Recognition of Second Language Spoken Words, Signs, and Characters Via Perception and Production in Adults

University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa

Status: Not yet enrolling

Conditions: Second Language Acquisition in Healthy Young Adults

Treatments: Behavioral: Self-production

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other; NIH

Identifiers

NCT05587218

L2WordProd

Details and patient eligibility

About

Self-production facilitates acquisition of spoken words, signs, and characters from an unfamiliar second language. The proposed work investigates how motor cortex, a key part of the brain enabling body action, supports their acquisition via production as well as perception, providing insight into whether they are learned via mental simulation of the body actions used to produce them. It is hypothesized that activity in motor cortex will differ based on the body part used to produce lexical items (e.g., mouth vs. hands), will be greater for lexical items learned via production than observation, and will differentiate lexical items recognized successfully vs. unsuccessfully.

Enrollment: 120 estimated patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18 to 35 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Right-handed
• Native English speaker

Exclusion criteria

• Knowledge of sign language or languages with logographic characters
• Hearing or vision impairments
• Speech, language, or learning disorders
• Unsecured metal body implants

Trial design

Primary purpose: Basic Science

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Single Blind

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120 participants in 2 patient groups

Self-production

Experimental group

Description:

L2 lexical items self-produced at learning

Treatment:

Behavioral: Self-production

Perception

Active Comparator group

Description:

L2 lexical items heard or observed an additional time at learning

Treatment:

Behavioral: Self-production