title: Visual attention to words of native versus later acquired languages: a magnetoencephalographic study in humans.
abstract: We recorded evoked magnetic fields while short words were visually presented in different languages with an oddball paradigm. The task was to count how many words were in a target language when most of the words were in another language and there were also non-target deviants in a third language. When native words (Finnish) were targets, they evoked a selection response at the latency of 300-600 ms. However, when the task was to count non-native words among native standards, in addition to the targets, also the non-target foreign words evoked the selection response. These results may reflect differences in the selection process for native versus non-native words brought about by different proficiency levels of the languages.
authors.affiliation: BioMag Laboratory, Engineering Centre, Helsinki University Central Hospital, P.O. Box 340, FIN-00029 HUS, Helsinki, Finland. pihko@oliivi.huch.fi
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Pihko
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Mäkinen
authors.forename: V V
authors.initials: VV
authors.lastname: Nikouline
authors.forename: A M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Mäkelä
authors.forename: R J
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Ilmoniemi
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000502:physiology; D005074:Evoked Potentials, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D015225:Magnetoencephalography; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*