Processing of Visually Presented Sentences in Mandarin and English Studied with fMRI

Chee, Michael W.L.; Caplan, David; Soon, Chun Siong; Narayanan, Sriram; Tan, Edsel W. L.; Thiel, Thorsten; Weekes, Brendan S.

doi:10.1016/s0896-6273(00)80759-x

Cited by 202 publications

(129 citation statements)

References 44 publications

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“…While several neuroimaging studies found entirely overlapping activation patterns for the first and further Videsott et al: Neural correlates of language proficiency 4 languages in production and comprehension tasks (e.g. Illes et al 1995;Chee et al 1999;Hernandez et al 2000Hernandez et al , 2001Rodriguez-Fornells et al 2005), a stronger recruitment of some brain areas for the later acquired and less fluently spoken languages has been sometimes obtained. One of the most robust findings is the stronger involvement of left inferior prefrontal areas, including the inferior frontal gyrus, in the production and comprehension of languages that are spoken at a relatively low proficiency level (Indefrey 2006;Abutalebi & Green 2007;Abutalebi 2008;Abutalebi & Green 2008).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Speaking in multiple languages: Neural correlates of language proficiency in multilingual word production

et al. 2010

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The human brain has the fascinating ability to represent and to process several languages. Although the first and further languages activate partially different brain networks, the linguistic factors underlying these differences in language processing have to be further specified. We investigated the neural correlates of language proficiency in a homogeneous sample of multilingual native Ladin speakers from a mountain valley in South Tyrol, Italy, who speak Italian as second language at a high level, and English at an intermediate level. In a constrained word production task under functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), participants had to name pictures of objects in Ladin, Italian and English in separate blocks. Overall, multilingual word production activated a common set of brain areas dedicated to known subcomponents of picture naming. In comparison to English, the fluently spoken languages Ladin and Italian were associated with enhanced right prefrontal activity. In addition, the MR signal in right prefrontal cortex correlated with naming accuracy as a measure of language proficiency. Our results demonstrate the significance of right prefrontal areas for language proficiency. Based on the role of these areas for cognitive control, our findings suggest that right prefrontal cortex supports language proficiency by effectively supervising word retrieval. Speaking in Multiple Languages AbstractThe human brain has the fascinating ability to represent and to process several languages.Although the first and further languages activate partially different brain networks, the linguistic factors underlying these differences in language processing have to be further specified. We investigated the neural correlates of language proficiency in a homogeneous sample of multilingual native Ladin speakers from a mountain valley in South Tyrol, Italy, who speak Italian as second language at a high level, and English at an intermediate level.In a constrained word production task under functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), participants had to name pictures of objects in Ladin, Italian and English in separate blocks. Overall, multilingual word production activated a common set of brain areas dedicated to known subcomponents of picture naming. In comparison to English, the fluently spoken languages Ladin and Italian were associated with enhanced right prefrontal activity. In addition, the MR signal in right prefrontal cortex correlated with naming accuracy as a measure of language proficiency. Our results demonstrate the significance of right prefrontal areas for language proficiency. Based on the role of these areas for cognitive control, our findings suggest that right prefrontal cortex supports language proficiency by effectively supervising word retrieval.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Speaking in multiple languages: Neural correlates of language proficiency in multilingual word production

et al. 2010

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“…Cognitive studies also have established a developmental shift from word-mediated to concept-mediated processing as a function of increased L2 proficiency (e.g., Kroll and Sholl, 1992;Kroll and Stewart, 1994). Finally, fMRI and PET studies found significant neural dissociation between L1 and L2 for nonfluent bilinguals (Dehaene et al, 1997;Perani et al, 1996Perani et al, , 1998Pillai et al, 2003;Wartenburger et al, 2003), but not for highly proficient bilinguals (Chee et al, 1999a(Chee et al, ,b, 2000Illes et al, 1999;Klein, 2003;Klein et al, 1995Klein et al, , 1999Pu et al, 2001). These results suggest that neural dissociation between L1 and L2 may be more likely to occur for late-acquisition (after the age of 12), nonfluent bilinguals than for their early-acquisition, fluent counterparts (see Abutalebi et al, 2001, for a review).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Mapping of verbal working memory in nonfluent Chinese–English bilinguals with functional MRI

et al. 2004

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Existing cognitive and neural imaging studies have suggested a frontoparietal network of multiple, cooperative components for verbal working memory (WM). We used functional MRI to investigate whether this neural network is also involved in the processing of second language by nonfluent bilinguals. Twelve (five males, seven females) native Chinese speakers who had limited English proficiency were scanned while performing working memory tasks in Chinese and English. They were asked to make judgment continuously whether the word presented on the screen was semantically related to (i.e., the semantic tasks) another word presented two words earlier. On a different task (i.e., the phonological tasks), they were asked to make judgment whether the target word rhymed with the other word. A naming and judgment task in each language was adopted to control for the visual process, initial lexical process, and motor responses. Behavioral data showed that subjects performed better at tasks in their native language (Chinese, L1) than in English (L2). Imaging results showed that all working memory tasks in both L1 and L2 elicited a very similar pattern of left-hemisphere-dominated activation in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, pars opercularis region, pars triangularis region, precentral cortex, and parietal lobule. Consistent with the behavioral data, the volume of activation in the left opercularis region, left parietal lobule, and right precentral region was greater for L2 than for L1. These results suggest that working memory in L1 and L2 is mediated by a unitary neural system (i.e., frontoparietal region), which is capable of recruiting surrounding cortical resources to meet the increased computational demand caused by low L2 proficiency.

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“…During language processing, speakers of English, Mandarin, and sign languages activate a leftlateralized network of brain regions in the prefrontal, lateral temporal, and temporoparietal cortices (5,6). Damage to these brain regions in adulthood leads to profound language deficits (7,8).…”

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confidence: 99%

Language processing in the occipital cortex of congenitally blind adults

Bedny

Pascual‐Leone

Dodell-Feder

et al. 2011

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

366

392

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Humans are thought to have evolved brain regions in the left frontal and temporal cortex that are uniquely capable of language processing. However, congenitally blind individuals also activate the visual cortex in some verbal tasks. We provide evidence that this visual cortex activity in fact reflects language processing. We find that in congenitally blind individuals, the left visual cortex behaves similarly to classic language regions: (i) BOLD signal is higher during sentence comprehension than during linguistically degraded control conditions that are more difficult; (ii) BOLD signal is modulated by phonological information, lexical semantic information, and sentence-level combinatorial structure; and (iii) functional connectivity with language regions in the left prefrontal cortex and thalamus are increased relative to sighted individuals. We conclude that brain regions that are thought to have evolved for vision can take on language processing as a result of early experience. Innate microcircuit properties are not necessary for a brain region to become involved in language processing.plasticity | language evolution

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Processing of Visually Presented Sentences in Mandarin and English Studied with fMRI

Abstract: by a variety of behavioral experiments (reviewed by Smith, 1997). However, it remains unclear whether these lexicons are spatially segregated within the brain. The

Cited by 202 publications

References 44 publications

Speaking in multiple languages: Neural correlates of language proficiency in multilingual word production

Speaking in multiple languages: Neural correlates of language proficiency in multilingual word production

Mapping of verbal working memory in nonfluent Chinese–English bilinguals with functional MRI

Language processing in the occipital cortex of congenitally blind adults

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