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The Interaction of Language Processing, Emotion, and Deception: Behavioral and fNIRS Evidence from Chinese-English Bilinguals
Poster Session F, Friday, October 2, 2:45 - 4:45 pm, Wangari Maathai
Tianyi Zhu1, Zheyan Cao2, Kehui Zhang3; 1Vanderbilt University, 2Chinese University of Hong Kong, 3Chinese University of Hong Kong Shenzhen
Second-language (L2) processing is associated with emotional distance and higher cognitive demand compared to the first language (L1), while deception is associated with higher emotional arousal and cognitive demand. This overlap in cognitive demands, alongside opposing patterns of emotional arousal, makes their interplay a critical question for understanding the language and social behavior of deception. Despite this theoretically important overlap, most prior studies have examined bilingual emotional processing and deceptive behavior in isolation. The present study examined how language context (L1 vs. L2), deception, and emotional arousal jointly influence behavioral performance and neural activation during deceptive responses. Fifty-four Chinese-English bilingual adults (14 males, 40 females; age range: 18–26 years) completed a within-subject deception task simultaneously with fNIRS recording. They were instructed to respond truthfully or deceptively to factual and emotional questions in Mandarin Chinese (L1) and English (L2). Behavioral data were analyzed using linear mixed-effects models. fNIRS data were preprocessed using spline interpolation and wavelet filtering, followed by general linear modeling and group-level t-tests and linear mixed-effects analyses with FDR correction. Behaviorally, truthful responses were faster than deceptive responses; L1 responses were faster than L2; and responses to factual prompts were faster than emotional ones. The slowing effect of L2 was amplified during emotional trials. Moreover, higher English proficiency predicted faster L2 responses, suggesting that greater language automaticity reduced processing demands during deception. Neuroimaging analyses found significant activation during emotional deception in L1 in the left inferior frontal gyrus and right superior temporal gyrus, regions associated with cognitive control, language processing, and social-emotional integration. No significant activation was found for deception in L2 or for factual deception in L1. English proficiency was not a significant predictor of neural activation after FDR correction. These findings suggest that deceptive behavior in bilinguals is dynamically modulated by both emotional content and language context. Although emotional distance theory predicts lower arousal and faster responses in L2, our behavioral results showed the opposite tendency, likely because the cognitive load imposed by emotional processing exceeds any attenuation effect. In addition, the neural signature of emotional deception uniquely observed in L1 suggests an emotional buffering effect in L2, reflecting reduced emotional involvement when lying in a second language. This study advances understanding of how bilingualism modulates deceptive behavior at behavioral and neural levels, with implications for future research on language and emotion.
Topic Areas: Multilingualism, Control, Selection, and Executive Processes