-
Graded and sharp transitions in semantic function in left temporal lobe Brain Lang. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2024-03-13 Katya Krieger-Redwood, Xiuyi Wang, Nicholas Souter, Tirso Rene del Jesus Gonzalez Alam, Jonathan Smallwood, Rebecca L. Jackson, Elizabeth Jefferies
Recent work has focussed on how patterns of functional change within the temporal lobe relate to whole-brain dimensions of intrinsic connectivity variation (Margulies et al., 2016). We examined two such ‘connectivity gradients’ reflecting the separation of (i) unimodal versus heteromodal and (ii) visual versus auditory-motor cortex, examining visually presented verbal associative and feature judgments
-
On the perception of stress position by French listeners: An EEG investigation Brain Lang. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2024-03-01 Outhmane Rassili, Amandine Michelas, Sophie Dufour
In this EEG study, we examined the ability of French listeners to perceive and use the position of stress in a discrimination task. Event-Related-Potentials (ERPs) were recorded while participants performed a same-different task. Different stimuli diverged either in one phoneme (e.g., /ʒy/-/ʒy/) or in stress position (e.g., /ʒy/-/ʁi/). Although participants reached 93% of correct responses, ERP results
-
Disentangling neuroplasticity mechanisms in post-stroke language recovery Brain Lang. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2024-02-23 Anne Billot, Swathi Kiran
A major objective in post-stroke aphasia research is to gain a deeper understanding of neuroplastic mechanisms that drive language recovery, with the ultimate goal of enhancing treatment outcomes. Subsequent to recent advances in neuroimaging techniques, we now have the ability to examine more closely how neural activity patterns change after a stroke. However, the way these neural activity changes
-
Impaired motor skills and proprioceptive function in Mandarin-speaking children with developmental language disorder Brain Lang. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2024-02-22 Hsin-jen Hsu, Yu-Ting Tseng
This study examined proprioceptive acuity and its relationship with motor function in Mandarin-speaking children with and without developmental language disorder (DLD). Fifteen children aged 9–12 years with DLD and 15 age- and sex-matched typically developing (TD) children participated in this study. Children’s motor function was assessed using the second edition of the Movement Assessment Battery
-
Contribution of the language network to the comprehension of Python programming code Brain Lang. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2024-02-22 Yun-Fei Liu, Colin Wilson, Marina Bedny
Does the perisylvian language network contribute to comprehension of programming languages, like Python? Univariate neuroimaging studies find high responses to code in fronto-parietal executive areas but not in fronto-temporal language areas, suggesting the language network does little. We used multivariate-pattern-analysis to test whether the language network encodes Python functions. Python programmers
-
Individualized white matter connectivity of the articulatory pathway: An ultra-high field study Brain Lang. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2024-02-13 Kaisu Lankinen, Ruopeng Wang, Qiyuan Tian, Qing Mei Wang, Bridget J. Perry, Jordan R. Green, Teresa J. Kimberley, Jyrki Ahveninen, Shasha Li
In current sensorimotor theories pertaining to speech perception, there is a notable emphasis on the involvement of the articulatory-motor system in the processing of speech sounds. Using ultra-high field diffusion-weighted imaging at 7 Tesla, we visualized the white matter tracts connected to areas activated during a simple speech-sound production task in 18 healthy right-handed adults. Regions of
-
Sentence-level embeddings reveal dissociable word- and sentence-level cortical representation across coarse- and fine-grained levels of meaning Brain Lang. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2024-02-02 Scott L. Fairhall
In this large-sample (N = 64) fMRI study, sentence embeddings (text-embedding-ada-002, ) and representational similarity analysis were used to contrast sentence-level and word-level semantic representation. Overall, sentence-level information resulted in a 20–25 % increase in the model’s ability to captures neural representation when compared to word-level only information (word-order scrambled embeddings)
-
The organization of the semantic network as reflected by the neural correlates of six semantic dimensions Brain Lang. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2024-01-31 Nan Lin, Xiaohan Zhang, Xiuyi Wang, Shaonan Wang
Multiple sensory-motor and non-sensory-motor dimensions have been proposed for semantic representation, but it remains unclear how the semantic system is organized along them in the human brain. Using naturalistic fMRI data and large-scale semantic ratings, we investigated the overlaps and dissociations between the neural correlates of six semantic dimensions: vision, motor, socialness, emotion, space
