Abstract
Research indicates that the foreign language effect on decision making can be partially explained by a reduction in emotional response in the second language. In this fMRI study, we aimed at elucidating the neural mechanisms underpinning the interaction between language and emotion in decision making. Across multiple trials, Chinese–English bilinguals were asked to decide whether to gamble in a Gambling task, and received feedbacks either in L1 (Chinese) or in L2 (English). If they gambled, feedbacks were either positively or negatively valenced words; if they did not gamble, feedback was the word ‘safe’. We assessed how emotionally valenced words were processed in the two languages, and how this processing influenced subsequent decision making. Overall, we found evidence that in L2 context, but not in L1 context, loss aversion was mediated by the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) which also showed strong functional connectivity with the visual cortex, suggesting an avoidance mechanism for negative stimuli in L2. However, we also found an enhanced response to positive feedbacks in L2 compared to L1, as evidenced by greater activation of the hippocampus for win feedbacks compared to safe feedbacks in L2, eventually resulting in a greater tendency to gamble. Thus, foreign language influenced decision making by both regulating emotional response to negative stimuli and enhancing emotional response to positive stimuli. This study helps unveiling the neural bases of the interaction between language and emotion in the foreign language context.
Similar content being viewed by others
Data availability
The datasets generated and analyzed in this study are available in the Mendeley repository: http://dx.doi.org/10.17632/jxkpzk959b.1
References
Abutalebi J, Della Rosa PA, Ding G, Weekes B, Costa A, Green DW (2013) Language proficiency modulates the engagement of cognitive control areas in multilinguals. Cortex 49:905–911. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2012.08.018
Allan D (2004) Oxford placement test 2: test pack. Oxford University Press, Oxford. https://doi.org/10.1093/cercor/bhx183
Apps MAJ, Ramnani N (2017) Contributions of the medial prefrontal cortex to social influence in economic decision-making. Cereb Cortex 27:1–14. https://doi.org/10.1093/cercor/bhx183
Asgher U, Ahmad R, Ayaz Y, Naseer N, Ali L, Ruiz JA, Kole M (2017) Analyzing various functions of prefrontal cortex (PFC) in decision making via brain imaging techniques. In: Paper presented at the international conference on applied human factors and ergonomics. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-60747-4_23
Baumeister JC, Foroni F, Conrad M, Rumiati R, Winkielman P (2017) Embodiment and emotional memory in first vs. second language. Front Psychol 8:394. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00394
Bekhtereva V, Craddock M, Müller MM (2015) Attentional bias to affective faces and complex IAPS images in early visual cortex follows emotional cue extraction. Neuroimage 112:254–266. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2015.03.052
Benjamini Y, Yekutieli D (2001) The control of the false discovery rate in multiple testing under dependency. Ann Stat 29:1165–1188. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2674075
Blanco-Elorrieta E, Pylkkänen L (2018) Ecological validity in bilingualism research and the bilingual advantage. Trends Cogn Sci 22:1117–1126. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2018.10.001
Blanco-Elorrieta E, Emmorey K, Pylkkänen L (2018) Language switching decomposed through MEG and evidence from bimodal bilinguals. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 115:9708–9713. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1809779115
Bradley MM, Sabatinelli D, Lang PJ, Fitzsimmons JR, King W, Desai P (2003) Activation of the visual cortex in motivated attention. Behav Neurosci 117:369–380. https://doi.org/10.1037/0735-7044.117.2.369
Branzi FM, Della Rosa PA, Canini M, Costa A, Abutalebi J (2016) Language control in bilinguals: monitoring and response selection. Cereb Cortex 26:2367–2380. https://doi.org/10.1093/cercor/bhv052
Caldwell-Harris CL (2014) Emotionality differences between a native and foreign language: theoretical implications. Front Psychol 5:1055. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01055
Caldwell-Harris CL, Tong J, Lung W, Poo S (2011) Physiological reactivity to emotional phrases in Mandarin—English bilinguals. Int J Biling 15:329–352. https://doi.org/10.1177/1367006910379262
