The Neural System Underlying Chinese Logograph Reading

Abstract

Written Chinese as logographic script differs notably from alphabets such as English in visual form, orthography, phonology, and semantics. Thus, research on the Chinese language is important to advance our understanding of the universality and particularity of the organization of language systems in the brain. In this study, we examine the neural systems associated with logographic reading using functional magnetic resonance imaging. Two experimental tasks were devised, one based on semantic decision and the other on homophone decision. Compared to the fixation baseline, peak activations resulting from semantic as well as homophony decisions were localized in the left middle frontal gyrus (BA 9). Left inferior frontal cortex also mediated Chinese processing. In addition, more right hemisphere cortical regions (i.e., BAs 47/45, 7, 40/39, and the right visual system) were involved in reading Chinese relative to reading English. This is attributed to the square shape of the logograph which requires an elaborated analysis of the spatial information and locations of various strokes comprising the logographic character. We suggest that the left middle frontal area (BA 9) coordinates and integrates the intensive visuospatial analysis demanded by logographs' square configuration and the semantic (or phonological) analysis required by the present experimental tasks. Our study has implicated brain regions common to both logographic and alphabetic languages as well as brain regions specialized in processing logographs.

The time course of brain activity in reading English and Chinese: An ERP study of Chinese bilinguals

“…Thus, our Chinese bilinguals were able to prepare the pronunciation of high-frequency Chinese words as early as 250 msec. Activation then shifted for both high-and low-frequency Chinese characters to the right prefrontal area (BA 10), an area identified in imaging studies of both English and Chinese [Fiez et al, 1999;Tan et al, 2001]. This result adds to the conclusion that Chinese may produce more right hemisphere processing than English [Tan et al, 2001].…”

“…However, these studies have identified additional brain areas not often observed in alphabetic studies, especially left middle frontal areas (BA 9), additional right hemisphere cortical regions (BAs 47/ 45,7,40/39), and the right visual system [Tan et al, 2000[Tan et al, , 2001.…”

Neural bases of asymmetric language switching in second-language learners: An ER-fMRI study

“…One previous study found that Chinese phonological processing activated bilateral thalamus, cerebellum, occipital lobe, and lingual gyrus (Kuo et al, 2004). Other studies also found that the right visual system (BA17/18/19) was involved in reading Chinese relative to reading English (Liu and Perfetti, 2003;Tan et al, 2001). These patterns of activations for Chinese processing may have been linked to the logographic nature of Chinese characters (thus the right visual systems) and Chinese phonological processing or orthography-phonology transformation (OPT).…”

Neuroanatomical correlates of phonological processing of Chinese characters and alphabetic words: A meta‐analysis

“…Among these studies, six used an explicit, phonology-related decision task [Chen et al, 2002;Kuo et al, 2004;Siok et al, 2003Siok et al, , 2004Tan et al, 2001aTan et al, , 2003, two used reading aloud [He et al, 2003;Tan et al, 2001b], and one used silent reading [Kuo et al, 2001]. We decided to enter the data of the six studies employing an explicit phonological judgment task into the meta-analysis (Table I), and excluded the three studies with the silent-reading or reading-aloud paradigm, because we believed that reading aloud is relevant not only to phonological processes in visual character identification, but also to auditory and (passive) language production processes.…”

“…In the last several years, neuroimaging investigations with Chinese characters have also been conducted, often with a focus on functional anatomy of phonological processing in reading [Chen et al, 2002;He et al, 2003;Kuo et al, 2004;Siok et al, 2003Siok et al, , 2004Tan et al, 2001aTan et al, , 2003. Some of these studies have implicated significant differences in neural bases for reading in Chinese and English.…”