An EEG experiment was design to test the influence of level of proficiency on processing of emotion content between languages in a sample of Spanish-English bilinguals divided by proficiency levels between two groups of bilinguals, one group of balanced (n=23) and another of unbalanced bilinguals (n=26). The participants rated words in three categories (negative, neutral, and positive) in terms of emotional valence in English and Spanish while EEG was recorded. Event-related potentials were calculated for two components related to emotion processing: the early posterior negativity (EPN) and the late positive complex LPC. 2 (Bilingual group) x 2 (language) x 3 (valence) x 3 (electrode) analyses were conducted on each component, separately for latency and amplitude. The results for the EPN latency indicated a marginally significant valence effect, with emotion words presenting shorter latencies than neutral words across conditions indicating a processing advantage of emotion content in both languages. The EPN amplitude also reflected the effect of valence, with larger amplitudes both emotion categories than for neutral words. The overall EPN amplitude was larger in Spanish than in English for both bilingual groups across valence categories. The LPC latency was longer in English than in Spanish for both bilingual groups, possibly related to Spanish being identified as native language in most of the sample. The LPC amplitude was larger for negative than for emotion than for neutral words for both groups in English and in Spanish for the Balanced group. The Unbalanced group, however, presented larger for positive than for neutral, and for neutral than for negative words. These results suggest that the Balanced and Unbalanced groups process emotion content similarly in English, but differently in Spanish. The Valence effects were consistent across languages for the Balanced group, but not for the Unbalanced group which might reflect an attenuation of the valence effect for negative words in Spanish for this group, and could indicate weaker emotional reactivity to negative words in the less proficient language. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2018. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fau.edu/oai:fau.digital.flvc.org:fau_40760 |
| Contributors | Vélez-Uribe, Idaly (author), Rosselli, Monica (Thesis advisor), Florida Atlantic University (Degree grantor), Charles E. Schmidt College of Science, Department of Psychology |
| Publisher | Florida Atlantic University |
| Source Sets | Florida Atlantic University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation, Text |
| Format | 88 p., application/pdf |
| Rights | Copyright © is held by the author, with permission granted to Florida Atlantic University to digitize, archive and distribute this item for non-profit research and educational purposes. Any reuse of this item in excess of fair use or other copyright exemptions requires permission of the copyright holder., http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
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