Brain potentials reveal reduced sensitivity to negative content during second language production

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  • Rafał Jończyk
    Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan
  • Marcin Naranowicz
    Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan
  • Tarik S. Bel-Bahar
    Mount Sinai Hospital, New York City
  • Katarzyna Jankowiak
    Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan
  • Paweł Korpal
    Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan
  • Katarzyna Bromberek-Dyzman
    Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan
  • Guillaume Thierry
Prior research suggests that bilinguals show reduced sensitivity to negative content when operating in the second language (L2). The available evidence, however, is limited to language comprehension. We tested the production of emotional words in Polish (L1)–English (L2) bilinguals in two EEG studies that manipulated emotional cueing. In Experiment 1 (neutral context), white or black circles indicated whether participants should read aloud (shadow) or translate a subsequently presented word. N400 amplitudes were selectively reduced for negative L2 words regardless of the task. In Experiment 2 (emotional context), we used black or white emojis, either sad or neutral, as cues. The previous interaction between word valence and language of operation vanished, but late positive potential amplitudes elicited by negative words were larger for translation from L2 to L1 (i.e., production in Polish) than L1 to L2. These results validate and extend to production previous findings of attenuated emotional response in L2 comprehension.
Original languageEnglish
JournalBilingualism: Language and Cognition
Publication statusE-pub ahead of print - 1 Mar 2024
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