Individual differences in the development of L2 phonological processing: The contribution of cognitive abilities and executive function

ISABELLE DARCY (IUB)

, HANYONG PARK(UWM)

, CHUNG-LIN YANG(IUB)

, ANDREW GLEISER(IUB)

idarcy@indiana.edu; park27@uwm.edu; cy1@indiana.edu; apgleise@indiana.edu

Key points • More accurate L2 phonological processing is linked to

higher cognitive abilities and executive function • A combination of both real-world measures such as

BRIEF-A and „laboratory“ cognitive abilities assessment can capture individual differences in L2 phonological development for adult learners

Background Underlying sources of individual differences in L2

phonological development? Cognitive abilities linked to Second Language Acquisition:

• Working memory (Miyake & Friedman, 1998) • Selective attention (Segalowitz, 1997) • Processing speed (Salthouse, 1996) • Lexical retrieval (Segalowitz, 1997)

Executive Function linked to Second Language Acquisition: (Miyake et al., 2000)

• Shifting & Inhibit (Carlson & Meltzoff, 2008; Costa et al., 2008; Bialystok 1999; Bialystok & Martin, 2004)

• Updating/monitoring (Costa et al., 2008)

BRIEF-A Behavior-Rating Inventory of Executive Function—Adult version (Roth, Isquith & Gioia, 2005; Gioia et al., 2002)

• Self-report rating scale developed to assess executive function in real-world environments

• Used with Korean adult L2 learners of English with Korean translation of questions; not for clinical purposes

• 9 subscales, 3 composite scores (BRI, MI, GEC)

Korean learners of English • Short-LOR (N= 10, < 1 yr) • Long-LOR (N= 10, > 1 yr)

Native English speakers (NE: N= 10)

Participants and Phonological tasks

Results • Working Memory, Processing speed, and to some extent Lexical

retrieval in L1 and L2 are linked to more accurate L2 phonological processing of English, for phonetic categories (ABX) and encoding of word stress (sequence repetition). Onset cluster encoding (lexical decision) does not correlate with cognitive measures, but is strongly related to the Self—Monitoring subscale of the BRIEF-A.

• Another subscale of BRI (Shift), as well as Initiate (MI), show links to the lexical decision performance. The focus on real-world contexts of the BRIEF-A could be linked to the relative naturalness of this task, compared to both others.

• The Monitoring/Updating component of Executive Function may be a potential predictor of real-life L2 phonological development.

Participants rate 75 questions on a 3-point scale as applying to them „rarely“ (1), „sometimes“ (2) or often“ (3). Higher scores are indicative of problematic behavior. The 5 highest and 5 lowest phonological processing performance on each task are also distinguished by the following subscales: higher BRIEF-A scores are linked to lower performance, except for sequence repetition.

Individual Results

We thank Kathleen Bardovi-Harlig, Kate Nearing, and David Pisoni for com-ments, help and support. This work was supported by NIH-NIDCD Training Grant T32-DC00012

ABX categorization : Phonetic categories Højen & Flege, 2006

Sequence Repetition : English word stress Dupoux et al., 2008

Lexical Decision : Onset clusters Dupoux et al., 2001; Kabak & Idsardi, 2007

If learners do not encode clusters in the L2 lexicon, they insert a vowel [ɯ] to break them up (closest equivalent AE: [ʊ]) Stimuli: English words, and nonwords created by inserting a vowel ([ʊ] or [i]) in a cluster (e.g., pUroud based on proud) Prediction: If the lexicon does not encode clusters well, a non-word *pUroud+ is judged as a word (answer „yes“)

Correlations

Inhibit Shift Emotional Control

Self Monitor BRI Initiate Working Mem-

ory Plan /

Organize Task

Monitor Organ. of Materials MI GEC

ABX -.332 -.149 .048 -.384 -.185 -.274 -.395 -.092 .127 -.248 -.262 -.227 Sequence repetition .305 .261 .068 .162 .200 -.133 .169 .427* .175 .341 .278 .245

Lexical decision -.167 -.400* -.132 -.532** -.342 -.458* .056 -.164 .025 -.128 -.187 -.257 Phonological

