Bilingualism and brain functional asymmetry

Chernigovskaya, Tatiana V.; Balonov, Lev J.; Deglin, V. L.

doi:10.1016/0093-934x(83)90042-1

Cited by 18 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…Previous work also showed that the right hemisphere is involved in decoding in the native language. 20,69 To capture evidence for the existence of the "long route," which involves decoding in the native language, it is also important to explore the right IFG region in the future.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Which is more costly in Chinese to English simultaneous interpreting, “pairing” or “transphrasing”? Evidence from an fNIRS neuroimaging study

Lin

Lei

et al. 2018

Neurophoton.

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This study examined the neural mechanism underlying two translation strategies associated with Chinese to English simultaneous interpreting (SI) targeting the left prefrontal cortex (PFC), which is generally involved in the control of interference and conflict resolution and has been identified as the brain area that plays a pivotal role in SI. Brain activation associated with the two strategies including "pairing" and "transphrasing" were compared with that from "nontranslation," which keeps the source language item unchanged in the target language production and is considered as a tactic that does not require complex cognitive operation associated with bilingual processing effort. Our findings revealed that "pairing" elicited the strongest and almost immediate brain activation in the Broca's area, and "transphrasing" resulted in the most extensive and strongest activation overall in the left PFC. By contrast, "nontranslation" induced very little brain activation in these regions. This work, which represents one of the first efforts in investigating brain activation related to translation strategies involving different levels of cognitive control, will not only pave a new avenue for better understanding of the cognitive mechanism underlying SI but also provide further insight into the role that the Broca's region plays in domain-general cognitive control.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Which is more costly in Chinese to English simultaneous interpreting, “pairing” or “transphrasing”? Evidence from an fNIRS neuroimaging study

Lin

Lei

et al. 2018

Neurophoton.

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“…In fact, while it is generally acknowledged that the right hemisphere has limited capabilities in syntactic processing and a higher involvement in semantic processing in monolinguals, there is evidence that hemispheric lateralization of linguistic functions is different in polyglots. Chernigovskaya, Balonov, and Deglin (1983) showed a different lateralization of semantic and syntactic structures for the first language (L1) and the second (L2) in a bilingual psychiatric patient treated with unilateralized electroconvulsive therapy. The authors described a lateralization of semantic functions to the right hemisphere for L1 and to the left hemisphere for L2, while syntactic functions were lateralized to the left hemisphere for both languages.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Electrophysiological Measures of Language Processing in Bilinguals

Proverbio

Ccaron

et al. 2002

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience

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The aim of the present study was to investigate how multiple languages are represented in the human brain. Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were recorded from right-handed polyglots and monolinguals during a task involving silent reading. The participants in the experiment were nine Italian monolinguals and nine Italian/Slovenian bilinguals of a Slovenian minority in Trieste; the bilinguals, highly fluent in both languages, had spoken both languages since birth. The stimuli were terminal words that would correctly complete a short, meaningful, previously shown sentence, or else were semantically or syntactically incorrect. The task consisted in deciding whether the sentences were well formed or not, giving the response by pressing a button. Both groups read the same set of 200 Italian sentences to compare the linguistic processing, while the bilinguals also received a set of 200 Slovenian sentences, comparable in complexity and length, to compare the processing of the two languages within the group. For the bilinguals, the ERP results revealed a strong, left-sided activation, reflected by the N1 component, of the occipitotemporal regions dedicated to orthographic processing, with a latency of about 150 msec for Slovenian words, but bilateral activation of the same areas for Italian words, which was also displayed by topographical mapping. In monolinguals, semantic error produced a long-lasting negative response (N2 and N4) that was greater over the right hemisphere, whereas syntactic error activated mostly the left hemisphere. Conversely, in the bilinguals, semantic incongruence resulted in greater response over the left hemisphere than over the right. In this group, the P615 syntactical error responses were of equal amplitude on both hemispheres for Italian words and greater on the right side for Slovenian words. The present findings support the view that there are interand intrahemispheric brain activation asymmetries when monolingual and bilingual speakers comprehend written language. The fact that the bilingual speakers in the present study were highly fluent and had acquired both languages in early infancy suggests that the brain activation patterns do not depend on the age of acquisition or the fluency level, as in the case of late, not-so-proficient L2 language learners, but on the functional organization of the bilinguals' brain due to polyglotism and based on brain plasticity.

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“…Multilingual language organization has also been studied in patients with permanent structural lesions resulting from tumors or strokes (Aglioti and Fabbro, 1993; Gomez-Tortosa et al, 1995; Aglioti et al, 1996), or temporary functional lesions produced during language mapping with electrocortical stimulation (Ojemann and Whitaker, 1978; Rapport et al, 1983; Bellotti et al, 1991; Graff-Radford et al, 1997; Roux and Tremoulet, 2002; Lubrano et al, 2004; Roux et al, 2004; Walker et al, 2004; Giussani et al, 2007; Kho et al, 2007; Serafini et al, 2008; Moritz-Gasser and Duffau, 2009), transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS; Holtzheimer et al, 2005), electroconvulsive therapy (Chernigovskaya et al, 1983), and Wada testing (Berthier et al, 1990; Kho et al, 2007). …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Language Mapping in Multilingual Patients: Electrocorticography and Cortical Stimulation During Naming

Cervenka¹,

Boatman-Reich²,

Ward³

et al. 2011

Front. Hum. Neurosci.

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Multilingual patients pose a unique challenge when planning epilepsy surgery near language cortex because the cortical representations of each language may be distinct. These distinctions may not be evident with routine electrocortical stimulation mapping (ESM). Electrocorticography (ECoG) has recently been used to detect task-related spectral perturbations associated with functional brain activation. We hypothesized that using broadband high gamma augmentation (HGA, 60–150 Hz) as an index of cortical activation, ECoG would complement ESM in discriminating the cortical representations of first (L1) and second (L2) languages. We studied four adult patients for whom English was a second language, in whom subdural electrodes (a total of 358) were implanted to guide epilepsy surgery. Patients underwent ECoG recordings and ESM while performing the same visual object naming task in L1 and L2. In three of four patients, ECoG found sites activated during naming in one language but not the other. These language-specific sites were not identified using ESM. In addition, ECoG HGA was observed at more sites during L2 versus L1 naming in two patients, suggesting that L2 processing required additional cortical resources compared to L1 processing in these individuals. Post-operative language deficits were identified in three patients (one in L2 only). These deficits were predicted by ECoG spectral mapping but not by ESM. These results suggest that pre-surgical mapping should include evaluation of all utilized languages to avoid post-operative functional deficits. Finally, this study suggests that ECoG spectral mapping may potentially complement the results of ESM of language.

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Bilingualism and brain functional asymmetry

Cited by 18 publications

References 15 publications

Which is more costly in Chinese to English simultaneous interpreting, “pairing” or “transphrasing”? Evidence from an fNIRS neuroimaging study

Which is more costly in Chinese to English simultaneous interpreting, “pairing” or “transphrasing”? Evidence from an fNIRS neuroimaging study

Electrophysiological Measures of Language Processing in Bilinguals

Language Mapping in Multilingual Patients: Electrocorticography and Cortical Stimulation During Naming

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