Language distance in orthographic transparency affects cross-language pattern similarity between native and...

Area of Science:

• Neurolinguistics
• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Psycholinguistics

Background:

• Understanding language representation in the brain is crucial.
• Factors like age of acquisition and proficiency influence native and non-native language neural similarity.
• The impact of orthographic transparency on cross-language neural similarity remains unclear.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate how orthographic transparency modulates neural pattern similarity between native and non-native languages.
• To identify brain regions affected by language distance in orthographic transparency.
• To examine cross-language neural similarity in trilingual individuals.

Main Methods:

• Representational Similarity Analysis (RSA) was employed.
• Neural pattern similarity was estimated between native (Uyghur) and two non-native languages (Chinese, English).
• Behavioral word naming tasks were conducted.

Main Results:

• Behavioral data showed faster responses for words with orthography similar to the native language.
• RSA revealed greater neural pattern similarity between Uyghur and English (more similar orthography) than Uyghur and Chinese.
• This effect was prominent in left-hemisphere phonological processing regions.

Conclusions:

• Orthographic transparency significantly modulates cross-language neural similarity.
• Language distance in orthography impacts phonological processing in the brain.
• Neuroimaging provides evidence for the role of orthographic similarity in bilingual and multilingual language processing.