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[johnslat]

"Grammar Errors? The Brain Detects Them Even When You Are Unaware
May 13, 2013 �

Your brain often works on autopilot when it comes to grammar. That theory has been around for years, but University of Oregon neuroscientists have captured elusive hard evidence that people indeed detect and process grammatical errors with no awareness of doing so.
Participants in the study -- native-English speaking people, ages 18-30 -- had their brain activity recorded using electroencephalography, from which researchers focused on a signal known as the Event-Related Potential (ERP). This non-invasive technique allows for the capture of changes in brain electrical activity during an event. In this case, events were short sentences presented visually one word at a time.
Subjects were given 280 experimental sentences, including some that were syntactically (grammatically) correct and others containing grammatical errors, such as "We drank Lisa's brandy by the fire in the lobby," or "We drank Lisa's by brandy the fire in the lobby." A 50 millisecond audio tone was also played at some point in each sentence. A tone appeared before or after a grammatical faux pas was presented. The auditory distraction also appeared in grammatically correct sentences.
This approach, said lead author Laura Batterink, a postdoctoral researcher, provided a signature of whether awareness was at work during processing of the errors. "Participants had to respond to the tone as quickly as they could, indicating if its pitch was low, medium or high," she said. "The grammatical violations were fully visible to participants, but because they had to complete this extra task, they were often not consciously aware of the violations. They would read the sentence and have to indicate if it was correct or incorrect. If the tone was played immediately before the grammatical violation, they were more likely to say the sentence was correct even it wasn't."
When tones appeared after grammatical errors, subjects detected 89 percent of the errors. In cases where subjects correctly declared errors in sentences, the researchers found a P600 effect, an ERP response in which the error is recognized and corrected on the fly to make sense of the sentence.
When the tones appear before the grammatical errors, subjects detected only 51 percent of them. The tone before the event, said co-author Helen J. Neville, who holds the UO's Robert and Beverly Lewis Endowed Chair in psychology, created a blink in their attention. The key to conscious awareness, she said, is based on whether or not a person can declare an error, and the tones disrupted participants' ability to declare the errors. But, even when the participants did not notice these errors, their brains responded to them, generating an early negative ERP response. These undetected errors also delayed participants' reaction times to the tones.
"Even when you don't pick up on a syntactic error your brain is still picking up on it," Batterink said. "There is a brain mechanism recognizing it and reacting to it, processing it unconsciously so you understand it properly."
The study was published in the May 8 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience.
The brain processes syntactic information implicitly, in the absence of awareness, the authors concluded. "While other aspects of language, such as semantics and phonology, can also be processed implicitly, the present data represent the first direct evidence that implicit mechanisms also play a role in the processing of syntax, the core computational component of language."
It may be time to reconsider some teaching strategies, especially how adults are taught a second language, said Neville, a member of the UO's Institute of Neuroscience and director of the UO's Brain Development Lab.
Children, she noted, often pick up grammar rules implicitly through routine daily interactions with parents or peers, simply hearing and processing new words and their usage before any formal instruction. She likened such learning to "Jabberwocky," the nonsense poem introduced by writer Lewis Carroll in 1871 in "Through the Looking Glass," where Alice discovers a book in an unrecognizable language that turns out to be written inversely and readable in a mirror.
For a second language, she said, "Teach grammatical rules implicitly, without any semantics at all, like with jabberwocky. Get them to listen to jabberwocky, like a child does."
The National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders of the National Institutes of Health supported the research (grant 5R01DC000128)."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/05/130513131512.htm

Regards,
John

[coledavis]

I see a problem here. Having run a precise experiment on native speakers (I'm not keen on these distraction exercises personally, as they seem a way of tormenting the participant), there follows an exhortation to alter the teaching of non-native speakers. This is not valid, experimentally and theoretically.

If an experiment is run, using a sample of native speakers, there is no real evidence that the same results will apply to non-native speakers. A sample should be representative of a population and at the moment, that population does not include non-natives.