Caldwell-Harris C, Kronrod A, Yang J (2013) Do more, say less: saying “I love you” in Chinese and American cultures. Intercult Pragmat 10:41–69. https://doi.org/10.1515/ip-2013-0002
Chen P, Lin J, Chen B, Lu C, Guo T (2015) Processing emotional words in two languages with one brain: ERP and fMRI evidence from Chinese-English bilinguals. Cortex 71:34–48. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2015.06.002
Cheng M, Setoh P, Bornstein MH, Esposito G (2020) She thinks in English, but she wants in Mandarin: Differences in Singaporean bilingual English-Mandarin maternal mental-state-talk. Behav Sci 10:106. https://doi.org/10.3390/bs10070106
Christopoulos GI, Tobler PN, Bossaerts P, Dolan RJ, Schultz W (2009) Neural correlates of value, risk, and risk aversion contributing to decision making under risk. J Neurosci 29:12574–12583. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2614-09.2009
Chung YS, Poppe A, Novotny S, Epperson CN, Kober H, Granger DA et al (2019) A preliminary study of association between adolescent estradiol level and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex activity during emotion regulation. Psychoneuroendocrinology 109:104398. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psyneuen.2019.104398
Coltheart M (1981) The MRC psycholinguistic database. Q J Exp Psychol 33:497–505. https://doi.org/10.1080/14640748108400805
Costa A, Foucart A, Arnon I, Aparici M, Apesteguia J (2014) “Piensa” twice: on the foreign language effect in decision making. Cognition 130:236–254. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2013.11.010
Cox JG, Zlupko GM (2019) Individual differences in language experience and bilingual autobiographical memory. Int J Biling 23:1180–1194. https://doi.org/10.1177/1367006917728394
De Raedt R, Vanderhasselt M-A, Baeken C (2015) Neurostimulation as an intervention for treatment resistant depression: from research on mechanisms towards targeted neurocognitive strategies. Clin Psychol Rev 41:61–69. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2014.10.006
Dewaele J-M, Costa B (2013) Multilingual clients’ experience of psychotherapy. Lang Psychoanal 2:31–50
Dörfel D, Lamke JP, Hummel F, Wagner U, Erk S, Walter H (2014) Common and differential neural networks of emotion regulation by detachment, reinterpretation, distraction, and expressive suppression: a comparative fMRI investigation. Neuroimage 101:298–309. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2014.06.051
Dudschig C, de la Vega I, Kaup B (2014) Embodiment and second-language: automatic activation of motor responses during processing spatially associated L2 words and emotion L2 words in a vertical Stroop paradigm. Brain Lang 132:14–21. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bandl.2014.02.002
Eichenbaum H (2004) Hippocampus: cognitive processes and neural representations that underlie declarative memory. Neuron 44:109–120. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2004.08.028
Eichenbaum H (2007) Comparative cognition, hippocampal function, and recollection. Comp Cogn Behav iews 2:47–66. https://doi.org/10.3819/ccbr.2008.20003
El-Dakhs DAS, Altarriba J (2018) The distinctiveness of emotion words: does it hold for foreign language learners? The case of Arab EFL learners. J Psycholinguist Res 47:1133–1149. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10936-018-9583-6
El-Dakhs DAS, Altarriba J (2019) How do emotion word type and valence influence language processing? The case of Arabic-English bilinguals. J Psycholinguist Res 48:1063–1085. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10936-019-09647-w
Fan L, Xu Q, Wang X, Zhang F, Yang Y, Liu X (2016) Neural correlates of task-irrelevant first and second language emotion words—evidence from the emotional face–word Stroop task. Front Psychol 7:1672. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01672
Foroni F (2015) Do we embody second language? Evidence for ‘partial’ simulation during processing of a second language. Brain Cogn 99:8–16. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bandc.2015.06.006
Frank DW, Costa VD, Averbeck BB, Sabatinelli D (2019) Directional interconnectivity of the human amygdala, fusiform gyrus, and orbitofrontal cortex in emotional scene perception. J Neurophysiol 122:1530–1537. https://doi.org/10.1152/jn.00780.2018
Friston K, Buechel C, Fink G, Morris J, Rolls E, Dolan R (1997) Psychophysiological and modulatory interactions in neuroimaging. Neuroimage 6:218–229. https://doi.org/10.1006/nimg.1997.0291
