Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
This article was downloaded by:[Northwestern University] On: 30 October 2007 Access Details: [subscription number 768155896] Publisher: Psychology Press Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t713657736 Cortical activation during word processing in late bilinguals: Similarities and differences as revealed by functional magnetic resonance imaging Viorica Marian a; Yevgeniy Shildkrot b; Henrike K. Blumenfeld a; Margarita Kaushanskaya a; Yasmeen Faroqi-Shah c; Joy Hirsch d a Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA b New York University School of Medicine, New York, NY, USA c University of Maryland, College Park, Md, USA d Columbia University, New York, NY, USA Online Publication Date: 01 April 2007 To cite this Article: Marian, Viorica, Shildkrot, Yevgeniy, Blumenfeld, Henrike K., Kaushanskaya, Margarita, Faroqi-Shah, Yasmeen and Hirsch, Joy (2007) 'Cortical activation during word processing in late bilinguals: Similarities and differences as revealed by functional magnetic resonance imaging', Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology, 29:3, 247 - 265 To link to this article: DOI: 10.1080/13803390600659376 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13803390600659376 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.informaworld.com/terms-and-conditions-of-access.pdf This article maybe used for research, teaching and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, re-distribution, re-selling, loan or sub-licensing, systematic supply or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae and drug doses should be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings, demand or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material. JOURNAL OF CLINICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL NEUROPSYCHOLOGY 2007, 29 (3), 247–265 NCEN Cortical activation during word processing in late bilinguals: Similarities and differences as revealed by functional magnetic resonance imaging Cortical Activation in Bilinguals Viorica Marian,1 Yevgeniy Shildkrot,2 Henrike K. Blumenfeld,1 Margarita Kaushanskaya,1 Yasmeen Faroqi-Shah,3 and Joy Hirsch4 1Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA 2New York University School of Medicine, New York, NY, USA 3University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA 4Columbia University, New York, NY, USA Functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to compare cortical organization of the first (L1, Russian) and second (L2, English) languages. Six fluent Russian–English bilinguals who acquired their second language post- puberty were tested with words and nonwords presented either auditorily or visually. Results showed that both languages activated similar cortical networks, including the inferior frontal, middle frontal, superior temporal, middle temporal, angular, and supramarginal gyri. Within the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), L2 activated a larger cortical volume than L1 during lexical and phonological processing. For both languages, the left IFG was more active than the right IFG during lexical processing. Within the left IFG, the distance between centers of activation Downloaded By: [Northwestern University] At: 22:01 30 October 2007 associated with lexical processing of translation equivalents across languages was larger than the distance between centers of activation associated with lexical processing of different words in the same language. Results of phono- logical processing analyses revealed different centers of activation associated with the first versus the second lan- guage in the IFG, but not in the superior temporal gyrus (STG). These findings are discussed within the context of the current literature on cortical organization in bilinguals and suggest variation in bilingual cortical activation associated with lexical, phonological, and orthographic processing. Bilingualism presents a unique setting for explor- linguistic, and racial composition. The minority ing fundamental questions about the cognitive population (Spanish speaking in particular) is architecture of language. With about 30 times as growing 12 times faster than the majority popula- many languages in the world as there are countries tion, and the foreign-born population increased (Romaine, 1995) and with at least half of the glo- from 19.8 million to 30.5 million between 1990 and bal population bilingual (Grosjean, 1982), bilin- 2000, with 18% of American households speaking gualism is the norm rather than the exception in a language other than English (Daw, 2002). the world (Harris & McGhee-Nelson, 1992). In the Understanding how the brain accommodates mul- United States, the number of bilingual speakers is tiple languages at the same time can provide growing at a fast rate due to changes in ethnic, important insights into the cognitive and neural Address correspondence to Viorica Marian, Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Northwestern University, 2240 Campus Drive, Evanston, IL 60208–3570, USA (E-mail: [email protected]). Data collection for this study was supported by NRSA Grant 5T32MH019389-09 to the first author and by MSKCC Support Grant CIP30CA08748 to the last author, and preparation of this manuscript was supported in part by Grants NSF BCS-0418495 and NICHD 1R03HD046952 to the first author. A summary description of a subset of these data appears in Marian, Spivey, and Hirsch (2003) prepared for the International Conference on Neurological Bases of Language at the University of Groningen, Netherlands. We are grateful to the editor and two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments and suggestions. We wish to thank Ulric Neisser, Aswin van den Berg, Li Sheng, the members of the fMRI lab at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, and the Northwestern Bilin- gualism and Psycholinguistics Laboratory for contributions during various stages of the project. © 2007 Psychology Press, an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an Informa business http://www.psypress.com/jcen DOI: 10.1080/13803390600659376 248 MARIAN ET AL. architecture of bilingual language processing, as imaging studies also reported overlapping regions well as have direct implications for this linguisti- of activation for both languages in frontal (Illes cally diverse and severely underserved segment of et al., 1999) as well as temporal and parietal lobes the population. The present research contributes to (Chee, Tan, & Thiel, 1999b). the understanding of cortical organization of lan- The discrepancies among studies reporting dis- guage in bilinguals using functional neuroimaging, tinct versus overlapping cortical regions associated a technique that relies on the link between brain with processing L1 and L2 have been attributed to hemodynamics and mental operations (e.g., Belliveau differences in tasks and stimuli used in experimen- et al., 1991; Belliveau et al., 1990; Ogawa, Lee, tal methodology, and in participant language Kay, & Tank, 1990; Ogawa et al., 1992). While history (e.g., Abutalebi, Cappa, & Perani, 2001; multiple studies have examined neural correlates of Marian, in press; Vaid & Hull, 2001). Studies of bilingualism in a global way, the objective of the cortical representation in bilinguals with different present research was to distinguish among differ- language histories suggest that age of L2 acquisi- ent aspects of bilingual language processing. In tion may account for some of the observed discrep- particular, cortical activation patterns were exam- ancies. It appears that bilinguals who acquired ined for lexical, phonological, and orthographic both languages in parallel from early childhood processing in the two languages. show overlapping activations when processing Research on cortical organization in bilinguals their first and second languages (Chee et al., has traditionally centered on the question of over- 1999b; Illes et al., 1999; Kim, Relkin, Lee, & lapping versus distinct representations of the two Hirsch, 1997; Perani et al., 1998). In contrast, bilin- languages in the brain. On the one hand, a number guals who acquired a second language later in life of studies suggest that cortical representations of activate somewhat distinct areas when processing first and second languages are different. For L1 and L2 (Dehaene et al., 1997; Kim et al., 1997). example, selective disruption of L1 and L2 naming For example, Kim et al. compared bilinguals who Downloaded By: [Northwestern University] At: 22:01 30 October 2007 has been reported in cortical stimulation experi- learned both languages in parallel from early ments, suggesting that at least some cortical childhood (early bilinguals) to bilinguals who regions associated with the two languages are sep- acquired their second language later in life (late arate (e.g., Ojemann & Whitaker, 1978). Selective bilinguals) using a subvocal language production language loss and/or differential recovery of lan- task. Functional neuroimaging revealed overlap- guages in multilingual aphasic patients have also ping inferior