Effects of Foreign Language Training on Word Perception

Abstract: This paper reports the results of a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study that tested predictions on changes in visual word perception. The neural correlates of visual word perception were examined twice over the course of three months. During this interval a group of interpreter students engaged in intense language learning, while a control group completed regular university-level classes and it was predicted that these groups would differ within the second session with regards to the visual processing of foreign pseudowords. During the fMRI sessions participants performed a paired associates task while lying in an 3 Tesla MR scanner and were later tested on memory performance outside the scanner. The paired associates task included real words that were paired with their object counterpart as well as native (Swedish) and foreign (Arabic, Dari, or Russian) pseudowords paired with archaic tools. At the second session it was hypothesised that the interpreters would show an greater sensitivity to the orthography of their newly acquired language, as indexed by greater activity to the visual word form area (VWFA) compared with the controls. It was also predicted that the interpreters would show changes in mechanisms associated with implicit memory, as indexed by repetition adaptation in the VWFA. Previous research has shown that repeated exposures to the same unfamiliar word, i.e. repetition priming, in one’s native language may be associated with both repetition suppression and repetition enhancement. Thus it was predicted that both groups would show either repetition suppression or repetition enhancement to pseudowords derived from their native language at both times of measurement. At the second time of measurement it was predicted that the interpreters would show the same repetition adaptation effect for foreign pseudowords as that observed for native pseudowords. The results indicated that any difference in VWFA activity between the two groups were present at the first time of measurement, before any learning had taken place. These results are interpreted in light of the predictive coding model and the language aptitude framework. It will be concluded that more proficient learners display greater sensitivity to unexpected letter configurations when they observe a foreign language written in the writing system of their native language. Further, repetition adaptation may be a matter of degree and further research is warranted in terms of priming effects in the ventral occipitotemporal cortex, also known as the visual word form area.