The Quicker, the Better? L2 Proficiency, Reaction Time, and Brain Activation

摘要

The current paper aims to examine the reliability of reaction time (RT) as an index for L2 proficiency. Eleven Japanese learners of English were made to identify antonymy of paired words presented in their L2 and L1 in order whilst in an MRI machine. Analyses showed that 1) RT is sensitive to difference of task type, 2) RT in an L2 lexical task is largely independent from a practice effect, 3) RT in L2 and L1 lexical tasks are hardly correlated with the volume of brain activation (VBA), and 4) both RT and VBA are modestly correlated with L2 general proficiency, but the validity of a regression model is not statistically significant.