Memory Traces For Words As Revealed By Mmn In Native Language And Non-native Language

The memory traces is a specific effect that native speakers are more sensitive to native words than pseudo-words(N??t?nen,2001;Pulvermuller et al.,2001;Pulvermüller,& Shtyrov,2006).The earliest evidence of word memory traces was found in non-tonal languages.Recently some researchers found that Mandarin Chinese as a tonal languages also could activate word memory traces in native Mandarin Chinese speakers(Endrass,Mohr,& Pulvermuller,2004;Pettigrew et al.,2004;Shtyrov et al.,2008;Gu et al.,2012).The premise of study is that tonal languages could active the word memory traces in native speakers.We aimed at using the method of ERP and passive oddball paradigm to investigating the differences of the word memory traces activated between the word/pseudo-words with different word familiarity.And revealed the activation features of word memory traces in native language and non-native language in the pre-attention stage of adults.In order to avoid the interference of change of tone and the influence of acoustic difference,we controlled the tone and the acoustic feature were consistent in different experimental conditions.There were four kinds of experimental conditions: at the native language level,high familiarity with word /pseudo-word,low familiarity with word / pseudo-word;At the non-native language level,high familiarity with word / pseudo-word,low familiarity with word /pseudo-word.The probability of standard stimulus and deviation stimulus were 85%and 15% respectively.The results showed that at the native language level,native Mandarin Chinese subjects were able to perceive the mismatches in high familiarity with word /pseudo-word and low familiarity with word / pseudo-word conditions.In other words,both of these conditions activated the word memory traces in the brain of native Mandarin Chinese speakers.The major source of this word-related MMN had a tendency to distribute in the left hemisphere.At the non-native language level,significant MMN was also evoked in high familiarity with word / pseudo-word and low familiarity with word / pseudo-word conditions.The MMN distribution hashemisphere difference under both conditions.The highly familiar MMN evoked by the word / pseudo-word tends to has a right hemisphere distribution,while the MMN evoked by the low familiarity word / pseudo-word has a tendency to distribute in the left hemisphere.Moreover,native speakers showed higher sensitivity to high familiarity with word / pseudo-word at native language and non-native language level.We suggest that different familiar native words and non-native words are able to activate the word memory traces in native speakers and the difference of familiarity are able to affect the magnitude of word memory traces.