The claim that non-native speakers will study in a similar way to those who acquire language is a controversial one. Even should the experimental results be replicated with a non-native sample, I would be chary of urging the extrapolation of the results to teaching practice without some applied experimental work in that area. I.e. Do some limited experiments on classes using your new technique and see if it works, before telling the world and its sister to get out there and change its act.

[teacheratlarge]

I also have to wonder, is it normal to have electrodes attached to your head as you do tasks? I would opine no....

I think there is going to be some testing influence that should be factored in with this test as well. In other words, the subjects knew something was being tested, which normally skews the results. Hardly anything normal about it...

And how long would it take to get people to have a learner's brain run on autopilot for a second language (if ever)?

And one last question, what is your opinion on all this John?

[coledavis]

I am not troubled by the less intrusive experimental procedures. You get used to electrodes very quickly (unless the experiment includes synchronised swimming). Also, if everybody experiences the same experimental effects, then they are evened out, including the matter of awareness. However, the awareness will affect the outcome across the board as you suggest.

You have nailed the theoretical point on the head. At what point if ever does autopilot come on? (Think of the daft generally unqualified teachers who urge their students to 'think in English'.)

[johnslat]

Dear teacheratlarge,

My opinion - or rather reaction - is skepticism. However, I do tell my ESL students here in the States that probably the most valuable assets they can bring to the classroom are "smart ears" and "smart eyes." (How many times, when I ask a student, "So, why is that incorrect," do I get the answer, "It just doesn't look/sound right." Answer: a LOT)

Moreover, there's also what could be called "bad autopilot" - the existence and persistence "fossilized errors." Some of my students have been living in the States for many years before getting around to actually studying English. During that time, most of the English they've heard again and again (largely from other Hispanic immigrants) has exhibited the errors that are generally common to such immigrants (e.g. dropped -"s" with the present simple, third person singular, putting the adjective after the noun rather than before, etc.)

Still, I'm dubious about this:

"Children, she noted, often pick up grammar rules implicitly through routine daily interactions with parents or peers, simply hearing and processing new words and their usage before any formal instruction. She likened such learning to "Jabberwocky," the nonsense poem introduced by writer Lewis Carroll in 1871 in "Through the Looking Glass," where Alice discovers a book in an unrecognizable language that turns out to be written inversely and readable in a mirror.
For a second language, she said, "Teach grammatical rules implicitly, without any semantics at all, like with jabberwocky. Get them to listen to jabberwocky, like a child does."

mainly because I think there's a big difference between how the still very malleable mind of a child soaks up new languages as compared to how the much more "rigid" mind of an adult learner does.

Regards,
John

[lou_la]

Interesting paper, but the author does seem to make a very large jump from their findings to teaching methodology! It seems to be quite common - I've just moved from EFL into L2 speech research, and lots of my colleagues have no idea whatsoever about the process of actually learning/teaching a language.

EEG (the electrodes thing) research can be really interesting though - it can show up differences in brain processing that you're not aware of, or happen even if you're not paying attention to something. One nice aspect that is related to L2 is called the MMN - an effect you get if the participant can hear the difference between two sounds. There's been loads of research into testing people with phoneme contrasts that exist in the L2, but not their L1 (different vowels etc.) - so there is a reason why students often still have difficulties distinguishing some minimal pairs after years and years!

Here's a link to a classic MMN paper - it's interesting reading! And I think maybe more easily applied to the way we think about teaching (at least phoneme perception!). http://psych.ut.ee/~jyri/en/Nature1997.pdf

[BizLiz]

This is quite interesting and I thank you for posting it. It really makes me wonder how much of our thinking processes are subliminally automated. Thanks for the mental stimulation.

[HLJHLJ]

[scepticalbee]

Miracles happen: I do agree with you, HLJHLJ.
The report is really interesting but I'm wondering if this "rule" could be applied to non native speakers who really think that their errors are good English, sometimes. Besides, it's really difficult for them to correct these errors because they became used to them, just as they would with bad habits...