Neural Correlates of Orthographic Access in Mandarin Chinese Writing: An fMRI Study of the Word-Frequency Effect

Abstract

Writing is an essential tool for human communication and involves multiple linguistic, cognitive, and motor processes. Chinese, a logographic writing system, differs remarkably from the writing systems of alphabetic languages. The neural substrates of Chinese writing are largely unknown. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in a copying task, this study probed the neural underpinnings of orthographic access during Mandarin Chinese writing by employing the word-frequency effect. The results showed that writing low-frequency characters evoked greater activation in the bilateral superior/middle/inferior frontal gyrus, superior/inferior parietal lobule, and fusiform gyrus than writing high-frequency characters. Moreover, psychophysiological interaction (PPI) analysis demonstrated that the word-frequency effect modulated functional connectivity within the frontal-occipital networks and the parietal-occipital networks. Together, these findings illustrate the neural correlates of orthographic access for Mandarin Chinese writing, shedding new light on the cognitive architecture of writing across various writing systems.

Men and women differ in the neural basis of handwriting

“…The Chinese characters used by this study are more visually complex stimuli than the French words used by Planton et al (), which would lead to a difference in demand for visual–spatial processing. The visual representation of Chinese characters is more likely to be bilateral in Chinese written systems (Wu, Ho, & Chen, ), and thus the visual word regions show bilateral activation during Chinese writing (Cao & Perfetti, ; Yang et al, ; Yang et al, ). This claim warrants testing in further studies comparing brain activation patterns between Chinese and alphabetic writing systems.…”

“…Word frequency is a vital language factor that influences orthographic access and motor execution during handwriting (Kandel & Perret, ; Qu, Zhang, & Damian, ; S. Roux, Mckeeff, Grosjacques, Afonso, & Kandel, ; Zhang & Cheng, ). Previous fMRI studies have demonstrated that word frequency modulates brain activity related to handwriting in superior/middle frontal gyrus, inferior parietal lobule and fusiform gyrus (Rapp & Dufor, ; Yang et al, ). Thus, word frequency was taken into account to test the influence of this language factor on sex differences in handwriting.…”

Tablet Technology for Writing and Drawing during Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging: A Review

“…For example, Mandarin Chinese has a logographic writing system, whereas Germanic languages like English and Romance languages like Italian have an alphabetic writing system. Recently, tablet prototype 1 was employed in several fMRI studies to examine the neural correlates of Chinese writing [ 89 , 90 , 91 ]. In an fMRI study of the brain activity associated with orthographic access during Chinese writing in 34 healthy young adults, a delayed copying task on high and low frequency Chinese characters was administered [ 89 ].…”

“…Recently, tablet prototype 1 was employed in several fMRI studies to examine the neural correlates of Chinese writing [ 89 , 90 , 91 ]. In an fMRI study of the brain activity associated with orthographic access during Chinese writing in 34 healthy young adults, a delayed copying task on high and low frequency Chinese characters was administered [ 89 ]. Correlations between tablet writing metrics indicated that items that require longer movement planning time also take longer to write.…”

“…Such results support the writing theory that central processes such as language processing and motor planning are related to peripheral processes such as movement processing and execution [ 92 , 93 , 94 ], indicating excellent ecological validity. Both the high-frequency vs. control (drawing circles) and the low-frequency vs. control contrasts revealed activations associated with the central and peripheral processes in writing [ 83 , 84 , 89 ].…”