English ability and cognitive change seen in brain images

• Project/Area Number: 26370696
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Foreign language education
• Research Institution: Gifu University
• Principal Investigator: KASAI Chise 岐阜大学, 地域科学部, 准教授 (90352450)
• Project Period (FY): 2014-04-01 – 2017-03-31
• Project Status: Completed (Fiscal Year 2016)
• Budget Amount: ¥4,550,000 (Direct Cost: ¥3,500,000、Indirect Cost: ¥1,050,000); Fiscal Year 2016: ¥1,300,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,000,000、Indirect Cost: ¥300,000); Fiscal Year 2015: ¥1,300,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,000,000、Indirect Cost: ¥300,000); Fiscal Year 2014: ¥1,950,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,500,000、Indirect Cost: ¥450,000)
• Keywords: 第二言語習得 / バイリンガルの認知 / Bilingual cognition

Outline of Final Research Achievements

The current study investigated the effects of second language acquisition on learners' cognition. From psychological experiment it was revealed that there was a cognitive difference between high and low English proficiency groups. From an fMRI study, the results showed that even if the learner's second language proficiency was high, the brain regions responsible for processing second language grammar were different from that of native speakers. Also, it was found that working memory plays an important role for the process of second language grammar.

Research Products

• [Journal Article] Shape / material preference on an intem categorizing task : cases of monolingual and bilingual speakers of German and Japanese (2017)
  • Author(s): Chise KASAI, Misaki MINOURA and Lucas SINCLAIR
  • Journal Title: Bulletin of the Faculty of Regional Studies, Gifu University Volume: 40 Pages: 35-41
  • Open Access
• [Journal Article] A Game-Pragmatic Approach to Interpreting Ambiguous Utterances (2017)
  • Author(s): Chise KASAI, and Lucas SINCLAIR
  • Journal Title: Bulletin of the Faculty of Regional Studies, Gifu University Volume: 40 Pages: 29-34
  • NAID: 120006342083
  • Open Access
• [Journal Article] Preliminary Description of a Toy Model for Bilingual Concepts (2016)
  • Author(s): Chise KASAI, and Lucas SINCLAIR
  • Journal Title: Bulletin of the Faculty of Regional Studies, Gifu University Volume: 38 Pages: 65-72
  • NAID: 110010001589
  • Open Access
• [Journal Article] Preliminary Description of a Toy Model for Bilingual Concepts (2015)
  • Author(s): Chise KASAI, Lucas SINCLAIR
  • Journal Title: Bulletin of the Faculty of Regional Studies, Gifu University Volume: 38 Pages: 65-72
  • NAID: 110010001589
  • Open Access
• [Journal Article] A preliminary report on a correlation between the Minimal English Test and the Music Ability Test (2015)
  • Author(s): Chise KASAI, Kenichi HAYASHI, Lucas SINCLAIR, Yo HAMADA
  • Journal Title: Bulletin of the Faculty of Regional Studies, Gifu University Volume: 37 Pages: 19-24
  • NAID: 120006341981
  • Open Access
• [Journal Article] Game Theory, Pragmatics, and Conceptual Spaces (2015)
  • Author(s): Chise KASAI, Lucas, SINCLAIR
  • Journal Title: Bulletin of the Faculty of Regional Studies, Gifu University Volume: 37 Pages: 25-34
  • NAID: 110009934998
  • Open Access
• [Journal Article] A preliminary report on a correlation between the Minimal English Test and German Diploma in Japan : Future possibilities of measuring third language learners’ second language proficiency (2015)
  • Author(s): Chise KASAI, Yidan ZHANG, Lucas SINCLAIR
  • Journal Title: Bulletin of the Faculty of Regional Studies, Gifu University Volume: 36 Pages: 59-64
  • NAID: 120006341898
• [Journal Article] A preliminary report – the effect of the Minimal English Test for Listening, the results from 2012 and 2013 (2014)
