This study investigated how bilingual experience alters neural mechanisms supporting novel word learning. We hypothesised that novel words elicit increased semantic activation in the larger bilingual lexicon, potentially stimulating stronger memory integration than in monolinguals. English monolinguals and Spanish–English bilinguals were trained on two sets of written Swahili–English word pairs, one set on each of two consecutive days, and performed a recognition task in the MRI-scanner. Lexical integration was measured through visual primed lexical decision. Surprisingly, no group difference emerged in explicit word memory, and priming occurred only in the monolingual group. This difference in lexical integration may indicate an increased need for slow neocortical interleaving of old and new information in the denser bilingual lexicon. The fMRI data were consistent with increased use of cognitive control networks in monolinguals and of articulatory motor processes in bilinguals, providing further evidence for experience-induced neural changes: monolinguals and bilinguals reached largely comparable behavioural performance levels in novel word learning, but did so by recruiting partially overlapping but non-identical neural systems to acquire novel words.

中文翻译：

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重叠和不同的神经网络支持双语和单语中的新词学习

本研究调查了双语体验如何改变支持新词学习的神经机制。我们假设新词在更大的双语词典中引起语义激活的增加，可能比单语者刺激更强的记忆整合。英语单语者和西班牙语-英语双语者接受了两组书面斯瓦希里语-英语单词对的训练，连续两天每天一组，并在 MRI 扫描仪中执行识别任务。词汇整合是通过视觉引发的词汇决定来衡量的。令人惊讶的是，在外显单词记忆中没有出现组间差异，并且启动只发生在单语组中。词汇整合的这种差异可能表明在更密集的双语词典中对新旧信息的缓慢新皮质交错的需求增加。