Research report
Can Harry Potter still put a spell on us in a second language? An fMRI study on reading emotion-laden literature in late bilinguals
Abstract
In
this fMRI study we contrasted emotional responses to literary reading
in late bilinguals' first or second language. German participants with
adequate English proficiency in their second language (L2) English read
short text passages from Harry Potter books characterized by a
“negative” or “positive” versus “neutral” emotional valence
manipulation. Previous studies have suggested that given sufficient L2
proficiency, neural substrates involved in L1 versus L2 do not differ
(Fabbro, 2001). On the other hand, the question of attenuated
emotionality of L2 language processing is still an open debate (see
Conrad, Recio, & Jacobs, 2011). Our results revealed a set of neural
structures involved in the processing of emotion-laden literature,
including emotion-related amygdala and a set of lateral prefrontal,
anterior temporal, and temporo-parietal regions associated with
discourse comprehension, high-level semantic integration, and
Theory-of-Mind processing. Yet, consistent with post-scan emotion
ratings of text passages, factorial fMRI analyses revealed stronger
hemodynamic responses to “happy” than to “neutral” in bilateral amygdala
and the left precentral cortex that were restricted to L1 reading.
Furthermore, multivariate pattern analyses (MVPA) demonstrated better
classifiability of differential patterns of brain activity elicited by
passages of different emotional content in L1 than in L2 for the whole
brain level. Overall, our results suggest that reading emotion-laden
texts in our native language provides a stronger and more differentiated
emotional experience than reading in a second language.
Keywords
- Language;
- Emotion;
- Bilingualism;
- Literature reading;
- Amygdala
Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
