Cerebral organization in bilinguals

Klein, Denise; Milner, Brenda; Zatorre, Robert J.; Zhao, Viviane; Nikelski, Jim

doi:10.1097/00001756-199909090-00026

Cited by 155 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“…Recent brain-imaging studies on the cortical representation of an L2 are not univocal. Although some studies argue for different neural tissue being involved in L1 and L2 processing (43,44), others report a shared neural substrate (45). One attempt to unify these opposing results has been to propose that not only the age of acquisition but particularly the proficiency level determines the amount of cortical overlap involved in L1 and L2 processing (10).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Brain signatures of artificial language processing: Evidence challenging the critical period hypothesis

Friederici

Steinhauer

Pfeifer

2002

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

278

276

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Adult second language learning seems to be more difficult and less efficient than first language acquisition during childhood. By using event-related brain potentials, we show that adults who learned a miniature artificial language display a similar real-time pattern of brain activation when processing this language as native speakers do when processing natural languages. Participants trained in the artificial language showed two event-related brain potential components taken to reflect early automatic and late controlled syntactic processes, whereas untrained participants did not. This result challenges the common view that late second language learners process language in a principally different way from native speakers. Our findings demonstrate that a small system of grammatical rules can be syntactically instantiated by the adult speaker in a way that strongly resembles native-speaker sentence processing.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Brain signatures of artificial language processing: Evidence challenging the critical period hypothesis

Friederici

Steinhauer

Pfeifer

2002

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

278

276

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“…Originally discovered in patients with brain damage (e.g., Broca, 1861; Dax, 1863; Wernicke, 1874/1969; Geschwind, 1970), these regions have been observed in PET and fMRI since the earliest days of brain imaging research (e.g., Petersen et al, 1988; Petersen and Fiez, 1993; Binder et al, 1997). These regions are consistent (albeit variable in their exact topography; e.g., Fedorenko et al, 2010) across individuals (e.g., Frost et al, 1999; Allendorfer et al, 2012), languages (e.g., Chee et al, 1999a,b; Illes et al, 1999; Klein et al, 1999; Hernandez et al, 2001; Pu et al, 2001; Hasegawa et al, 2002; Chee et al, 2003; Mahendra et al, 2003; Briellmann et al, 2004; see e.g., van Heuven and Dijkstra, 2010 and Sebastian et al, 2011 for reviews), modality of presentation (e.g., Chee et al, 1999c; Pinel et al, 2007; Buchweitz et al, 2009; Fedorenko et al, 2010; Braze et al, 2011) and developmental experiences, including complete sensory deprivation in the auditory or visual modality (Neville et al, 1998; Newman et al, 2010; Bedny et al, 2011). Furthermore, these regions can be quickly (in ~10–15 min) and reliably identified in individual participants (Fedorenko et al, 2010), and they are stable within an individual over time (Figure 1B; Fedorenko et al, 2010; Mahowald and Fedorenko, in preparation), as well as being robust to changes in the materials, modality of presentation, and task (Figure 1C), and language for bilingual speakers (Figure 1D).…”

Section: High-level Language Processing Brain Regions and Domain-genementioning

confidence: 91%

The role of domain-general cognitive control in language comprehension

2014

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What role does domain-general cognitive control play in understanding linguistic input? Although much evidence has suggested that domain-general cognitive control and working memory resources are sometimes recruited during language comprehension, many aspects of this relationship remain elusive. For example, how frequently do cognitive control mechanisms get engaged when we understand language? And is this engagement necessary for successful comprehension? I here (a) review recent brain imaging evidence for the neural separability of the brain regions that support high-level linguistic processing vs. those that support domain-general cognitive control abilities; (b) define the space of possibilities for the relationship between these sets of brain regions; and (c) review the available evidence that constrains these possibilities to some extent. I argue that we should stop asking whether domain-general cognitive control mechanisms play a role in language comprehension, and instead focus on characterizing the division of labor between the cognitive control brain regions and the more functionally specialized language regions.

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“…Evidence for the DP (and other similar) models includes behavioral (psycholinguistic) (Bowden et al, 2010; Neubauer and Clahsen, 2009; Silva and Clahsen, 2008) and neuroimaging studies of L1 and L2 learners (e.g., Golestani and Zatorre, 2004; Xue et al, 2004). For example, neuroimaging studies suggest that lexical processing in L1 and L2 relies on similar neural substrates (Chee et al, 1999; Klein et al, 1999; Xue et al, 2004), but that the neural substrates underlying L1 and L2 grammatical processing differ either qualitatively or quantitatively, with the area and level of activation becoming more L1-like (Golestani and Zatorre, 2004; Perani et al, 1998) and more specific to inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) (Abutalebi, 2008) at higher levels of proficiency.…”

Section: Language Learning and Memory Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Linking neurogenetics and individual differences in language learning: The dopamine hypothesis

Wong

Morgan‐Short

Ettlinger

et al. 2012

Cortex

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Fundamental advances in neuroscience have come from investigations into neuroplasticity and learning. These investigations often focus on identifying universal principles across different individuals of the same species. Increasingly, individual differences in learning success have also been observed, such that any seemingly universal principle might only be applicable to a certain extent within a particular learner. One potential source of this variation is individuals’ genetic differences. Adult language learning provides a unique opportunity for understanding individual differences and genetic bases of neuroplasticity because of the large individual differences in learning success that have already been documented, and because of the body of empirical work connecting language learning and neurocognition. In this article, we review the literature on the genetic bases of neurocognition, especially studies examining polymorphisms of dopamine-related genes and procedural learning. This review leads us to hypothesize that there may be an association between dopamine-related genetic variation and language learning differences. If this hypothesis is supported by future empirical findings we suggest that it may point to neurogenetic markers that allow for language learning to be personalized.

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Cerebral organization in bilinguals

Cited by 155 publications

References 4 publications

Brain signatures of artificial language processing: Evidence challenging the critical period hypothesis

Brain signatures of artificial language processing: Evidence challenging the critical period hypothesis

The role of domain-general cognitive control in language comprehension

Linking neurogenetics and individual differences in language learning: The dopamine hypothesis

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