Mixing the stimulus list in bilingual lexical decision turns cognate facilitation effects into mirrored inhibition effects

To test the BIA+ and Multilink models’ accounts of how bilinguals process words with different degrees of cross-linguistic orthographic and semantic overlap, we conducted two experiments manipulating stimulus list composition. Dutch-English late bilinguals performed two English lexical decision tasks including the same set of cognates, interlingual homographs, English control words, and pseudowords. In one task, half of the pseudowords were replaced with Dutch words, requiring a ‘no’ response. This change from pure to mixed language list context was found to turn cognate facilitation effects into inhibition. Relative to control words, larger effects were found for cognate pairs with an increasing cross-linguistic form overlap. Identical cognates produced considerably larger effects than non-identical cognates, supporting their special status in the bilingual lexicon. Response patterns for different item types are accounted for in terms of the items’ lexical representation and their binding to ‘yes’ and ‘no’ responses in pure vs mixed lexical decision

The role of left inferior frontal and superior temporal cortex in sentence comprehension: Localizing syntactic and semantic processes

An event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) paradigm was used to specify those brain areas supporting the processing of sentence-level semantic and syntactic information. Hemodynamic responses were recorded while participants listened to correct, semantically incorrect and syntactically incorrect sentences. Both anomalous conditions recruited larger portions of the superior temporal region than correct sentences. Processing of semantic violations relied primarily on the mid-portion of the superior temporal region bilaterally and the insular cortex bilaterally, whereas processing of syntactic violations specifically involved the anterior portion of the left superior temporal gyrus, the left posterior frontal operculum adjacent to Broca's area and the putamen in the left basal ganglia. A comparison of the two anomalous conditions revealed higher levels of activation for the syntactic over the semantic condition in the left basal ganglia and for the semantic over the syntactic condition in the mid-portion of the superior temporal gyrus, bilaterally. These data indicate that both semantic and syntactic processes are supported by a temporo-frontal network with distinct areas specialized for semantic and syntactic processes

Cerebral activation patterns: Differences and similarities between native and non-native language comprehension

Patterns of brain activity: Similarities and differences in first and second language comprehension. The capability to understand and use language is a uniquely human skill, the specific neural mechanisms of which remain largely elusive. In the past decade neuropsychologists and linguists have worked together to try to unravel some of the mysteries surrounding every day language processing. It has been shown with the help of neurophysiological measurements that the processing of language is broken down by the brain into linguistically relevant subcomponents (such as processing of grammati - cal structure or conceptual information). In the first part of this article we report on what neurophysiological research can tell us about how language is processed by the human brain. In the second part of the article we diverge to look at language processing in non-native speakers of a language. Specifically late learners of a second language provide an interesting background for looking at the plasticity of the human brain. Neurophysiological studies on non-native language processing are introduced and the results are discussed in the context of life long learning and development