TY - JOUR
T1 - Overlapping and distinct neural networks supporting novel word learning in bilinguals and monolinguals
AU - Bakker-Marshall, Iske
AU - Takashima, Atsuko
AU - Fernandez, Carla B.
AU - Janzen, Gabriele
AU - McQueen, James M.
AU - Van Hell, Janet G.
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was funded by The Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) Brain and Cognition Grant No. 433-09-239. The authors are grateful to Sarah Fairchild, Marlijn Beek and Desirae Scott for help with data collection. We would also like to thank the Penn State Social, Life, and Engineering Sciences Imaging Center, 3T MRI facility for the use of in-kind hours for data collection.
Publisher Copyright:
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press.
PY - 2021/5
Y1 - 2021/5
N2 - This study investigated how bilingual experience alters neural mechanisms supporting novel word learning. We hypothesised that novel words elicit increased semantic activation in the larger bilingual lexicon, potentially stimulating stronger memory integration than in monolinguals. English monolinguals and Spanish-English bilinguals were trained on two sets of written Swahili-English word pairs, one set on each of two consecutive days, and performed a recognition task in the MRI-scanner. Lexical integration was measured through visual primed lexical decision. Surprisingly, no group difference emerged in explicit word memory, and priming occurred only in the monolingual group. This difference in lexical integration may indicate an increased need for slow neocortical interleaving of old and new information in the denser bilingual lexicon. The fMRI data were consistent with increased use of cognitive control networks in monolinguals and of articulatory motor processes in bilinguals, providing further evidence for experience-induced neural changes: monolinguals and bilinguals reached largely comparable behavioural performance levels in novel word learning, but did so by recruiting partially overlapping but non-identical neural systems to acquire novel words.
AB - This study investigated how bilingual experience alters neural mechanisms supporting novel word learning. We hypothesised that novel words elicit increased semantic activation in the larger bilingual lexicon, potentially stimulating stronger memory integration than in monolinguals. English monolinguals and Spanish-English bilinguals were trained on two sets of written Swahili-English word pairs, one set on each of two consecutive days, and performed a recognition task in the MRI-scanner. Lexical integration was measured through visual primed lexical decision. Surprisingly, no group difference emerged in explicit word memory, and priming occurred only in the monolingual group. This difference in lexical integration may indicate an increased need for slow neocortical interleaving of old and new information in the denser bilingual lexicon. The fMRI data were consistent with increased use of cognitive control networks in monolinguals and of articulatory motor processes in bilinguals, providing further evidence for experience-induced neural changes: monolinguals and bilinguals reached largely comparable behavioural performance levels in novel word learning, but did so by recruiting partially overlapping but non-identical neural systems to acquire novel words.
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U2 - 10.1017/S1366728920000589
DO - 10.1017/S1366728920000589
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85099439150
VL - 24
SP - 524
EP - 536
JO - Bilingualism: Language and Cognition
JF - Bilingualism: Language and Cognition
SN - 1366-7289
IS - 3
ER -