-
Neural specificity for semantic and syntactic processing in Spanish-English bilingual children Brain Lang. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2024-01-31 Neelima Wagley, Xiaosu Hu, Teresa Satterfield, Lisa M. Bedore, James R. Booth, Ioulia Kovelman
Brain development for language processing is associated with neural specialization of left perisylvian pathways, but this has not been investigated in young bilinguals. We examined specificity for syntax and semantics in early exposed Spanish-English speaking children (N = 65, ages 7–11) using an auditory sentence judgement task in English, their dominant language of use. During functional near infrared
-
-
Phase synchronization during the processing of taxonomic and thematic relations Brain Lang. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2024-01-18 Erica Adezati, Xianqing Liu, Junhua Ding, Melissa Thye, Jerzy P. Szaflarski, Daniel Mirman
Semantic relations include “taxonomic” relations based on shared features and “thematic” relations based on co-occurrence in events. The “dual-hub” account proposes that the anterior temporal lobe (ATL) is functionally specialized for taxonomic relations and the inferior parietal lobule (IPL) for thematic relations. This study examined this claim by analyzing the intra- and inter-region phase synchronization
-
Microstructural white matter changes underlying speech deficits in Parkinson’s disease Brain Lang. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2024-01-09 Fatemeh Mollaei, Mohammed Asif Basha Chinoor
Speech impairments are one of the common symptoms of individuals with Parkinson’s disease (PD). However, little is known about the underlying neuroanatomical structural deficits specifically in the basal ganglia-thalamocortical (BGTC) loop in the speech deficits of PD. Here we investigated white matter differences in PD using probabilistic tractography. Diffusion tensor imaging data were downloaded
-
The role of research design in the reproducibility of L1 and L2 language networks: A review of bilingual neuroimaging meta-analyses Brain Lang. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2024-01-02 Lindy Comstock
Meta-analyses are a method by which to increase the statistical power and generalizability of neuroimaging findings. In the neurolinguistics literature, meta-analyses have the potential to substantiate hypotheses about L1 and L2 processing networks and to reveal differences between the two that may escape detection in individual studies. Why then is there so little consensus between the reported findings
-
Motor experience modulates neural processing of lexical action language: Evidence from rugby players Brain Lang. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2023-12-26 Likai Liu, Yingying Wang, Hong Mou, Chenglin Zhou, Tianze Liu
The perceptual symbol theory proposes a sensorimotor simulation in language processing, emphasizing the role of motor experience. However, the neural basis of motor experience on lexical-level language processing remains little known. In the current fMRI study, we compared brain activation and task-based functional connectivity in 28 rugby players and 28 novices during rugby- specialized and daily
-
Expanding the emergentist Account:Reply to open peer commentaries Brain Lang. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2023-12-22 Catherine L. Caldwell-Harris, Brian MacWhinney
Emergentism provides a framework for understanding how language learning processes vary across developmental age and linguistic levels, as shaped by core mechanisms and constraints from cognition, entrenchment, input, transfer, social support, motivation, and neurology. As our commentators all agree, this landscape is marked by intense variability arising from the complexity. These mechanisms interact
-
Different language control mechanisms in comprehension and production: Evidence from paragraph reading Brain Lang. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2023-12-19 Chuchu Li, Katherine J. Midgley, Victor S. Ferreira, Phillip J. Holcomb, Tamar H. Gollan
Chinese-English bilinguals read paragraphs with language switches using a rapid serial visual presentation paradigm silently while ERPs were measured (Experiment 1) or read them aloud (Experiment 2). Each paragraph was written in either Chinese or English with several function or content words switched to the other language. In Experiment 1, language switches elicited an early, long-lasting positivity
-
The role of vocabulary and grammar in the listening text comprehension of school-age Cantonese-speaking children with developmental language disorder Brain Lang. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2023-12-06 Hin Tat Cheung, Chia-Ling Hsu, Benjamin Ts'ou
