TY - JOUR

T1 - Languages flex cultural thinking

AU - Ellis, Ceri

AU - Thierry, Guillaume

AU - Vaughan-Evans, Awel

AU - Jones, Manon

N1 - This work was supported by the Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol and the Economic and Social Research Council UK [GT; ES/E024556/1].

PY - 2018/3

Y1 - 2018/3

N2 - Recent studies have revealed remarkable interactions between language and emotion. Here, we show that such interactions influence judgments made regarding cultural information. Balanced Welsh–English bilinguals categorized statements about their native Welsh culture as true or false. Whilst participants categorized positive statements as true when they were true, they were biased towards categorizing them as true also when they were false, irrespective of the language in which they read them. Surprisingly, participants were unbiased when categorizing negative statements presented in their native language Welsh, but showed a reverse bias - categorizing sentences as false, even when they were true - for negative statements when they read them in English. The locus of this behavior originated from online semantic evaluation of the statements, shown in corresponding modulations of the N400 peak of event-related brain potentials. These findings suggest that bilinguals perceive and react to cultural information in a language-dependent fashion.

AB - Recent studies have revealed remarkable interactions between language and emotion. Here, we show that such interactions influence judgments made regarding cultural information. Balanced Welsh–English bilinguals categorized statements about their native Welsh culture as true or false. Whilst participants categorized positive statements as true when they were true, they were biased towards categorizing them as true also when they were false, irrespective of the language in which they read them. Surprisingly, participants were unbiased when categorizing negative statements presented in their native language Welsh, but showed a reverse bias - categorizing sentences as false, even when they were true - for negative statements when they read them in English. The locus of this behavior originated from online semantic evaluation of the statements, shown in corresponding modulations of the N400 peak of event-related brain potentials. These findings suggest that bilinguals perceive and react to cultural information in a language-dependent fashion.

KW - Bilingualism

KW - Culture

KW - Emotion

KW - Semantics

KW - ERP

U2 - 10.1017/S1366728917000190

DO - 10.1017/S1366728917000190

M3 - Article

VL - 21

SP - 219

EP - 227

JO - Bilingualism: Language and Cognition

JF - Bilingualism: Language and Cognition

SN - 1366-7289

IS - 2

ER -