Do bilinguals show neural differences with monolinguals when processing their native language?

Palomar-García, María-Ángeles; Bueichekú, Elisenda; Ávila, César; Sanjuán, Ana; Strijkers, Kristof; Ventura‐Campos, Noelia; Costa, Albert

doi:10.1016/j.bandl.2015.01.004

Cited by 30 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…In other words, the neural codes for representing concepts in simple literal sentences are similar regardless of whether a person knows one language or two. This finding is consistent with a number of studies that compared activation patterns between monolinguals and bilinguals and found many commonalities and few differences between the two groups (Isel, Baumgaertner, Thrän, Meisel, & Büchel, 2010;Palomar-García et al, 2015;Parker Jones et al, 2012). At the same time, the findings do not imply that the neural processing of concepts in the bilingual brain is identical to the processing in the monolingual brain.…”

Section: Commonalities Between Bilinguals and Monolinguals In Semantisupporting

confidence: 90%

Commonality of neural representations of sentences across languages: Predicting brain activation during Portuguese sentence comprehension using an English-based model of brain function

et al. 2017

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Keywords:Cross-language commonality, sentence representations in bilinguals, Predictive modeling of sentence representations, Meta-language brain locations in sentence processing ABSTRACTThe aim of the study was to test the cross-language generative capability of a model that predicts neural activation patterns evoked by sentence reading, based on a semantic characterization of the sentence. In a previous study on English monolingual speakers (Wang, Cherkassky, & Just, submitted), a computational model performed a mapping from a set of 42 concept-level semantic features (Neurally Plausible Semantic Features, NPSFs) as well as 6 thematic role markers to neural activation patterns (assessed with fMRI), to predict activation levels in a network of brain locations. The model used two types of information gained from the English-based fMRI data to predict the activation for individual sentences in Portuguese. First, it used the mapping weights from NPSFs to voxel activation levels derived from the model for English reading. Second, the brain locations for which the activation levels were predicted were derived from a factor analysis of the brain activation patterns during English reading. These meta-language locations were defined by the clusters of voxels with high loadings on each of the four main dimensions (factors), namely people, places, actions and feelings, underlying the neural representations of the stimulus sentences.This cross-language model succeeded in predicting the brain activation patterns associated with the reading of 60 individual Portuguese sentences that were entirely new to the model, attaining accuracies reliably above chance level. The prediction accuracy was not affected by whether the Portuguese speaker was monolingual or Portuguese-English bilingual. The model's confusion errors indicated an accurate capture of the events or states described in the sentence at a conceptual level. Overall, the cross-language predictive capability of the model demonstrates the neural commonality between speakers of different languages in the representations of everyday events and states, and provides an initial characterization of the common meta-language neural basis.

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Section: Commonalities Between Bilinguals and Monolinguals In Semantisupporting

confidence: 90%

Commonality of neural representations of sentences across languages: Predicting brain activation during Portuguese sentence comprehension using an English-based model of brain function

et al. 2017

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“…On the other hand, weaker activation has also been found in the bilateral frontal and occipital cortices during Chinese (L1) word reading after the semantics of an artificial language (L2) was learned in a group of Chinese speaking adults (Mei et al, 2014), suggesting the orthographic and semantic processing of L1, mediated by frontal and occipital activation, may be more vulnerable to the influence of a new language in comparison to the phonological or syntactic processing of L1. Interestingly, one study has found not only weaker activation in the classical leftlateralized language areas (e.g., left middle temporal gyrus, left inferior occipital gyrus), but also stronger activation in some non-typical language areas (e.g., posterior cingulate cortex, right superior temporal gyrus) for Spanish-Catalan early bilinguals as compared to Spanish monolinguals during Spanish (L1) picture naming (Palomar-García et al, 2015), suggesting early bilinguals utilize a more distributed and less efficient network for L1 processing than monolinguals. Recent ERP studies have also suggested native language changes during L2 acquisition (Chang, 2013), even during early stages of L2 learning (Bice & Kroll, 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

L1 and L2 processing in the bilingual brain: A meta-analysis of neuroimaging studies

2016

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“…Finally, bilinguals and monolinguals showed no statistically significant differences in behavior or brain activity while performing the living/nonliving task in the scanner for English words. Several studies have found that monolinguals tend to perform better than bilinguals when processing words in a single language (Gollan, Montoya, & Bonanni, 2005; Gollan, Montoya, Fennema-Notestine, & Morris, 2005; Palomar-Garcia et al, 2015). Our language proficiency assessment which involved picture naming outside of the scanner revealed that when naming in English, monolinguals scored higher than bilinguals.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond the bilingual advantage: The potential role of genes and environment on the development of cognitive control

Hernández

Greene

Vaughn

et al. 2015

Journal of Neurolinguistics

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In recent years there has been considerable debate about the presence or absence of a bilingual advantage in tasks that involve cognitive control. Our previous work has established evidence of differences in brain activity between monolinguals and bilinguals in both word learning and in the avoidance of interference during a picture selection task. Recent models of cognitive control have highlighted the importance of a set of neural structures that may show differential tuning due to exposure to two languages. There is also evidence that genetic factors play a role in the availability of dopamine in neural structures involved in cognitive control. Thus, it is important to investigate whether there are interactions effects generating variability in language acquisition when attributed to genetic (e.g., characteristics of dopamine turnover) and environmental (e.g., exposure to two languages) factors. Here preliminary results from genotyping of a sample of bilingual and monolingual individuals are reported. They reveal different distributions in allele frequencies of the DRD2/ANKK1 taq1A polymorphism. These results bring up the possibility that bilinguals may exhibit additional flexibility due to differences in genetic characteristics relative to monolinguals. Future studies should consider genotype as a possible contributing factor to the development of cognitive control across individuals with different language learning histories.

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Do bilinguals show neural differences with monolinguals when processing their native language?

Cited by 30 publications

References 42 publications

Commonality of neural representations of sentences across languages: Predicting brain activation during Portuguese sentence comprehension using an English-based model of brain function

Commonality of neural representations of sentences across languages: Predicting brain activation during Portuguese sentence comprehension using an English-based model of brain function

L1 and L2 processing in the bilingual brain: A meta-analysis of neuroimaging studies

Beyond the bilingual advantage: The potential role of genes and environment on the development of cognitive control

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