Language Interacts With Cognition

Research into language-cognition interactions has established effects of language on various cognitive processes such as perception, categorization, and conceptualization. However, the impact of language on complex cognitive processes remains unclear. Moreover, evidence for neural mechanisms of language-cognition interactions is inadequate and controversial. From the perspective of neuroscience, therefore, the present study has investigated language-cognition interactions in the following three domains of human uniqueness and great significance.1. We examine how the experience of positive recency in games of chance ?the ―hot-hand‖ effect? is affected when game outcomes are provided in a second language rather than the native language. We engaged late Chinese-English bilinguals with ―play‖ or ―leave‖ decisions upon presentation of equal-odds bets whilst manipulating language of feedback and outcome value. When outcomes were presented in their second language English, participants subsequently took significantly fewer gambles and responded slower than they did when equivalent feedback was provided in Chinese, their native language. Positive feedback was identified as driving the cross-language difference in preference for risk over certainty: Feedback for previous winning outcomes presented in Chinese increased subsequent risk-taking whereas in the English context, no such effect was observed. Complementing this behavioral effect, event-related brain potentials elicited by feedback words showed an amplified response to Chinese relative to English in the feedback-related negativity window, indicating a stronger impact in the native than in the second language. These results provide evidence that the hot-hand effect is at least attenuated when an individual operates in a non-native language.2. We turn to the domain of affective evaluation and investigate whether hypothalamic neuropeptide oxytocin(OXT) modulates the impact of negative or positive language context on social judgment. In the evaluation task, participants learned neutral faces paired with sentences describing behaviors of criticizing or/and praising either other people or objects/services and then rated their likeability. Ratings showed that OXT induced an increase in females but a decrease in males. Neuroimaging results further disentangled the interaction of OXT with gender revealing that OXT enhanced left amygdala activation of males in response to individuals who criticize others but of females in response to those who praise others. A psychophysiological interaction analysis revealed that OXT enhanced functional connectivity of the left amygdala with right insula. Taken together, our findings suggest gender-specific effects of OXT via amygdala such that OXT makes men more sensitive to people who are critical of others but women more praise-oriented.3. We focus on potential interactive processing between a speech-specific element consonant and a basic element for musical tones pitch. Event-related potentials were recorded while participants heard frequently sung consonant-vowel syllables and rare stimuli deviating in either consonant identity only, pitch only, or in both dimensions. We computed additivity of the mismatch negativity(MMN) elicited by the three types of deviations. The two single deviant MMNs had similar amplitudes, but that of the double deviant MMN was also not significantly different from them. This absence of additivity in the double deviant MMN suggests that consonant and pitch variations are processed, at least at a pre-attentive level, in an integrated rather than independent way. Domain-specificity of consonants may depend on higher-level processes in the hierarchy of speech perception.In summary, the present research provides neural evidence to support interactions of language with cognition from three perspectives including thought, emotion, and music. The findings show language, as a unique property of human kind, carries dramatic power which influences extensively various domains of human cognition. To understand language we cannot focus on the mechanisms of language only and we have to value how language interacts with cognition. On the other hand, appreciating the interactions between language and cognition can also help with the understanding of cognition.