title: Individual language experience modulates rapid formation of cortical memory circuits for novel words.
abstract: Mastering multiple languages is an increasingly important ability in the modern world; furthermore, multilingualism may affect human learning abilities. Here, we test how the brain's capacity to rapidly form new representations for spoken words is affected by prior individual experience in non-native language acquisition. Formation of new word memory traces is reflected in a neurophysiological response increase during a short exposure to novel lexicon. Therefore, we recorded changes in electrophysiological responses to phonologically native and non-native novel word-forms during a perceptual learning session, in which novel stimuli were repetitively presented to healthy adults in either ignore or attend conditions. We found that larger number of previously acquired languages and earlier average age of acquisition (AoA) predicted greater response increase to novel non-native word-forms. This suggests that early and extensive language experience is associated with greater neural flexibility for acquiring novel words with unfamiliar phonology. Conversely, later AoA was associated with a stronger response increase for phonologically native novel word-forms, indicating better tuning of neural linguistic circuits to native phonology. The results suggest that individual language experience has a strong effect on the neural mechanisms of word learning, and that it interacts with the phonological familiarity of the novel lexicon.
authors.affiliation: Cognitive Brain Research Unit, Cognitive Science, Institute of Behavioural Sciences, 00014 University of Helsinki, Finland.
authors.forename: Lilli
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Kimppa
authors.affiliation: Cognitive Brain Research Unit, Cognitive Science, Institute of Behavioural Sciences, 00014 University of Helsinki, Finland.
authors.forename: Teija
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Kujala
authors.affiliation: Center of Functionally Integrative Neuroscience, Department of Clinical Medicine, Aarhus University, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark.|Centre for Cognition and Decision Making, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia.
authors.forename: Yury
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Shtyrov
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D007804:Language Development; D007858:Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D008037:Linguistics; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology*; D019303:Multilingualism; D014706:Verbal Learning / Q000502:physiology; D055815:Young Adult