The DOI matches its Crossref record; 59 of the 59 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Brain potentials reveal unconscious translation during foreign language comprehension
Open accessAbstract
Whether the native language of bilingual individuals is active during second-language comprehension is the subject of lively debate. Studies of bilingualism have often used a mix of first- and second-language words, thereby creating an artificial "dual-language" context. Here, using event-related brain potentials, we demonstrate implicit access to the first language when bilinguals read words exclusively in their second language. Chinese-English bilinguals were required to decide whether English words presented in pairs were related in meaning or not; they were unaware of the fact that half of the words concealed a character repetition when translated into Chinese. Whereas the hidden factor failed to affect behavioral performance, it significantly modulated brain potentials in the expected direction, establishing that English words were automatically and unconsciously translated into Chinese. Critically, the same modulation was found in Chinese monolinguals reading the same words in Chinese, i.e., when Chinese character repetition was evident. Finally, we replicated this pattern of results in the auditory modality by using a listening comprehension task. These findings demonstrate that native-language activation is an unconscious correlate of second-language comprehension.
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Metadata
- Authors
- Thierry, G., & Wu, Y. J.
- Affiliations
- Bangor University (GB)
- Venue
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Publisher
- National Academy of Sciences
- Published
- 2007-07-24
- Volume
- 104
- Issue
- 30
- Pages
- 12530-12535
- ISSN
- 0027-8424 (ISSN-L)
- 1091-6490
- PMC
- PMC1941503
- OpenAlex
- W2118701528
- Cited by
- 728
- References
- 57
- Citations by year
- 2026: 39 · 2025: 58 · 2024: 33 · 2023: 49 · 2022: 30 · 2021: 46 · 2020: 66 · 2019: 113 · 2018: 37 · 2017: 41 · 2016: 40 · 2015: 45 · 2014: 29 · 2013: 25 · 2012: 36
- FWCI
- 4.50
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- Economic and Social Research Council (ES/E024556/1)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neurobiology of Language and Bilingualism
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Reading and Literacy Development
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Language Development and Disorders
- Keywords
- second language comprehension, bilingualism, Chinese-English bilinguals, word recognition, semantic relatedness judgment, event-related potentials
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Brain, China, England, Evoked Potentials, Hearing, Humans, Language, Translations, Unconscious, Psychology, Comprehension
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