it remains underexplored in late foreign languages (L2s), especially during highly automatized tasks. Here we timed keystroke activity while Spanish-English bilinguals copied MaVs, non-manual action verbs, and non-action verbs in their L1 and L2. Motor planning and execution dynamics were indexed by first-letter lag (the time-lapse between word presentation and first keystroke) and whole-word lag (the time-lapse between first and last keystroke), respectively. Despite yielding no effects on motor planning, MaVs facilitated typing execution in L1 but delayed it in L2, irrespective of the subjects' typing skills, age of L2 learning, and L2 competence. Therefore, motor-language coupling effects seem to be present in both languages though they can arise differently in each. These results extend language grounding models, illuminating the role of embodied mechanisms throughout life.

SUBMITTER: Kogan B

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7502507 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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How words ripple through bilingual hands: Motor-language coupling during L1 and L2 writing.

Kogan Boris B García-Marco Enrique E Birba Agustina A Cortés Camila C Melloni Margherita M Ibáñez Agustín A García Adolfo M AM

Neuropsychologia 20200717

The speed of our hand movements can be affected by concurrent processing of manual action verbs (MaVs). Whereas this phenomenon is well established for native languages (L1s), it remains underexplored in late foreign languages (L2s), especially during highly automatized tasks. Here we timed keystroke activity while Spanish-English bilinguals copied MaVs, non-manual action verbs, and non-action verbs in their L1 and L2. Motor planning and execution dynamics were indexed by first-letter lag (the t ...[more]

PMID: 32682797

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Project description:People are often asked to self-evaluate their abilities, and these evaluations may not always reflect objective reality. Here, we investigated this issue for bilingual adults' self-evaluations of language proficiency and usage. We specifically examined how people's self-reported language solidarity impacted their first- (L1) and second-language (L2) self-evaluations, while statistically controlling for their objective language performance (i.e. LexTALE). We also investigated whether this impact varied for value-laden evaluations (e.g. how "good" am I at my L2) vs. usage-based evaluations (e.g. how often do I use my L2) for two sociolinguistically distinct groups (i.e. English-L1 speakers vs. French-L1 speakers in Montreal). Starting with value-laden self-evaluations, we found that French-L1 speakers with more favourable L2-English solidarity tended to underestimate their objective L2 ability, whereas French-L1 speakers with less favourable L2-English solidarity more accurately estimated their objective L2 ability. In contrast, English-L1 speakers with more favourable L2-French solidarity more accurately estimated their objective L2 ability than those with less favourable L2-French solidarity who underestimated their L2-French abilities. Turning to usage-based self-evaluations, we found that participants' self-evaluations were generally more accurate reflections of their performance, in a manner that was less affected by individual differences in self-reported language solidarity. This implies that language solidarity (or perhaps language attitudes more generally) can implicitly or explicitly impact bilingual adults' language self-evaluations when these evaluations are value-laden. These data suggest that people's language attitudes can bias how they perceive their abilities, although self-evaluations based on language use may be less susceptible to bias than those that are value-laden. These data have implications for the study of language and cognition that depend on self-assessments of individual differences and are relevant to work on how people self-assess their abilities generally.

Dataset Information

How words ripple through bilingual hands: Motor-language coupling during L1 and L2 writing.

Publications

How words ripple through bilingual hands: Motor-language coupling during L1 and L2 writing.

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