  • Author(s): Chise KASAI, Lucas SINCLAIR, Jun. A. TAKAHASHI, Natsumi HATTORI, , Misaki MINOURA, Rin MIURA, and Yidan ZHANG
  • Journal Title: Bulletin of the Faculty of Regional Studies, Gifu University Volume: 35 Pages: 63-67
  • NAID: 40020206159
• [Presentation] Brain activation associated with Japanese case particles processing - Comparison between native and non-native speakers of Japanese (2017)
  • Author(s): Chise KASAI, Motofumi SUMIYA, Takahiko KOIKE, Takaaki YOSHIMOTO, Naoya AOKI, Norihiro SADATO
  • Organizer: The 17th Annual Conference of the Japan Second Language Association (J-SLA2017)
  • Place of Presentation: Shizuoka University of Art and Culture
  • Year and Date: 2017-06-03
  • Int'l Joint Research
• [Presentation] Neural Substrates of Automatized Syntactic Processes (2016)
  • Author(s): Chise KASAI, Motofumi SUMIYA, Naoya AOKI, Mika YAMAZAKI-MURASE and Norihiro SADATO
  • Organizer: The Seventh CLS International Conference CLaSIC 2016
  • Place of Presentation: National University of Singapore
  • Year and Date: 2016-12-01
  • Int'l Joint Research
• [Presentation] Bilingual Cognition? Comparison Between Monolingual and Bilingual Speakers on an Item Categorisation Task (2016)
  • Author(s): Chise KASAI, Lucas SINCLAIR, and Tim PALMROOS
  • Organizer: Pacific Second Language Research Forum: PacSLRF, Japan Second Language Association: J-SLA
  • Place of Presentation: Chuo University, Tama Campus
  • Year and Date: 2016-09-09
  • Int'l Joint Research
• [Presentation] Is a musically talented person also talented at learning English? A correlation between English proficiency and the Music Ability Test (MAT) (2015)
  • Author(s): Chise KASAI, Kenichi HAYASHI, Lucas SINCLAIR, & Yo HAMADA
  • Organizer: The 17th Annual International Conference of the Japanese Society for Language Sciences (JSLS2015)
  • Place of Presentation: Beppu International Convention Center (B-ConPlaza)
  • Year and Date: 2015-07-18
  • Int'l Joint Research
• [Presentation] Does music learning experience help learning English? - A correlation between English proficiency and the Music Ability Test (MAT) (2015)
  • Author(s): Kenichi HAYASHI, Chise KASAI, Sinclair, Lucas SINCLAIR, & Yo HAMADA
  • Organizer: The 15th Annual Conference of the Japan Second Language Association (J-SLA2015)
  • Place of Presentation: Hiroshima University
  • Year and Date: 2015-06-06
  • Int'l Joint Research
• [Presentation] English proficiency and cognitive changes, the case of Japanese high school students learning English (2014)
  • Author(s): Chise Kasai, Jun A. Takahashi, Lucas Sinclair, Natsumi Hattori, Kenichi Hayashi, Rin Miura, & Yidan Zhang
  • Organizer: The Sixth CLS International Conference (CLaSIC 2014)
  • Place of Presentation: The National University of Singapore
  • Year and Date: 2014-12-04 – 2014-12-06
• [Presentation] Bilingual perception- Analytic-holistic difference and second language proficiency (2014)
  • Author(s): Chise Kasai, Jun A. Takahashi, Lucas Sinclair, Natsumi Hattori, Kenichi Hayashi, Rin Miura, & Yidan Zhang
  • Organizer: The 16th Annual International Conference of the Japanese Society for Language Sciences (JSLS20134)
  • Place of Presentation: Bunkyo University
  • Year and Date: 2014-06-28 – 2014-06-29
• [Presentation] Bilingual Cognition – Is English learned in Japan cognitively effective? (2014)
  • Author(s): Chise KASAI, Lucas Sinclair, Jun A. TAKAHASHI, Natsumi HATTORI, Arisa IWAI, Misaki MINOURA, Rin MIURA, Yidan ZHANG
  • Organizer: The 14th Annual Conference of the Japan Second Language Association,
  • Place of Presentation: Kwansei Gakuin University, Nishinomiya Uegahara
  • Year and Date: 2014-05-31 – 2014-06-01