Individual differences in representational similarity of first and second languages in the bilingual brain.

ABSTRACT: Current theories of bilingualism disagree on the extent to which separate brain regions are used to maintain or process one's first and second language. The present study took a novel multivariate approach to address this question. We examined whether bilinguals maintain distinct neural representations of two languages; specifically, we tested whether brain areas that are involved in processing word meaning in either language are reliably representing each language differently, and whether language representation is influenced by individual differences in proficiency level and age of acquisition (AoA) of L2. Thirty-one English-Mandarin bilingual adults performed a picture-word matching task in both languages. We then used representational similarity analysis to examine which brain regions

SUBMITTER: Nichols ES 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8519873 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature