The effects of age of acquisition and the emotional nature of words in lexical access

Abstract

The research was aimed at knowing the effects of age of acquisition and the emotional nature of words in lexical access. Age of acquisition is known as the concept that refers to the abilities and ideas that have been discovered. The managing of early language words has the benefit over pace and precision. Lexical processing is calculated as the mutable to ascertain in both the first and second languages. Two types of variables named dependent variable and independent variable were used considering the factors. The dependent variables in this research are letter strings, different categories of words such as EE, ENE, LE, and LNE, developmental dataset, and vocabulary to define and learn different words. The independent variables in the study are simulation exercises, trials, amount of noise in the environment, length, and complexity of learning words, several times participants follow repetition of words, frequency of use of hearing aids, visual effects, memory, appearance, and treatment with participants. The experimental research was followed in the research to study the adherence to scientific research design. Data from 104 participants were rejected as they either did not complete the task, or their accuracy was less than 80%. Therefore, the final sample size was 375. The study resulted in that the ANOVA has a significant effect on the age of acquisition of words.

Background

The age of acquisition is the concept that refers to the skills and concepts that have been learned. The processing of early language words has an advantage over speed and accuracy. Lexical processing is counted as the variable to determine in both the first and second languages. Empirical evidence has the link to support the effect of learners on different languages. The second language is known as the factor to build a correlation with language proficiencies in a more natural way. However, from different researches, it has been proven that several factors affect language experience depending upon the quality and quantity of language input. There are long-term benefits that have been observed to have confirmation of evidence. There is a great difference that has been observed as the factor to understand neural processing patterns for different language styles. On the other hand, the independent variables in the study are simulation exercises, amount of noise in the environment, learning words, several times participants see a repetition of phrases, the incidence of use of examination aids, graphic effects, recollection, arrival, and treatment with participants. The intermediate age of acquisition of words is classified into regular and irregular words such as Regular: pen, three, red, man, and, cat, cake, white, boy, long, peach, nice, green, nine, deer. Irregular: eye, pink, chick, apple, bear, head, too, water, four, real, ball, tea, mouth, ear, foot. The intermediate age of acquisition of words includes Regular: bell, bench, bake, feed, lake, brave, rich, milk, river, kill, cost, voice, time, tree, boat. Irregular: fear, seat, autumn, laugh, read, clever, most, allow, alien, extra, area, angry, copy, meter, cow. The late age of acquisition of words includes Regular: solid, shade, victory, paint, dust, insist, recite, fortune, candy, quote, predict, bite, employ, mark, chat. Irregular: harmony, editor, glimpse, elect, source, poem, wound, arrival, basis, require, false, ignore, supply, sample, advise.

Introduction

Several techniques have been followed to take advantage of capturing the milestone level of neural activities that respond in different manners as seen in experiments. The electrophysical brain responds to the person differently to reflect lexical, post-lexical, and pre-lexical locus of effect as well as semantic, orthographic, or phonological nature. Age of acquisition is the variable that activates a time window, also it is inferred that it can correspond to certain language processes. From neurocognitive research, it has been detected that the age of acquisition is related to neuronal changes in language processing. Learning of language one after language two tends to modify the structure of the brain in a dependant manner. After, the second language is associated with the thickening of the cortex in the right inferior frontal gyrus. Several approaches are found to be proposed that have phonological completeness that is learned early and the words that are learned holistically are set in a mind in a fragmented manner. The order of acquisition defines the speed and efficiency in semantic activation. Thus, the early learned concepts are easier to access than late learned concepts.

The brain responds in different patterns by polarities, amplitudes, latencies, and topologies of event-related potentials. The variables define the calculation and measurement of experiments in these studies. It is commonly found that independent variables different categories of words such as early acquiring emotional words, early acquiring non-emotional words, late acquiring emotional words and late acquiring non-emotional words, developmental dataset, and vocabulary to define and learn different words. However, phonological completeness and semantic locus account not to predict the effects of the second language on syntactic, phonological, and semantic processing. The theories also claim that the age of acquisition effect reflects the arbitrary nature of mapping between input that is orthography and output that is sematic or phonological nature representations formed during the development of a lexical network.

Aim

The research aims to know the effects of age of acquisition and the emotional nature of words in lexical access.

Hypothesis

The hypothesis is the proposed understanding and statement for a phenomenon that is used to make a provisional idea on which the estimation can be measured. The method was used in research to propose the hypothesis based on research that the ANOVA can reveal a significant effect of age of acquisition of words.

Variables

A variable is something that is used to define the quality and quantity of the subject. The variables of the statement are somewhat difficult to identify and need a deep idea of the experiment as what must be done in this research. There are two types of the variable named dependent variable and independent variable.

Dependent variables

The dependent variable is the variable on which the researcher is interested in. The changes in research which happen are there points that the researcher is trying to measure all with different techniques. The variable is the ability to define the research and its characteristics involving different parameters. The dependent variables in this research are letter strings, different categories of words such as early acquiring emotional words (EE), early acquiring non-emotional words (ENE), late acquiring emotional words (LE) and late acquiring non-emotional words (LNE), developmental dataset, and vocabulary to define and learn different words.

Independent variables

Independent variables are the factors that are believed to be the affecting dependent variable to a different extent. The variable allows us to see the manipulation that is seen from dependent variable changes. The dependent variable is believed to be dependent on the independent variable. The independent variables in the study are simulation exercises, trials, amount of noise in the environment, length, and complexity of learning words, several times participants follow repetition of words, frequency of use of hearing aids, visual effects, memory, appearance, and treatment with participants. These are the variables that will have a direct effect on the performance of participants.