Gao S, Zika O, Rogers RD, Thierry G (2015) Second language feedback abolishes the “Hot Hand” effect during even-probability gambling. J Neurosci 35:5983–5989. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3622-14.2015
Geipel J, Hadjichristidis C, Surian L (2015a) The foreign language effect on moral judgment: the role of emotions and norms. PLoS ONE 10:e0131529. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0131529
Geipel J, Hadjichristidis C, Surian L (2015b) How foreign language shapes moral judgment. J Exp Soc Psychol 59:8–17. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2015.02.001
Geipel J, Hadjichristidis C, Surian L (2016) Foreign language affects the contribution of intentions and outcomes to moral judgment. Cognition 154:34–39. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2016.05.010
Herbert C, Ethofer T, Anders S, Junghofer M, Wildgruber D, Grodd W, Kissler J (2009) Amygdala activation during reading of emotional adjectives—an advantage for pleasant content. Soc Cogn Affect ence 4:35–49. https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsn027
Iacozza S, Costa A, Duñabeitia JA (2017) What do your eyes reveal about your foreign language? Reading emotional sentences in a native and foreign language. PLoS ONE 12:e0186027. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0186027
Ivaz L, Costa A, Duñabeitia JA (2016) The emotional impact of being myself: emotions and foreign-language processing. J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn 42:489–496. https://doi.org/10.1037/xlm0000179
Jay T, Caldwell-Harris C, King K (2008) Recalling taboo and nontaboo words. Am J Psychol 121:83–103. https://doi.org/10.2307/20445445
Jończyk R, Boutonnet B, Musiał K, Hoemann K, Thierry G (2016) The bilingual brain turns a blind eye to negative statements in the second language. Cogn Affect Behav Neurosci 16:527–540. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13415-016-0411-x
Keil A, Sabatinelli D, Ding M, Lang PJ, Ihssen N, Heim S (2009) Re-entrant projections modulate visual cortex in affective perception: evidence from Granger causality analysis. Hum Brain Mapp 30:532–540. https://doi.org/10.1002/hbm.20521
Keysar B, Hayakawa SL, An SG (2012) The foreign-language effect: thinking in a foreign tongue reduces decision biases. Psychol Sci 23:661–668. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797611432178
Kluger BM, Triggs WJ (2007) Use of transcranial magnetic stimulation to influence behavior. Curr Neurol Neurosci Rep 7:491–497. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11910-007-0076-5
Knoch D, Gianotti LR, Pascual-Leone A, Treyer V, Regard M, Hohmann M, Brugger P (2006) Disruption of right prefrontal cortex by low-frequency repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation induces risk-taking behavior. J Neurosci 26:6469–6472. https://doi.org/10.1523/jneurosci.0804-06.2006
Kuznetsova A, Brockhoff PB, Christensen RHB (2017) lmerTest package: tests in linear mixed effects models. J Stat Softw 82:13. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.18637/jss.v082.i13
Liu J, Gu R, Liao C, Lu J, Fang Y, Xu P et al (2020) The neural mechanism of the social framing effect: evidence from fMRI and tDCS studies. J Neurosci 40:3646–3656. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1385-19.2020
Liu L, Margoni F, He Y, Liu H (2021) Neural substrates of the interplay between cognitive load and emotional involvement in bilingual decision making. Neuropsychologia 151:107721. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2020.107721
Lv C, Wang Q, Chen C, Qiu J, Xue G, He Q (2019) The regional homogeneity patterns of the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex predict individual differences in decision impulsivity. Neuroimage 200:556–561. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2019.07.015
Matsumoto A, Stanny C (2006) Language-dependent access to autobiographical memory in Japanese–English bilinguals and US monolinguals. Memory 14:378–390. https://doi.org/10.1080/09658210500365763
Miles S, Nancy K, Neuron J (2004) Numerical magnitude in the human parietal lobe; tests of representational generality and domain specificity. Neuron 44:557–569. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2004.10.008
Miller EK, Cohen JD (2001) An integrative theory of prefrontal cortex function. Annu Rev Neurosci 24:167–202. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.neuro.24.1.167
