TY - JOUR
T1 - Decreased EEG coherence between prefrontal electrodes
T2 - A correlate of high language proficiency?
AU - Reiterer, Susanne
AU - Berger, Michael L.
AU - Hemmelmann, Claudia
AU - Rappelsberger, Peter
N1 - Funding Information:
Acknowledgements We thank all who have contributed to the realization of this work, especially Anna Schneider and Martina Kainberger for important data handling assistance. We are indebted to the late Bärbel Schack and to Manfred Horn for their innovative statistical contributions. This project was supported by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF, P-13578-MED).
PY - 2005/5
Y1 - 2005/5
N2 - To investigate the influence of proficiency level on the cortical organization of foreign language processing, two groups of German speaking students, differing only in their proficiency in English as a second language, were subjected to EEG coherence analysis during foreign and native language processing (news reports, alpha 1 frequency band). In the group with minor experience with English, coherence increase was observed with all electrode combinations, with left hemisphere (LH) predominance. In the high proficiency group, coherence increase was limited to temporal electrodes over LH. In the latter group only, coherence between prefrontal electrodes was significantly lower during the language tasks than during the baseline task (silence, noisy screen). Both results were obtained with foreign as well as native language processing. We suggest that reduced EEG coherence in highly proficient foreign language speakers reflects a more efficient operating strategy not only for their second, but also for their native language.
AB - To investigate the influence of proficiency level on the cortical organization of foreign language processing, two groups of German speaking students, differing only in their proficiency in English as a second language, were subjected to EEG coherence analysis during foreign and native language processing (news reports, alpha 1 frequency band). In the group with minor experience with English, coherence increase was observed with all electrode combinations, with left hemisphere (LH) predominance. In the high proficiency group, coherence increase was limited to temporal electrodes over LH. In the latter group only, coherence between prefrontal electrodes was significantly lower during the language tasks than during the baseline task (silence, noisy screen). Both results were obtained with foreign as well as native language processing. We suggest that reduced EEG coherence in highly proficient foreign language speakers reflects a more efficient operating strategy not only for their second, but also for their native language.
KW - Bilingualism
KW - Cortical efficiency
KW - EEG-coherence
KW - Language proficiency
KW - Second language
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=20944433585&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s00221-005-2215-z
DO - 10.1007/s00221-005-2215-z
M3 - Article
C2 - 15821933
AN - SCOPUS:20944433585
SN - 0014-4819
VL - 163
SP - 109
EP - 113
JO - Experimental Brain Research
JF - Experimental Brain Research
IS - 1
ER -