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The Functional Overlap of Executive Control and Language Processing in Bilinguals
Emily L Coderre1, Jason F Smith2, Walter J B van Heuven3
1School of Psychology, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK; Brain Imaging and Modeling Section, Voice, Speech and Language Branch, National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA; Cognitive Neurology/Neuropsychology, Department of Neurology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA.
Bilingualism (Cambridge, England)
|October 4, 2016
Summary
Bilinguals show overlapping brain activity in the left inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG) for both language and executive control (EC) tasks. This suggests EC and language systems are interdependent in the bilingual brain.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Cognitive Science
- Psycholinguistics
Background:
- Bilingualism is hypothesized to require domain-general executive control (EC), leading to interdependence between EC and language systems.
- Previous research lacked systematic investigation into the neural overlap of EC and language processing in bilinguals.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the neural basis of EC and language processing overlap in the bilingual brain.
- To determine if EC recruitment during language tasks is domain-general and extends to non-linguistic EC.
- To identify specific brain regions altered in bilinguals due to this functional overlap.
Main Methods:
- Utilized functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to analyze brain activity.
- Employed a flanker task with linguistic and nonlinguistic distractors.
- Included a semantic categorization task to assess language processing.
Main Results:
- A conjunction analysis revealed functional overlap in the left inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG) in bilinguals.
- This overlap was specific to bilinguals; monolinguals did not show similar functional overlap.
- Identified the LIFG as a neural locus for the integration of language and EC functions.
Conclusions:
- The findings identify a specific neural region (LIFG) where language and executive control processes functionally overlap in bilinguals.
- This supports the hypothesis of interdependence between EC and language systems in the bilingual brain.
- Suggests that domain-general executive control is recruited for language processing in bilinguals.
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