Molavi P, Aziziaram S, Basharpoor S, Atadokht A, Nitsche MA, Salehinejad MA (2020) Repeated transcranial direct current stimulation of dorsolateral-prefrontal cortex improves executive functions, cognitive reappraisal emotion regulation, and control over emotional processing in borderline personality disorder: a randomized, sham-controlled, parallel-group study. J Affect Disord 274:93–102. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2020.05.007
Monosov IE (2017) Anterior cingulate is a source of valence-specific information about value and uncertainty. Nat Commun 8:134. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-017-00072-y
Morawetz C, Bode S, Baudewig J, Heekeren HR (2017) Effective amygdala prefrontal connectivity predicts individual differences in successful emotion regulation. Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci 12:569–585. https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsw169
Nishitani S, Shinohara K (2013) NIRS as a tool for assaying emotional function in the prefrontal cortex. Front Hum Neurosci 7:770. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2013.00770
Nitsche MA, Cohen LG, Wassermann EM, Priori A, Lang N, Antal A et al (2008) Transcranial direct current stimulation: state of the art. Brain Stimul 1:206–223. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brs.2008.06.004
O’Reilly JX, Woolrich MW, Behrens TE, Smith SM, Johansen-Berg H (2012) Tools of the trade: psychophysiological interactions and functional connectivity. Soc Cogn Affect ence 7:604–609. https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nss055
Opitz B, Degner J (2012) Emotionality in a second language: it’s a matter of time. Neuropsychologia 50:1961–1967. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2012.04.021
Pavlenko A (2012) Affective processing in bilingual speakers: disembodied cognition? Int J Psychol 47:405–428. https://doi.org/10.1080/00207594.2012.743665
Ramirez S, Tonegawa S, Liu X (2014) Identification and optogenetic manipulation of memory engrams in the hippocampus. Front Behav Neurosci 7:226. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnbeh.2013.00226
Rolls ET (2018) The storage and recall of memories in the hippocampo-cortical system. Cell Tissue Res 373:577–604. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00441-017-2744-3
Sambuco N, Bradley M, Herring D, Hillbrandt K, Lang PJ (2020) Transdiagnostic trauma severity in anxiety and mood disorders: functional brain activity during emotional scene processing. Psychophysiology 57:e13349. https://doi.org/10.1111/psyp.13349
Sanchez A, Vanderhasselt M-A, Baeken C, De Raedt R (2016) Effects of tDCS over the right DLPFC on attentional disengagement from positive and negative faces: an eye-tracking study. Cogn Affect Behav Neurosci 16:1027–1038. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13415-016-0450-3
Sanchez-Lopez A, Vanderhasselt M-A, Allaert J, Baeken C, De Raedt R (2018) Neurocognitive mechanisms behind emotional attention: Inverse effects of anodal tDCS over the left and right DLPFC on gaze disengagement from emotional faces. Cogn Affect Behav Neurosci 18:485–494. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13415-018-0582-8
Santangelo V, Cavallina C, Colucci P, Santori A, Macrì S, McGaugh JL, Campolongo P (2018) Enhanced brain activity associated with memory access in highly superior autobiographical memory. Proc Natl Acad Sci 115:7795–7800. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1802730115
Schindler S, Kissler J (2016) Selective visual attention to emotional words: early parallel frontal and visual activations followed by interactive effects in visual cortex. Hum Brain Mapp 37:3575–3587. https://doi.org/10.1002/hbm.23261
Schrauf RW, Rubin DC (2000) Internal languages of retrieval: the bilingual encoding of memories for the personal past. Mem Cogn 28:616–623. https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03201251
Sheikh NA, Titone D (2015) The embodiment of emotional words in a second language: an eye-movement study. Cogn Emot 30:1–13. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2015.1018144
Sulpizio S, Toti M, Del Maschio N, Costa A, Fedeli D, Job R, Abutalebi J (2019) Are you really cursing? Neural processing of taboo words in native and foreign language. Brain Lang 194:84–92. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bandl.2019.05.003
Talmi D, Moscovitch M (2004) Can semantic relatedness explain the enhancement of memory for emotional words? Mem Cogn 32:742–751. https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03195864