The current study examined the role of vocabulary and grammar in the listening comprehension of school-age Cantonese-speaking children with developmental language disorder in Hong Kong. Participants were 692 typically developing children (TD) and 53 children with developmental language disorder (DLD) and they were tested with a standardized test of oral Cantonese, which includes measures on listening
-
Elevated pre-target EEG alpha power enhances the probability of comprehending weakly noise masked words and decreases the probability of comprehending strongly masked words Brain Lang. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2023-11-17 Thomas Houweling, Robert Becker, Alexis Hervais-Adelman
Ongoing brain activity constitutes a structuring context for stimulus processing and has been shown to predict both neural and behavioural responses. In the present study, we used EEG to investigate the relationship between brain activity during a speech-shaped noise-filled pre-target time window, and the recognition of digit-words embedded in noise at three signal-to-noise ratios calibrated to individual
-
Competing influence of visual speech on auditory neural adaptation Brain Lang. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2023-11-09 Marc Sato
Visual information from a speaker’s face enhances auditory neural processing and speech recognition. To determine whether auditory memory can be influenced by visual speech, the degree of auditory neural adaptation of an auditory syllable preceded by an auditory, visual, or audiovisual syllable was examined using EEG. Consistent with previous findings and additional adaptation of auditory neurons tuned
-
Cross-language generalization of language treatment in multilingual people with post-stroke aphasia: A meta-analysis. Brain Lang. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2023-10-31 Mira Goral,Monica I Norvik,Jan Antfolk,Ioulia Agrotou,Minna Lehtonen
Studies on the efficacy of language treatment for multilingual people with post-stroke aphasia and its generalization to untreated languages have produced mixed results. We conducted a systematic review and a meta-analysis to examine within- and cross-language treatment effects and the variables that affect them. We searched PubMed, PsycINFO, CINAHL, and Google Scholar (February 2020; January 2023)
-
Individual differences in neural markers of beat processing relate to spoken grammar skills in six-year-old children. Brain Lang. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2023-10-31 Valentina Persici,Scott D Blain,John R Iversen,Alexandra P Key,Sonja A Kotz,J Devin McAuley,Reyna L Gordon
Based on the idea that neural entrainment establishes regular attentional fluctuations that facilitate hierarchical processing in both music and language, we hypothesized that individual differences in syntactic (grammatical) skills will be partly explained by patterns of neural responses to musical rhythm. To test this hypothesis, we recorded neural activity using electroencephalography (EEG) while
-
A comparison of functional activation and connectivity of the cerebellum in adults and children during single word processing. Brain Lang. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2023-10-29 Sikoya M Ashburn,D Lynn Flowers,Guinevere F Eden
Meta-analyses on reading show cerebellar activation in adults, but not children, suggesting a possible age-dependent role of the cerebellum in reading. However, the few studies that compare adults and children during reading report mixed cerebellar activation results. Here, we studied (i) cerebellar activation during implicit word processing in adults and children and (ii) functional connectivity (FC)
-
The advantage of the music-enabled brain in accommodating lexical tone variabilities Brain Lang. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2023-10-28 Kaile Zhang, Ran Tao, Gang Peng
The perception of multiple-speaker speech is challenging. People with music training generally show more robust and faster tone perception. The present study investigated whether music training experience can facilitate tonal-language speakers to accommodate speech variability in lexical tones. Native Cantonese musicians and nonmusicians were asked to identify Cantonese level tones from multiple speakers
-
Is a Giraffe's long neck a new machine built out of old parts? Commentary on age effects in second language acquisition: Expanding the emergentist account Brain Lang. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2023-10-24 Arturo E. Hernandez
Abstract not available
-
The CPH is dead. Long live the critical period hypothesis Brain Lang. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2023-10-23 Emanuel Bylund, Gunnar Norrman
Abstract not available
-
Studying second language acquisition in the age of large language models: Unlocking the mysteries of language and learning, A commentary on “Age effects in second language acquisition: Expanding the emergentist account” by Catherine L. Caldwell-Harris and Brian MacWhinney Brain Lang. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2023-10-20 Viorica Marian
Abstract not available
-
