Cultural and linguistic influence on brain organization for language and possible consequences for dyslexia: A review

Johansson, Barbro

doi:10.1007/s11881-006-0002-6

Cited by 14 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 185 publications

(183 reference statements)

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“…The success of this adaptation suggests that the same framework can be applied to understanding reading skill across a wide variety of languages, despite gross differences in their surface properties. This is a critical first step in providing a mechanistic explanation of many cross-linguistic phenomena, including the differential impact of factors that predict reading success (McBride-Chang, Chao, Liu, et al, 2005; Shu, Peng, & McBride-Chang, 2008), differences in the prevalence of developmental disorders of reading (Johansson, 2006; Shu, McBride-Chang, Wu, & Liu, 2006; Shu, Meng, Chen, Luan, & Cao, 2005) and patterns of reading disorder subsequent to brain injury (Bi, Han, Weekes, & Shu, 2007; Jefferies, Sage, & Ralph, 2007; Woollams, Lambon Ralph, Plaut, & Patterson, 2007). …”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Simulating language-specific and language-general effects in a statistical learning model of Chinese reading

Yang

McCandliss

Shu

et al. 2009

Journal of Memory and Language

114

137

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Many theoretical models of reading assume that different writing systems require different processing assumptions. For example, it is often claimed that print-to-sound mappings in Chinese are not represented or processed sub-lexically. We present a connectionist model that learns the print to sound mappings of Chinese characters using the same functional architecture and learning rules that have been applied to English. The model predicts an interaction between item frequency and printto-sound consistency analogous to what has been found for English, as well as a language-specific regularity effect particular to Chinese. Behavioral naming experiments using the same test items as the model confirmed these predictions. Corpus properties and the analyses of internal representations that evolved over training revealed that the model was able to capitalize on information in "phonetic components" -sub-lexical structures of variable size that convey probabilistic information about pronunciation. The results suggest that adult reading performance across very different writing systems may be explained as the result of applying the same learning mechanisms to the particular input statistics of writing systems shaped by both culture and the exigencies of communicating spoken language in a visual medium. KeywordsReading; Computer Simulation; Cross Cultural Differences Over the past three decades, computational models have become increasingly sophisticated in accounting for a broad range of phenomena and specifying the mechanisms underlying skilled reading and its acquisition (see reviews in, e.g., Rayner, Foorman, Perfetti, Pesetsky, & Seidenberg, 2001;Plaut, 2005). The vast majority of this work has been done in English, and has thus focused on issues arising from the particularities of its writing system (Share, 2008). This has led to the construction of models that implement relatively writing system specific assumptions, such as the inclusion of distinct processing mechanisms for "sub-lexical" and "lexical" translation from spelling to sound (Coltheart, Curtis, Atkins, & Haller, 1993;Coltheart, Rastle, Perry, Langdon, & Ziegler, 2001). An alternative approach has been to assume that reading skill is acquired by way of domain-general learning mechanisms that operate over distributed representations of basic levels of information, such as orthography, © 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.Address for Correspondence: Jason D. Zevin, Sackler Institute, Weill Cornell Medical College, 1300 York Ave., Box 140, New York, NY, 10065, Tel: 212-746-3781, E-mail: jdz2001@med.cornell.edu. Publisher's Disclaimer: This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final citable form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and a...

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Simulating language-specific and language-general effects in a statistical learning model of Chinese reading

Yang

McCandliss

Shu

et al. 2009

Journal of Memory and Language

114

137

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Tan et al (Siok, Perfetti, Jin, & Tan, 2004; Siok, Niu, Jin, Perfetti, & Tan, 2008) explored the structural-functional basis of development dyslexia in Chinese readers using functional MRI, and found that the biological basis of impaired reading was dependent on culture. For readers of alphabetic writing systems (e.g., English), dyslexia was associated with dysfunction of the left temporoparietal and occipitotemporal regions (Aylward et al, 2003; Horwitz, Rumsey, & Donohue, 1998; Johansson, 2006; Shaywitz et al, 1998; Sun, Lee, & Kirby, 2010; Temple et al, 2003). For readers of logographic writing systems (e.g., Chinese), impaired reading was associated with structural and functional abnormalities of the left middle frontal gyrus.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Brain structure differences between Chinese and Caucasian cohorts: A comprehensive morphometry study

