Posts

So I’m taking an introduction to EEG (electroencephalography—i.e. brain waves) research course this semester. My curiosity got the better of me, so I signed up for it even though I don’t need to take any more courses, nor probably should be taking any. Just for background, EEG research looks at the tiny patterns of electric current generated in the brain, and measured on the scalp, usually in reaction to some external stimulus. When we look at the brain’s reaction in terms of electrical patterns to experimentally-controlled external events, these are called ERPs, or event-related potentials. Keep in mind that the brain is always generating current, except for in you zombies out there who are reading this, and the main task of EEG researchers is to identify the meaningful patterns of activity from among the chaos that tell us how the brain is responding during a task. Electrodes placed on the scalp pick up this current, which is tiny and measured in microvolts, and send it off to a computer which continuously records the patterns (see pic below!).

The real trick, which I have nowhere near a good grasp on at this point, is to sort out the patterns which show us in a meaningful way how a participant was responding to a particular stimulus. For example, in language studies, an EEG wave component called the N400 is often used as an indicator of some type of meaning (semantic) mismatch, as in the sentence “Yesterday in math class our teacher taught us about division and sandwiches.” Where sandwiches doesn’t make any sense in the sentence context at all. As we read this sentence, we build up expectations from the context because of words like “math class” and “teacher”, and when this expectation is violated, our brain shows a telltale electrical pattern in response to this strangeness. Researchers have used clever designs like this to test even more subtle predictions on language. The learning curve is very steep with EEG, as is getting access to the equipment (especially for someone in a foreign language department like myself), but it’s definitely an interesting way to look at language processing in real time.

So I’ve been back from Japan for a month now and have been looking through my photos, reflecting on some of the experiences I had. Even though research and writing kept me pretty busy, I had the chance to participate in several of the great programs and workshops offered by the Japan Foundation’s Kyoto branch throughout the year.

The coolest experience by far was the visit to the Kyoto State Guest House (Kyoto Geihinkan) in the Imperial Palace. It’s the temporary residence for dignitaries and official guests of the state. No expense was spared in the design of this place; plus it’s still in pristine condition, having opened in 2005. Highlights included the intricately-patterned gold-inlayed walls in the ballroom, the long lacquered dining table that seats 24, and the brilliantly-colored tapestries—all done by noted craftsmen, many from the Kansai area in fact. Our group was a mix of JF fellows, their families and several others. After a brief orientation, where we donned long white socks, cotton gloves and slippers, we were on our way. Our group was gently shuffled around from room to room, told where to look and where not to, and even scolded for stepping on the decorative bordering of the tatami mats! The structure really is a treasure worthy of royalty, in the subdued, Japanese aesthetic, that is. We were allowed to take pictures, but told not to post them anywhere, so I’ll use a few of their official ones instead (http://www8.cao.go.jp/geihinkan/kyoto/kgphoto.html © Cabinet Office). Apparently, they admit visitors by lottery once a year for those living in Japan only.

Gold and platinum-decorated walls.

Shiny lacquered dining table.

Wisteria tapestry.

I also learned how to do all sorts of things with a furoshiki, the do-it-all square of cloth in which you can carry almost anything. We had a great two-hour workshop where we were taught how to fold a wine-bottle carrier, a backpack and a handbag by an instructor with the patience of Job. The hardest part was figuring out how to tie the knots correctly; it’s a little different than your average shoelace knot. I saw lots of misshapen forms and saggy fabric, mostly which were of my own creation! But, who would have thought they could be so versatile, and so much fun—a furoshiki waist-pouch anyone?

Kudos to the Japan Foundation for making the fellowship year really special with events like these. The monotony of the daily research+writing grind can sometimes be overwhelming, and dissertation “tunnel-vision” can set in as we focus on our projects. Occasional reminders to slow down and enjoy the journey are much appreciated!

