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Learning by Stimulation: Investigating the Effect of tDCS on Repetition Priming and Incidental Foreign Language Vocabulary Acquisition in Healthy Young Adults.

Joshua S. Payne1, 2*, Guillaume Thierry1, 2, Paul Mullins1 and Marie-Josephe Tainturier1, 2
  • 1 Bangor University, School of Psychology, United Kingdom
  • 2 Bangor University, Centre for Research on Bilingualism, United Kingdom

Overview The results from both repetition priming (Nickels, 2002) and incidental novel vocabulary acquisition tasks (Breitenstein et al., 2004) have been applied to make inferences about mechanisms of aphasia recovery. There is great potential for tDCS as an adjunct to aphasia rehabilitation (Crinion, 2016) but we require a clearer understanding of when and how tDCS interacts with various language processes in the healthy brain. In two studies, we contrasted the effect of tDCS on repetition priming (Study 1) and incidental vocabulary learning (Study 2) tasks. Study 1 Key psycholinguistic information and the number of repetitions of stimuli often go unreported in tDCS studies of language production. This raises the question of whether the observed tDCS effects are in fact due to uncontrolled psycholinguistic factors or whether tDCS effects are observed only when stimuli are primed. We directly compared the effects of tDCS applied over two core language regions and whether tDCS facilitated practiced items only (repetition priming), or generalized to un-repeated picture-naming stimuli. Method. Participants completed two stimulation sessions (active, sham) and named pictures from two of three carefully matched lists, before, during and after stimulation. Twenty minutes of 1.5mA tDCS was applied with anode centred over left IFG (n = 14) or pSTG (n = 14), during the second naming task. Results. A 4-way mixed ANOVA revealed robust repetition priming effects, but no effect of tDCS at either stimulation site or at any time point during or after stimulation (see Figure 1). Discussion. Repetition priming may result in ceiling effects for young adults, making it impossible to detect additional improvements associated with tDCS. It is still unclear what factors are driving previously reported tDCS enhancements in naming. Study 2 Learning tasks reduce the likelihood of ceiling effects, and may get closer to the application of stimulation to rehabilitation. Flöel et al. (2008) first demonstrated significant tDCS-induced improvement in vocabulary acquisition. The primary aim of study 2 was to explore the effect of tDCS during acquisition of a novel foreign language and the degree of transfer to a translation task in the short and medium term (cf. Savill et al., 2015). Method. We adapted the incidental vocabulary learning task of Flöel et al. during acquisition. Pictures were displayed with aurally present Dutch words and we presented cognates and non-cognates to explore the effects of tDCS on phonological overlap. Young, monolingual English speakers, with no knowledge of Dutch, completed three testing sessions over consecutive days. During the acquisition phase 20mins of 1mA tDCS (active, sham) was delivered over left pSTG. Immediately following stimulation, and the day after, participants completed an L2-L1 translation task to assess acquisition and maintenance. Expected Results and Implications. This study is ongoing but behavioural piloting confirm no ceiling effects. We expect greater improvement in overall vocabulary acquisition during active versus sham stimulation, with transfer to translation tasks, in the short and longer term. Different levels of improvement as a function of phonological overlap could have substantial implications for stimulus selection in rehabilitation and learning studies utilising tDCS.

Figure 1
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Acknowledgements

This work was funded by an ESRC 1 + 3 studentship (1367164) awarded to Joshua Payne

References

Breitenstein, C., Kampling, S., Jansen, A., Schomacher, M., & Knecht, S. (2004). Word learning can be achieved without feedback: Implications for aphasia therapy. Restorative Neurology and Neuroscience, 22(6), 445-458.
Crinion, J. T. (2016). Transcranial direct current stimulation as a novel method for enhancing aphasia treatment effects. European Psychologist, 21, 65-77. doi:10.1027/1016-9040/ a000254
Flöel, A., Rösser, N., & Michka, O. Knecht, S., Breitenstein, C. (2008). Noninvasive brain stimulation improves language learning. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 20(8), 1415–1422. doi: 10.1162/jocn.2008.20098
Nickels, L. (2002). Improving word finding: Practice makes (closer to) perfect? Aphasiology, 16, 1047-1060. doi:10.1080/02687040143000618
Savill, N., Ashton, J., Gugliuzza, J., Poole, C., Sim, Z., Ellis, A. W., & Jefferies, E. (2015). tDCS to temporoparietal cortex during familiarisation enhances the subsequent phonological coherence of nonwords in immediate serial recall. Cortex, 63, 132-144. doi: 10.1016/j.cortex.2014.08.018

Keywords: tDCS, Repetition Priming, Incidental vocabulary acquisition, foreign language learning, neuroenhancement

Conference: 54th Annual Academy of Aphasia Meeting, Llandudno, United Kingdom, 16 Oct - 18 Oct, 2016.

Presentation Type: Poster Sessions

Topic: Student Submissions

Citation: Payne JS, Thierry G, Mullins P and Tainturier M (2016). Learning by Stimulation: Investigating the Effect of tDCS on Repetition Priming and Incidental Foreign Language Vocabulary Acquisition in Healthy Young Adults.
. Front. Psychol. Conference Abstract: 54th Annual Academy of Aphasia Meeting. doi: 10.3389/conf.fpsyg.2016.68.00048

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Received: 28 Apr 2016; Published Online: 15 Aug 2016.

* Correspondence: Mr. Joshua S Payne, Bangor University, School of Psychology, Bangor, Gwynedd, United Kingdom, joshua.payne@glyndwr.ac.uk