The Neurological Mechanism Of The Effects Of Perceptual Learning Style On Vocabulary Learning Outcomes-an FMRI Study

The objective of this study is to determine the underlying physiological mechanism how perceptual learning style works and influences the effect of language learning by means of functional magnetic resonance imaging.The study is composed of two major procedures, subjects screening and fMRI test. With two screening tests, 8 students, 21-28 years, 4 males and 4 females, 4 visual learners and 4 auditory learners, were chosen to participate in the fMRI experiment. 1.5T Philips Eclipse MRI and NEC Multisync FE 991SB stimulator were used, together with the technique of BOLD, to record cortical reaction of two types of subjects of different learning styles to the two modes of input (visual and auditory) respectively. The effects of the input on the subjects of two learning styles were compared transversely and longitudinally.The major findings are:1. The stimuli provoke stronger activation in the brain cortex when they are to the preference of the subjects than the other mode does.2. Such areas as prefrontal cortex, temporal lobe and occipital lobe are all activated in both groups and in either mode of stimuli, i.e. visual and auditory.3. The outcomes of the intensity and scope of activation in group A are higher than those of group B, the most significant of which is that of prefrontal cortex, which is in charge of memory.From the above, it seems interesting to draw the following conclusions:1. The brain areas are activated most when the input is to the preference of the learning styles of the subjects.2. Visual and auditory learning styles cannot be isolated absolutely. Judging from the images, temporal lobes and occipital lobes are activated of different levels whoever the subjects are and whatever the input is.3. This can be the physiologic evidence that memory plays a very important role in some stages of language learning, for example, information store and retrieval.4. The input to the preference of the learning styles can better activate working memory.This study is trying to find out the material basis and evidence from the perspective of natural science for the problems and phenomena that may occur in language learning and teaching, where linguistic and applied linguistic research methods are used as the major approaches, and those of psychology and medicine are as the assistant ones, for example, we borrow psychological tests and tests designing from psychology and advanced imaging technology from medicine, i.e. fMRI. This perhaps could open up a new pathway for the research methods of science of arts and their incorporation with natural sciences.