Changes in brain activity during language learning in adults measured by magnetoencephalography

• Autores: Ainhoa Bastarrika Iriarte
• Directores de la Tesis: Cesar Caballero Gaudes (dir. tes.)
• Lectura: En la Universidad del País Vasco - Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea ( España ) en 2017
• Idioma: inglés
• Tribunal Calificador de la Tesis: Marcel Bastiaansen (presid.), Joana Acha (secret.), Lluís Fuentemilla Garriga (voc.)
• Materias:
  • Lingüística
    • Lingüística aplicada
      • Enseñanza de lenguas
• Enlaces
  • Tesis en acceso abierto en: ADDI
• Resumen

  • The main goal of this thesis was to characterize language-related short-term learning changes in the adult brain. Previous studies have mainly used longitudinal and cross-sectional designs and therefore they captured brain responses of already consolidated rules. On the other hand, studies that used on line or lab training, and therefore captured short-term changes, were conducted in EEG and provided no source correlates related to these changes. However, short-term and long-term learning seem to elicit different plastic changes hence, the anatomical-correlates of the MEG experiments carried out in this thesis would provide useful information to better understand which plastic changes occur in short-term learning. Subsets of natural languages (miniature languages) were used in two of the experiments in order to study short-term changes. It was hypothesized that miniature languages allow to capture language-related changes without the need of course-like long-lasting training. The third experiment was a memory task in participants' native language, and aimed to provide a better understanding of physiological memory functions, especially the role of oscillations in memory retrieval. Therefore, this thesis opens a door to a new way of studying L2 learning, providing anatomical correlates of short-term language related brain changes. // The main goal of this thesis was to characterize language-related short-term learning changes in the adult brain. Previous studies have mainly used longitudinal and cross-sectional designs and therefore they captured brain responses of already consolidated rules. On the other hand, studies that used on line or lab training, and therefore captured short-term changes, were conducted in EEG and provided no source correlates related to these changes. However, short-term and long-term learning seem to elicit different plastic changes hence, the anatomical-correlates of the MEG experiments carried out in this thesis would provide useful information to better understand which plastic changes occur in short-term learning. Subsets of natural languages (miniature languages) were used in two of the experiments in order to study short-term changes. It was hypothesized that miniature languages allow to capture language-related changes without the need of course-like long-lasting training. The third experiment was a memory task in participants' native language, and aimed to provide a better understanding of physiological memory functions, especially the role of oscillations in memory retrieval. Therefore, this thesis opens a door to a new way of studying L2 learning, providing anatomical correlates of short-term language related brain changes.