What constitutes success in L2 learning? Time to rid ourselves of the holy grail of ‘ultimate attainment’ Brain Lang. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2023-10-20 Annick De Houwer
Abstract not available
-
Age and attainment in foreign language learning: The critical period account stands Brain Lang. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2023-10-17 ZhaoHong Han, Amy Baohan
Abstract not available
-
Exposure is the proximal influence on second language acquisition Brain Lang. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2023-10-19 Amelia Lambelet, Virginia Valian
Abstract not available
-
Spatiotemporal characteristics of the neural representation of event concepts Brain Lang. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2023-10-16 Rutvik H. Desai, Christopher T. Hackett, Karim Johari, Vicky T. Lai, Nicholas Riccardi
Events are a fundamentally important part of our understanding of the world. How lexical concepts denoting events are represented in the brain remains controversial. We conducted two experiments using event and object nouns matched on a range of psycholinguistic variables, including concreteness, to examine spatial and temporal characteristics of event concepts. Both experiments used magnitude and
-
Neural correlates of pronoun processing: An activation likelihood estimation meta-analysis Brain Lang. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2023-10-15 Loubna El Ouardi, Mohamed Yeou, Yasmeen Faroqi-Shah
Pronouns are unique linguistic devices that allow for the expression of referential relationships. Despite their communicative utility, the neural correlates of the operations involved in reference assignment and/or resolution, are not well-understood. The present study synthesized the neuroimaging literature on pronoun processing to test extant theories of pronoun comprehension. Following the PRISMA
-
Observing gesture at learning enhances subsequent phonological and semantic processing of L2 words: An N400 study Brain Lang. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2023-10-05 Laura M. Morett
This study employed the N400 event-related potential (ERP) to investigate how observing different types of gestures at learning affects the subsequent processing of L2 Mandarin words differing in lexical tone by L1 English speakers. The effects of pitch gestures conveying lexical tones (e.g., upwards diagonal movements for rising tone), semantic gestures conveying word meanings (e.g., waving goodbye
-
AoA-L2 and Usage-L2 modulate the functional neuroplasticity of the subcortex Brain Lang. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2023-09-25 Xiaojin Liu, Zhenni Gao, Wen Liu, Xintong He, Naiyi Wang
Previous studies revealed structural differences in subcortical regions between monolinguals and bilinguals; however, whether the functional neuroplasticity of the subcortex is modulated by different bilingual experiences remains unclear. Here, we examined the effect of age of second language acquisition (AoA-L2) and usage of L2 (Usage-L2) on subcorto-cortical and intra-subcortical functional connectivity
-
Effects of age, gender, and education on task performance and prefrontal cortex processing during emotional and non-emotional verbal fluency tests Brain Lang. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2023-09-23 Michael K. Yeung
The emotional semantic fluency test (SFT) is an emerging verbal fluency test that requires controlled access to emotional lexical information. Currently, how demographic variables influence neurocognitive processing during this test remains elusive. The present study compared the effects of age, gender, and education on task performance and prefrontal cortex (PFC) processing during the non-emotional
-
Rapid neural changes during novel speech-sound learning: An fMRI and DTI study Brain Lang. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2023-09-21 Sahal Alotaibi, Alanood Alsaleh, Sophie Wuerger, Georg Meyer
While the functional and microstructural changes that occur when we learn new language skills are well documented, relatively little is known about the time course of these changes. Here a combined functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) study that tracks neural change over three days of learning Arabic phonetic categorization as a new language (L-training) is
-
Concepts require flexible grounding Brain Lang. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2023-09-13 Guy Dove
Research on semantic memory has a problem. On the one hand, a robust body of evidence implicates sensorimotor regions in conceptual processing. On the other hand, a different body of evidence implicates a modality independent semantic system. The standard solution to this tension is to posit a hub-and-spoke system with modality independent hubs and modality specific spokes. In this paper, I argue in
-
Treatment-induced neuroplasticity after anomia therapy in post-stroke aphasia: A systematic review of neuroimaging studies. Brain Lang. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2023-08-24 Tijana Simic,Marie-Ève Desjardins,Melody Courson,Christophe Bedetti,Bérengère Houzé,Simona Maria Brambati
