Title of dissertation: AUTOMATIC ACTIVATION OF SEMANTIC REPRESENTATION DURING SECOND LANGUAGE PROCESSING Written by: Sun Young Ahn, Doctor of Philosophy, 2015 Directed by: Professor Nan Jiang Department of Second Language Acquisition The present study is motivated by two questions. First, can late learners of a second language (L2), who begin learning after puberty and are unbalanced bilinguals...

Following an extensive overview of the subject, this study explores the relationships between secondlanguage (L2) explicit/implicit knowledge sources, embedded in the declarative/procedural memory systems, and L2 working memory (WM) capacity. It further examines the relationships between L2 reading comprehension and L2 WM capacity as well as those between L2 reading comprehension and L2 explici...

This paper discusses some of the general issues that involve the relationship between memory and L2 comprehension by focusing on the roles of auditory short-term memory (STM) in L2 listening processes. Specific research questions to be addressed here are: 1) What processes are involved in L2 listening comprehension?, 2) What roles does memory play in L1 and L2 listening comprehension processes?...

BACKGROUND/AIMS Many studies have shown that experienced second language (L2) learners are more skilled than novice L2 learners at a variety of L2 tasks, including auditory discrimination between members of L2 phonological contrasts. In this paper we argued that while L2 experience is typically beneficial when comparing the effects of more versus less experience, it is not necessarily beneficia...

This computational study integrates anatomical and physiological data to assess the functional role of the lateral excitatory connections between layer 2/3 (L2/3) pyramidal cells (PCs) in shaping their response during early stages of intracortical processing of a whisker deflection (WD). Based on in vivo and in vitro recordings, and 3D reconstructions of connected pairs of L2/3 PCs, our model p...

Stimulation of a principal whisker yields sparse action potential (AP) spiking in layer 2/3 (L2/3) pyramidal neurons in a cortical column of rat barrel cortex. The low AP rates in pyramidal neurons could be explained by activation of interneurons in L2/3 providing inhibition onto L2/3 pyramidal neurons. L2/3 interneurons classified as local inhibitors based on their axonal projection in the sam...