Processing score -.002 -.134 -.046 -.307 -.142 -.422* .083 .116 .117 .060 -.013 -.072 Note: Phonological processing score is the mean accuracy on the three test conditions * p < .05 ** p < .01

Table 2: Pearson correlations between phonological tasks (test conditions) and the BRIEF-A subscales (1-tailed)

L1 L2

Working Memory Lexical

retrieval Processing

speed

Working Memory

Lexical retrieval

Attention shift

digit span

nonword span

complex span

naming accuracy

naming speed

rapid naming

digit span

nonword span

complex span

paired associates

naming accuracy

naming speed

speeded categorization RT

ABX .300 .120 .304 -.115 -.198 .584** .510* .536* .238 .239 .335 -.579** -.486*

Sequence repetition .599** .544** .570** .138 -.468* .437* .629** .215 .581** .597** .587** -.013 -.501*

Lexical decision .278 -.200 -.022 .211 -.530* .164 .121 .187 -.063 .066 .268 -.266 -.246

Phonological processing score

.575** .248 .392* .189 -.619** .455* .542** .346 .311 .435* .572** -.248 -.528*

Table 1: Pearson correlations between phonological tasks (test conditions) and cognitive tasks (1-tailed)

Note: Phonological processing score is the mean accuracy on the three test conditions * p < .05 ** p < .01

R² = 0.2109

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1

Init

iate

Lexical Decision (test condition)

R² = 0.16

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1

Shif

t

Lexical Decision (test condition)

Lexical

decision (test) Sequence

repetition (test) ABX (test)

Low vs. high performance on phonological tasks:

Mean Std.

Deviation Sig. (2-tailed)

Mean Std.

Deviation Sig. (2-tailed)

Mean Std.

Deviation Sig. (2-tailed)

Shift low 70.6 4.6 .053 56.6 11.8 .264 67.2 6.5 .175 high 60.4 9.0 63.8 6.4 60.4 7.9

Self-Monitor low 63.8 14.9 .016 49.4 7.5 .364 58.6 15.0 .065 high 42.4 4.9 57.0 16.0 43.2 5.9

Initiate

low 62.6 6.7 .025 56.0 8.4 .966 57.0 9.7 .237 high 48.2 9.6 56.2 6.0 49.0 10.1

Plan / Organize

low 61.4 8.0 .180 54.0 8.1 .070 56.4 8.4 .548 high 53.0 9.9 62.8 2.6 52.8 9.7

Organizat. of Materials

low 57.8 7.8 .455 44.8 5.3 .048 56.0 12.7 .584 high 51.8 15.2 52.6 5.3 51.0 14.9

GEC low 62.6 6.2 .062 52.6 8.6 .245 59.8 9.4 .204 high 53.0 7.7 58.2 5.0 52.4 7.4

BRIEF-A Scores

N

Length of Residence (months)

current age

(yrs)

age of arrival (yrs)

current L2 use

(%)

average motivation

(1-11)

Long—LOR 10 49.5 30.5 25.6 56.5 8.9

(21-100) (23-47) (17-41) (5-80) (7.3 – 10.4)

Short—LOR 10 4.0 24.0 23.3 39.0 8.4

(2-10) (20-37) (20-36) (10-90) (7.5 – 10.4)

p (2-tailed) : 0.0001 0.034 0.40 0.10 0.32

DEPARTMENT OF SECOND LANGUAGE STUDIES DEPARTMENT OF LINGUISTICS

R² = 0.28

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1

Self

Mo

nit

or

Lexical Decision (test condition)

Figure 1: Individual performance on phonological tasks (top: test conditions; bottom: control conditions)

Table 3: BRIEF-A subscale scores for highest & lowest performance on phonological tasks

ABX Sequence repetition Lexical decision ABX Sequence repetition Lexical decision

Individual differences in EF and cognitive abilities: could better executive functioning favor L2 phonological development?

Assess the extent to which a real-world EF assessment can capture individual differences in L2 phonological development Compare with laboratory assessment of cognitive abilities