We systematically reviewed the literature on neural changes following anomia treatment post-stroke. We conducted electronic searches of CINAHL, Cochrane Trials, Embase, Ovid MEDLINE, MEDLINE-in-Process and PsycINFO databases; two independent raters assessed all abstracts and full texts. Accepted studies reported original data on adults with post-stroke aphasia, who received behavioural treatment for
-
Longitudinal characterization of patients with progressive apraxia of speech without clearly predominant phonetic or prosodic speech features Brain Lang. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2023-08-20 Rene L. Utianski, Gabriela Meade, Joseph R. Duffy, Heather M. Clark, Hugo Botha, Mary M. Machulda, Dennis W. Dickson, Jennifer L. Whitwell, Keith A. Josephs
Most recent studies of progressive apraxia of speech (PAOS) have focused on patients with phonetic or prosodic predominant PAOS to understand the implications of the presenting clinical phenotype. Patients without a clearly predominating speech quality, or mixed AOS, have been excluded. Given the implications for disease progression, it is important to understand these patients early in the disease
-
Conceptual representations in the default, control and attention networks are task-dependent and cross-modal Brain Lang. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2023-08-16 Philipp Kuhnke, Markus Kiefer, Gesa Hartwigsen
Conceptual knowledge is central to human cognition. Neuroimaging studies suggest that conceptual processing involves modality-specific and multimodal brain regions in a task-dependent fashion. However, it remains unclear (1) to what extent conceptual feature representations are also modulated by the task, (2) whether conceptual representations in multimodal regions are indeed cross-modal, and (3) how
-
Embodiment of action-related language in the native and a late foreign language – An fMRI-study Brain Lang. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2023-08-12 E. Monaco, M. Mouthon, J. Britz, S. Sato, I. Stefanos-Yakoub, J.M. Annoni, L.B. Jost
Theories of embodied cognition postulate that language processing activates similar sensory-motor structures as when interacting with the environment. Only little is known about the neural substrate of embodiment in a foreign language (L2) as compared to the mother tongue (L1). In this fMRI study, we investigated embodiment of motor and non-motor action verbs in L1 and L2 including 31 late bilinguals
-
Complain like you mean it! How prosody conveys suffering even about innocuous events Brain Lang. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2023-08-08 Maël Mauchand, Marc D. Pell
When complaining, speakers can use their voice to convey a feeling of pain, even when describing innocuous events. Rapid detection of emotive and identity features of the voice may constrain how the semantic content of complaints is processed, as indexed by N400 and P600 effects evoked by the final, pain-related word. Twenty-six participants listened to statements describing painful and innocuous events
-
Watching talking faces: The development of cortical representation of visual syllables in infancy Brain Lang. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2023-07-21 Aleksandra A.W. Dopierała, David López Pérez, Evelyne Mercure, Agnieszka Pluta, Anna Malinowska-Korczak, Samuel Evans, Tomasz Wolak, Przemysław Tomalski
From birth, we perceive speech by hearing and seeing people talk. In adults cortical representations of visual speech are processed in the putative temporal visual speech area (TVSA), but it remains unknown how these representations develop. We measured infants’ cortical responses to silent visual syllables and non-communicative mouth movements using functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy. Our results
-
Expressive recall and recognition as complementary measures to assess novel word learning ability in aphasia Brain Lang. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2023-07-13
Novel word learning ability has been associated with language treatment outcomes in people with aphasia (PWA), and its assessment could inform prognosis and rehabilitation. We used a brief experimental task to examine novel word learning in PWA, determine the value of phonological cueing in assessing learning outcomes, and identify factors that modulate learning ability. Twelve PWA and nineteen healthy
-
Interactions of lexical and conceptual representations: Evidence from EEG Brain Lang. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2023-07-10 Zohar Eviatar, Nahal Binur, Orna Peleg
We examined whether meanings automatically activate linguistic forms, and whether these forms affect semantic decisions. Participants were presented sequentially with pairs of pictures and decided whether the objects in the pictures were related. At no point did they name the pictures. The object names of the experimental stimuli were ambiguous either in orthography (homographs), phonology (homophones)
