Neural Correlates Of Visual Word Recognition For Chinese EFL Learners

As an essential cognitive ability,word recognition plays a necessary role in reading.Moreover,lexical access to second language learners has always been a hot topic for scholars.Currently,most of the studies have examined word recognition of English compounds for Chinese EFL learners by manipulating frequency,familiarity,and transparency,etc.(Gan & Zhang,2013;Zhao,2014;Yu,2019;Chen,2020).Additionally,the availability of semantic relations affects the processing of novel nounnoun compounds(Gagné,2000,2001,2002;Gagné & Spalding,2004,2014;Gagné & Shoben,1997,2002;Tagalakis & Keane,2006;Raffray,2007;Ji & Gagné,2007).However,most of the studies have focused on diverse semantic relation and have taken native speakers as subjects,rather than non-native speakers.Therefore,the purpose of this study is to investigate how Chines EFL learners process English compound words in the word-pair paradigm from a purer semantic relation—association between constituents.There are mainly three research questions.Firstly,how does the association between constituents in compounds affect visual word recognition? Secondly,how does lexicality in compounds affect visual word recognition? Thirdly,when does the vocabulary level of Chinese EFL learners intervene in the recognition of compounds?Event-related potentials(ERPs)technology was conducted to explore the attributes of ERP evoked by different stimuli types.The present study adopted a 2(Association)× 2(Lexicality)design and stimuli were arranged in word pairs and grouped into four conditions: A+L+(e.g.foot-step),A+L-(e.g.pen-ink),A-L+(e.g.honey-moon)and A-L-(e.g.bus-drum).The result shows,in behavioral results,there was an interaction between association and lexicality.More specifically,it was found that participants performed significantly better on reaction times for the unassociated condition than the associated condition when a word pair formed a nonword;however,participants responded more accurately for compounds condition than nonwords condition whether a word pair was associated or not.It seems that only lexicality affects semantic processing,while there is no influence of association on word recognition.In ERP results,generally,semantic processing involved in Early-N400,Late-N400 and P600 time windows.Specifically,only for compounds condition,the amplitude evoked by the unassociated condition was more negative relative to the associated condition in the Early-N400,Late-N400 and P600 time windows,while for nonwords condition,there was no significant difference between them.On the contrary,lexical processing covered Early-N400,Late-N400,P600 and Late Negativity time windows.Specifically,for the associated condition,an increased negative wave was elicited by nonwords condition compared to compounds condition in all of four time windows,while for the unassociated condition,the above pattern was observed only in EarlyN400,Late-N400 stages.The above results suggest there was a different time course between semantic processing and lexical processing and the evidence was semantic processing was completed before the LN time window,on the contrary,lexical processing continued.However,both of them represented a sustaining and incremental process.Meanwhile,semantic and lexical processing facilitate each other—the combination of constituents in compounding in lexical processing facilitates semantic processing and the integration of constituents in semantic processing also facilitates word recognition.Additionally,the effects of the vocabulary of L2 learners on visual word recognition represents multi-stage,evidenced by semantic retrieval(Early-N400)and integration(P600).In other words,the vocabulary of L2 learners may intervene the word recognition in the Early-N400 time window(300-420ms)and last till the P600 time window(680-820ms).Then,based on the negative correlation between the vocabulary of Chinese EFL learners and ERP amplitudes,the larger vocabulary size of Chinese EFL learners means robust activation in the semantic retrieval and integration in visual word recognition.Finally,one potential reason for a prolonged latency in the N400 time window(300-600ms)and delayed peak in P600(about 750ms)may be that L2 learners had fundamentally different acquisition methods and duration.