Some things are always under construction.

Valence

In order to investigate the phenomenon of interest, the present study lended expertise from the cognitive science. There is a growing body of research on the topic of automatic attitude activation. Upon encountering an object, it is automatically evaluated, i.e. it automatically activates positivity or negativity. (Fazio et al., 1986). Valence is often assessed in cognitive research by the affective priming paradigm (Fazio et al, 1989). In an affective priming task, a series of positive or negative target stimuli is presented, which have to be evaluated as quickly as possible as either positive or negative. Each target is immediately preceded by a prime stimulus, which can be positive, negative, or neutral, and which has to be ignored by the participant. Nevertheless, results show that the time to evaluate the target stimuliis mediated by the valence of the primes. If targets are preceded by an evaluatively congruent pruime, response latencies are significantly smaller than on evaluatively incongruent trials. This Effect is based on the automatic processing of the valence of the prime, and is not dependent upon controlled response strategies (Hermans, Bayens & Eelen, 1989).

Fazio (e.g. Fazio, 2001) postulates that there are strong and weak primes, i.e. some words elicit stronger priming effects on the affective priming task, because they activate stronger evaluation reactions. Maybe, it is exactly valence that fails to be automatically activated in L2. Or, in Fazio's terminology, it would mean, that second language consists solely of weak primes.

Consequently, the current study investigates the affective priming effect in a second language. If the subjective feeling of the second language as less emotional is due to weaker valence activation of words in L2, then affective priming in L2 would show different result pattern, i.e. weaker priming effects or even no priming effects at all.

However, finding no affective priming in a second language makes scientific sense only if participants have achieved a certain level of proficiency. It wouldn't be surprising if one would find that beginners in a second language are not able to automatically access word's valences. Moreover, the current study is addressed to the subjective language feeling of proficient bilinguals.
That's why, in order to ensure that participants are proficient enough, a similar paradigm from the cognitive psychology was chosen, i.e. the semantic priming task (e.g. Neely, 1977). The procedure is quite similar to the affective priming paradigm, but this time participants are required to decide if the target is a word or a nonword. Targets are preceded by semantcally related or unrelated primes. Again, reaction times for the decisions are faster if the target is preceded by related word prime than by an unrelated word prime. This facilitation effect is partly due to automatic processes (Neely, 1977, Favreau & Segalowitz, 1983). Some bilingual studys found significant affective priming effects in the second language of proficient bilinguals (e.g. de Groot & Nas, 1991, Frenk & Pynte, 1987, Kirsner et al, 1984, Schwanenflugel & Rey, 1986, Tzelgov & Eben-Ezra, 1992, Williams, 1994). In the current study, the semantic priming task is used as an indication for participant's second language proficiency.

posted by gargichka @ 10:36 AM