-
Spatiotemporal dynamics of abstract and concrete semantic representations Brain Lang. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2023-07-01 Lorenzo Vignali, Yangwen Xu, Jacopo Turini, Olivier Collignon, Davide Crepaldi, Roberto Bottini
Dual Coding Theories (DCT) suggest that meaning is represented in the brain by a double code: a language-derived code in the Anterior Temporal Lobe (ATL) and a sensory-derived code in perceptual and motor regions. Concrete concepts should activate both codes, while abstract ones rely solely on the linguistic code. To test these hypotheses, the present magnetoencephalography (MEG) experiment had participants
-
Neural phase angle from two months when tracking speech and non-speech rhythm linked to language performance from 12 to 24 months Brain Lang. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2023-07-01 Áine Ní Choisdealbha, Adam Attaheri, Sinead Rocha, Natasha Mead, Helen Olawole-Scott, Perrine Brusini, Samuel Gibbon, Panagiotis Boutris, Christina Grey, Declan Hines, Isabel Williams, Sheila A. Flanagan, Usha Goswami
Atypical phase alignment of low-frequency neural oscillations to speech rhythm has been implicated in phonological deficits in developmental dyslexia. Atypical phase alignment to rhythm could thus also characterize infants at risk for later language difficulties. Here, we investigate phase-language mechanisms in a neurotypical infant sample. 122 two-, six- and nine-month-old infants were played speech
-
Interindividual variability and consistency of language mapping paradigms for presurgical use Brain Lang. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2023-07-04 Georgia Thomas, Katie L. McMahon, Emma Finch, David A. Copland
Most functional MRI studies of language processing have focussed on group-level inference, but for clinical use, the aim is to predict outcomes at an individual patient level. This requires being able to identify atypical activation and understand how differences relate to language outcomes. A language mapping paradigm that selectively activates left hemisphere language regions in healthy individuals
-
-
Visual simulations in the two cerebral hemispheres: A bilingual perspective Brain Lang. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2023-06-03 Tal Norman, Orna Peleg
The ability of each hemisphere to construct visual simulations during first language (L1) and second language (L2) sentence reading was investigated. Late bilinguals read L1 and L2 sentences and decided after each sentence whether a pictured object was mentioned in the sentence. Target pictures were presented laterally in the left/right visual field (LVF/RVF) to the right/left hemisphere (RH/LH), respectively
-
Taxonomic and thematic relations rely on different types of semantic features: Evidence from an fMRI meta-analysis and a semantic priming study Brain Lang. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2023-05-31 Yueyang Zhang, Daniel Mirman, Paul Hoffman
Taxonomic and thematic relations are major components of semantic representation but their neurocognitive underpinnings are still debated. We hypothesised that taxonomic relations preferentially activate parts of anterior temporal lobe (ATL) because they rely more on colour and shape features, while thematic relations preferentially activate temporoparietal cortex (TPC) because they rely more on action
-
Early ERP indices of gender-biased processing elicited by generic masculine role nouns and the feminine–masculine pair form Brain Lang. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2023-05-31 Sarah Glim, Anita Körner, Holden Härtl, Ralf Rummer
In most gender-marked languages, the masculine form is used to refer to male people specifically as well as to people of any gender generically. This dual functionality was shown in behavioral studies to lead to male-biased mental representations. Here, using EEG, we targeted the neurophysiological basis of this bias by investigating whether and how the generic masculine influences the early perceptual
-
Understanding the neural mechanisms for infants' perception of native and non-native speech Brain Lang. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2023-05-24 Liquan Liu, Varghese Peter, Michael D. Tyler
Though perceptual narrowing has been widely recognized as a process guiding cognitive development and category learning in infancy and early childhood, its neural mechanisms and traits at a cortical level remain unclear. Using an electroencephalography (EEG) abstract mismatch negativity (MMN) paradigm, Australian infants’ neural sensitivity to (native) English and (non-native) Nuu-Chah-Nulth speech
-
Reading anxiety modulates the functional connectivity of the reading-related network during adult reading Brain Lang. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2023-05-18 Hehui Li, Binke Yuan, Yue-Jia Luo, Jie Liu