Taylor SF, Martis B, Fitzgerald KD, Welsh RC, Abelson JL, Liberzon I et al (2006) Medial frontal cortex activity and loss-related responses to errors. J Neurosci 26:4063–4070. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.4709-05.2006
Trauer SM, Müller MM, Kotz SA (2019) Expectation gates neural facilitation of emotional words in early visual areas. Front Hum Neurosci 13:281. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2019.00281
Trémolière B, Maheux-Caron V, Lepage J-F, Blanchette I (2018) TDCS stimulation of the dlPFC selectively moderates the detrimental impact of emotion on analytical reasoning. Front Psychol 9:568. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00568
van Holstein M, Floresco SB (2020) Dissociable roles for the ventral and dorsal medial prefrontal cortex in cue-guided risk/reward decision making. Neuropsychopharmacology 45:683–693. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41386-019-0557-7
Vickery TJ, Jiang YV (2009) Inferior parietal lobule supports decision making under uncertainty in humans. Cereb Cortex 19:916–925. https://doi.org/10.1093/cercor/bhn140
Vidal A, Costa A, Foucart A (2019) Are our preferences and evaluations conditioned by the language context? Pre-print retrieved from https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/by38d
Vives ML, Aparici M, Costa A (2018) The limits of the foreign language effect on decision-making: the case of the outcome bias and the representativeness heuristic. PLoS ONE 13:e0203528. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0203528
Vorobyev V, Kwon MS, Moe D, Parkkola R, Hämäläinen H (2015) Risk-taking behavior in a computerized driving task: brain activation correlates of decision-making, outcome, and peer influence in male adolescents. PLoS ONE 10:e0129516. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0129516
Vukovic N, Shtyrov Y (2014) Cortical motor systems are involved in second-language comprehension: evidence from rapid mu-rhythm desynchronisation. Neuroimage 102:695–703. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2014.08.039
Warriner AB, Kuperman V, Brysbaert M (2013) Norms of valence, arousal, and dominance for 13,915 English lemmas. Behav Res Methods 45:1191–1207. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-012-0314-x
Woumans E, Van der Cruyssen I, Duyck W (2020) Crime and punishment: morality judgment in a foreign language. J Exp Psychol Gen. https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0000736
Wu YJ, Thierry G (2012) How reading in a second language protects your heart. J Neurosci 32:6485–6489. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.6119-11.2012
Xue G, Lu Z, Levin IP, Bechara A (2010) The impact of prior risk experiences on subsequent risky decision-making: the role of the insula. Neuroimage 50:709–716. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2009.12.097
Yan CG, Wang XD, Zuo XN, Zang YF (2016) DPABI: data processing & analysis for (resting-state) brain imaging. Neuroinformatics 14:339–351. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12021-016-9299-4
Zhang M, Liu T, Pelowski M, Jia H, Yu D (2017) Social risky decision-making reveals gender differences in the TPJ: a hyperscanning study using functional near-infrared spectroscopy. Brain Cogn 119:54–63. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bandc.2017.08.008
Zhang TR, Larosa A, Raddo M-ED, Wong V, Wong AS, Wong TP (2019) Negative memory engrams in the hippocampus enhance the susceptibility to chronic social defeat stress. J Neurosci 39:7576–7590. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1958-18.2019
Zheng L, Mobbs D, Yu R (2020) The behavioral and neural basis of foreign language effect on risk-taking. Neuropsychologia 136:e107290. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2019.107290
Zhu Y, Gao H, Tong L, Li Z, Wang L, Zhang C et al (2019) Emotion regulation of hippocampus using real-time fMRI neurofeedback in healthy human. Front Hum Neurosci 13:242. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2019.00242
Acknowledgements
This research was supported by a Grant from National Natural Science Foundation of China Youth Fund (31700991) and Liaoning Social Science Planning Fund of China (L20AYY001).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Supplementary Information
Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
He, Y., Margoni, F., Wu, Y. et al. fMRI evidence reveals emotional biases in bilingual decision making. Brain Struct Funct 226, 1405–1421 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00429-021-02246-3
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00429-021-02246-3