Method

The experimental research will be followed to study the adherence to scientific research design. The study included the hypothesis as the ANOVA can reveal a significant effect of age of acquisition of words. This is the proposed statement that has been given at the starting of a research project to know whether the assumption complied with the statement or not. Assumption, calculation, comparison of the research will all be done on this. The controlled environment was followed to do this experimental research interestingly. The data will be collected, and results would be declared to either support or reject the hypothesis. The hypothesis testing method was used to compare and analyze the results. The purpose of this research would be to determine the relationship between two different variables that are dependant and independent variables. The completion of this research study will present the correlation between a specific aspect of an entity and the variable that is chosen in the research to study with either supporting or rejecting the hypothesis.

The data collection will be done to quantify or measure the data. The data in this research would be in the form of recording the results of the participants. The sets of letter strings will be used in the experiment such as words and nonwords. The stimuli will be of 3 to 8 characters long.The type of observation will help supplement the measurements taken throughout the experiment. Hence, the experiment will be done in a controlled manner to know how one thing affects another. This method of research will be the best to continue with the experiment because it will collect the existing behavior analysis for measurement. The contact of experts and databases will be included in the content area.

Participants

A total of 479 undergraduate students from Western Sydney University were recruited via convenience sampling and participated in a study investigating the effects of age of acquisition and the emotional nature of words in lexical access. Participation was completed voluntarily as part of an assessment task. Data from 104 participants were rejected as they either did not complete the task, or their accuracy was less than 80%. Therefore, the final sample size was 375.

Materials and Apparatus

Two sets of letter strings were used in the experiment: words and nonwords. All the stimuli were 3 to 8 characters long. There were 4 categories of words: early acquiring emotional words (EE), early acquiring non-emotional words (ENE), late acquiring emotional words (LE), and late acquiring non-emotional words (LNE). A total of 40 words in each category were used. Early acquiring words were acquired before 5 years of age and late acquiring words were acquired after 7 years of age. The word stimuli were taken from the normative developmental dataset for emotional vocabulary comprehension (Baron-Cohen, Golan, Wheelwright, Granader, & Hill, 2010). The nonwords were selected from the ARC nonword database (Rastle, Harrington, & Coltheart, 2002). A total of 120 nonwords were used.

The stimuli were presented in a dual lexical decision task where two-letter strings were presented on the screen. For half of the trials (80), both the strings were words and for the remaining half (80) either one or both of the letter strings were nonwords. When both the strings were words, they belonged to the same category of words (EE, ENE, LE, LNE). There were 20 trials for each category of words.

Procedure

Participants were tested in the classroom during their tutorial. They were instructed to tap the left side of the screen if both the letter strings they saw were words and to tap the right side of the screen if any of the letter strings were nonwords. Each trial started with a fixation cross; 500 ms after the fixation cross two-letter strings were presented on the screen. The trial ended after the participant made a response. If there was no response made by the participant within 3 seconds after the stimulus presentation, the trial was terminated. The inter-trial interval was 1 second. Feedback was provided for incorrect trials. The trials were presented in a random order for each participant. Stimulus presentation and response collection was controlled by Presentation Mobile App (Neurobehavioral Systems Inc., CA, USA) running on the participants’ mobile device (iOS or Android). The experiment took 5-10 minutes to complete. The accuracy and response time was calculated. Reaction time (RT) data from participants who had an accuracy of 80% or more were further analyzed.

Results

The assumption of normality was met for the reaction time data. A two-way repeated-measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) was computed with the factors age of acquisition of words (early, late) and the emotional nature of the words (emotional, non-emotional). The ANOVA revealed a significant effect of age of acquisition of words F(1, 374) = 669.58, p< .05. Early acquiring words were accessed significantly faster (Mean RT = 837.52 ms, SE = 7.36) than late acquiring words (Mean RT = 961.49 ms, SE = 9.20). The effect of emotional nature of the words was also significant F(1, 374) = 18.53, p< .05. Emotional words were accessed significantly faster (Mean RT = 890.56 ms, SE = 8.44) than non-emotional words (Mean RT = 908.45 ms, SE = 8.04). The interaction between the age of acquisition and emotional nature of words was not significant F(1, 374) = 0.40, p> .05, suggesting that the effect of emotional nature of words was similar for both early and late acquiring words.

References

Ferré, P., Anglada-Tort, M., & Guasch, M. (2018). Processing of emotional words in bilinguals: Testing the effects of word concreteness, task type and language status. Second Language Research, 34(3), 371-394. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0267658317744008

Hollis, G., Westbury, C., & Lefsrud, L. (2017). Extrapolating human judgments from skip-gram vector representations of word meaning. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 70(8), 1603-1619. https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1080/17470218.2016.1195417

Mergen, F., & Kuruoglu, G. (2017). A comparison of Turkish-English bilinguals’ processing of emotion words in their two languages. Eurasian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 3(2), 89-98. https://doi.org/10.32601/ejal.460969

Stadthagen-González, H., Ferré, P., Pérez-Sánchez, M. A., Imbault, C., & Hinojosa, J. A. (2018). Norms for 10,491 Spanish words for five discrete emotions: Happiness, disgust, anger, fear, and sadness. Behavior Research Methods, 50(5), 1943-1952. https://link.springer.com/article/10.3758/s13428-017-0962-y

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