Researchers have studied cognitive and linguistic skills in predicting reading abilities, but the impact of affective factors such as anxiety on reading at the neurobiological level is not well understood. Here, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate the neural correlates of reading anxiety in adult readers performing a semantic judgment task. The results showed that reading anxiety
-
Developmental language disorder in Chinese children: A systematic review of research from 1997 to 2022 Brain Lang. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2023-05-06 Li Sheng, Jiayu Yu, Pumpki Lei Su, Danyang Wang, Tzu-Hung Lu, Lue Shen, Ying Hao, Boji Pak Wing Lam
Developmental language disorder (DLD) is one of the most common neurodevelopmental disorders. The influences of DLD on language development have been delineated in detail in English. The same is not true for Chinese, a group of Sinitic languages with distinct typological features that may modify the profile of DLD crosslinguistically. We conducted a systematic search of English and Chinese journal
-
Age effects in second language acquisition: Expanding the emergentist account Brain Lang. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2023-05-05 Catherine L. Caldwell-Harris, Brian MacWhinney
In 2005, Science magazine designated the problem of accounting for difficulties in L2 (second language) learning as one of the 125 outstanding challenges facing scientific research. A maturationally-based sensitive period has long been the favorite explanation for why ultimate foreign language attainment declines with age-of-acquisition. However, no genetic or neurobiological mechanisms for limiting
-
White matter correlates of reading subskills in children with and without reading disability Brain Lang. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2023-05-02 Alexandra M. Cross, Jessica M. Lammert, Lien Peters, Jan C. Frijters, Daniel Ansari, Karen A. Steinbach, Maureen W. Lovett, Lisa M.D. Archibald, Marc F. Joanisse
Individual differences in reading ability are associated with characteristics of white matter microstructure in the brain. However, previous studies have largely measured reading as a single construct, resulting in difficulty characterizing the role of structural connectivity in discrete subskills of reading. The present study used diffusion tensor imaging to examine how white matter microstructure
-
Morphological decomposition in Chinese compound word recognition: Electrophysiological evidence Brain Lang. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2023-04-28 Yanjun Wei, Ying Niu, Marcus Taft, Manuel Carreiras
The present study examined the effect of both morphological complexity and semantic transparency in Chinese compound word recognition. Using a visual lexical decision task, our electrophysiological results showed that transparent and opaque compounds induced stronger Left Anterior Negativity (LAN) than monomorphemic words. This result suggests that Chinese compounds might be decomposed into their constituent
-
Auditory pseudoword rhyming effects in bilingual children reflect second language proficiency: An ERP study Brain Lang. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2023-04-25 Annika Andersson, Lisa D. Sanders, Donna Coch
This study investigated second language (L2-English) phonological processing in 31 Spanish-English bilingual, 6- to 8-year-old schoolchildren in an event-related potential (ERP) auditory pseudoword rhyming paradigm. In addition, associations between ERP effects and L2 proficiency as measured by standardized tests of receptive language and receptive vocabulary were explored. We found a classic posterior
-
Functional connectivity between parietal and temporal lobes mediates internal forward models during speech production Brain Lang. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2023-04-25 Wenjia Zhang, Fuyin Yang, Xing Tian
Internal forward models hypothesize functional links between motor and sensory systems for predicting the consequences of actions. Recently, the cascaded theory proposes that somatosensory estimation in the inferior parietal lobe (IPL) can be a relay computational structure, converting motor signals into predictions of auditory consequences in a serial processing manner during speech production. The
-
Using TMS to evaluate a causal role for right posterior temporal cortex in talker-specific phonetic processing Brain Lang. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2023-04-21 Sahil Luthra, Hannah Mechtenberg, Cristal Giorio, Rachel M. Theodore, James S. Magnuson, Emily B. Myers
Theories suggest that speech perception is informed by listeners’ beliefs of what phonetic variation is typical of a talker. A previous fMRI study found right middle temporal gyrus (RMTG) sensitivity to whether a phonetic variant was typical of a talker, consistent with literature suggesting that the right hemisphere may play a key role in conditioning phonetic identity on talker information. The current