I just finished collecting data for a new project (read: distractor from dissertation writing) that looks at phonological interference in Japanese/English cross-script priming. Put simply, priming studies look at how the prior presentation of a word or sound (the prime) affects the time needed to make a decision on a target word that follows. By manipulating the prime, and observing the resulting effect on the target word, we can make predictions about the organization of the first and second language lexicons in the case of cross-language priming.

Now, considering the huge number of English loanwords in Japanese, I wanted to see if manipulating the relationship between katakana script primes either helped or hindered the recognition of certain English words by Japanese learners of English. To do this I selected English words that can be read as “false friends” in Japanese—words that orthographically adhere to the Japanese mora structure like English “take” as タケ, “mine” ミネand “bike” ビケ. I used a masked priming technique where the katakana primes were flashed onscreen very briefly (50 ms—too quick to really recognize). This masking assumes that the visual or sound properties of the primes, at some low level of processing, will somehow influence target decision times. I used three types of primes. The first were “identity” primes, which are the correct katakana reading of the English target (カム—come). The second were the false friend-pairs (コメ—come); the third were unrelated (ボール—come). I predicted that the identity primes would be the fastest. But, the false friends were my real interest; I thought they would be the slowest, and least accurate, of the three conditions because once the katakana prime activates the Japanese moraic reading, participants must make a greater effort to recalculate the correct English pronunciation. Essentially, competition between the first/second language phonology should yield longer reaction times and lower accuracy.

The results so far show that ID primes were clearly the fastest, replicating previous J-E priming results. But, the false friend condition, while much slower than the ID primes, was no different from the unrelated primes. From what I can tell at this point, it looks like participants weren’t being “duped” by the L1 phonology in the (コメ—come) pairs. But, interestingly, the accuracy rates for the false friend-primed targets were significantly lower than even the unrelated pairs. So, the false-friend primes affected accuracy, but not speed. I still need to consider the effects of English proficiency (TOEIC score) on RTs and accuracy. Well, be on the lookout for a more detailed analysis at the upcoming BEAL forum!

Recently back from the Japan Society of Language Science’s 16th annual conference at Bunkyo University in Saitama, Japan (about an hour north of Tokyo). I really enjoyed the presentations and was impressed with the overall quality. Silvina Montrul from the University of Illinois gave the plenary address on 1^st/2^nd language attrition—forgetting a language due to lack of use or exposure.

Someone commented that as Japan plans to get its school-aged kids English-ready for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics—by increasing instruction hours/starting lessons in earlier grades—that the youngest of the bunch in particular will forget or incompletely acquire their native Japanese. I think this question expresses a common, but not usually vocalized, worry about improving foreign language education in Japan. For one thing, I don’t think even the most overzealous government plan to increase English hours would negatively affect children’s Japanese ability in the basically monolingual society in Japan. This made me wonder if the question was really expressing a concern about the loss of literacy, considering the time children invest in learning the written language–kanji and classical Japanese. I don’t think the presenter got the thrust of the question, since it came across as being about losing spoken language, leading her to respond that there’s no way this would happen in Japan. Written language is such a big part of Japanese kokugo instruction that it’s hard for many to consider it as separate of language ability in general. So I don’t see a change on the horizon in say, the hours spent on learning classical grammar, in order to increase English instruction hours. Well, as Dr. Montrul reminded the audience, attrition can be a politically-charged research topic.

The invited symposium continued the topic of attrition with newly-minted data on English attrition in Japanese returnees. John Matthews of Chuo University looked at phonological attrition of English consonants over a two-year period in young (7 to 12 year old) returnees. His prediction was that the ability to distinguish consonant pairs where one member isn’t found in Japanese (in nonsense words like “thaf” vs. “saf”) would be the first to go because of limited English exposure once the returnees were back in Japan. However, he found that this group didn’t lose their ability to discriminate these contrasts over the two-year period. Maybe if the returnees had no exposure to English, we might see a decline, but I’m sure kids this age are still taking mandatory English classes and getting some input. Also, basic perceptual ability on this type of task (AX discrimination) probably stays intact, so maybe a more difficult perception task would show a decline.

Slowly adding content to this site. Check back!