Tang

Zhao²,

Lou

et al. 2018

Human Brain Mapping

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Numerous behavioral observations and brain function studies have demonstrated that neurological differences exist between East Asians and Westerners. However, the extent to which these factors relate to differences in brain structure is still not clear. As the basis of brain functions, the anatomical differences in brain structure play a primary and critical role in the origination of functional and behavior differences. To investigate the underlying differences in brain structure between the two cultural/ethnic groups, we conducted a comparative study on education-matched right-handed young male adults (age = 22-29 years) from two cohorts, Han Chinese (n = 45) and Caucasians (n = 45), using high-dimensional structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data. Using two well-validated imaging analysis techniques, surface-based morphometry (SBM) and voxel-based morphometry (VBM), we performed a comprehensive vertex-wise morphometric analysis of the brain structures between Chinese and Caucasian cohorts. We identified consistent significant between-group differences in cortical thickness, volume, and surface area in the frontal, temporal, parietal, occipital, and insular lobes as well as the cingulate cortices. The SBM analyses revealed that compared with Caucasians, the Chinese population showed larger cortical structures in the temporal and cingulate regions, and smaller structural measures in the frontal and parietal cortices. The VBM data of the same sample was well-aligned with the SBM findings. Our findings systematically revealed comprehensive brain structural differences between young male Chinese and Caucasians, and provided new neuroanatomical insights to the behavioral and functional distinctions in the two cultural/ethnic populations.

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“…Code-switching is taken as a sign of bilingual proficiency (Poplack, 1980 ; Lucas and Valli, 1992 ), and it is heavily used as an in-group sociolinguistic phenomenon in highly bilingual communities (Bhatt and Bolonyai, 2011 ). Nevertheless, it cannot be said that young bilingual children's languages are completely separate (Unsworth, 2013 ). We conclude, then, that the best tack to take toward understanding the development of bilingualism is to model the adult state and to see how children move toward achieving this state.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Language choice in bimodal bilingual development

et al. 2014

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Bilingual children develop sensitivity to the language used by their interlocutors at an early age, reflected in differential use of each language by the child depending on their interlocutor. Factors such as discourse context and relative language dominance in the community may mediate the degree of language differentiation in preschool age children. Bimodal bilingual children, acquiring both a sign language and a spoken language, have an even more complex situation. Their Deaf parents vary considerably in access to the spoken language. Furthermore, in addition to code-mixing and code-switching, they use code-blending—expressions in both speech and sign simultaneously—an option uniquely available to bimodal bilinguals. Code-blending is analogous to code-switching sociolinguistically, but is also a way to communicate without suppressing one language. For adult bimodal bilinguals, complete suppression of the non-selected language is cognitively demanding. We expect that bimodal bilingual children also find suppression difficult, and use blending rather than suppression in some contexts. We also expect relative community language dominance to be a factor in children's language choices. This study analyzes longitudinal spontaneous production data from four bimodal bilingual children and their Deaf and hearing interlocutors. Even at the earliest observations, the children produced more signed utterances with Deaf interlocutors and more speech with hearing interlocutors. However, while three of the four children produced >75% speech alone in speech target sessions, they produced <25% sign alone in sign target sessions. All four produced bimodal utterances in both, but more frequently in the sign sessions, potentially because they find suppression of the dominant language more difficult. Our results indicate that these children are sensitive to the language used by their interlocutors, while showing considerable influence from the dominant community language.

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Cultural and linguistic influence on brain organization for language and possible consequences for dyslexia: A review

Cited by 14 publications

References 185 publications

Simulating language-specific and language-general effects in a statistical learning model of Chinese reading

Simulating language-specific and language-general effects in a statistical learning model of Chinese reading

Brain structure differences between Chinese and Caucasian cohorts: A comprehensive morphometry study

Language choice in bimodal bilingual development

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