title: Do bilinguals show neural differences with monolinguals when processing their native language?
abstract: The present research used fMRI to measure brain activity in passive listening and picture-naming tasks with a group of early high proficient Spanish-Catalan bilinguals, in which Spanish was dominant, and a group of Spanish monolinguals. Both tasks were conducted in Spanish and the effect of cognateness was studied. The behavioural results showed slow naming responses in bilinguals. The fMRI results revealed that bilinguals and monolinguals differed only during the picture naming task. Unlike previous results, obtained mainly with L2, monolinguals displayed more activity in receptive language areas and less activity in the posterior cingulate cortex and right STG in the picture-naming task than bilinguals. As far as we know, this is the first study to investigate the neural basis of L1 processing in bilinguals and monolinguals by performing the task in the same language and in a monolingual context. The results indicate more efficient use of language networks in monolinguals because bilinguals utilised a more distributed network, which may imply subtle processing disadvantages.
authors: Departament de Psicologia Bàsica, Clínica i Psicobiologia, Facultad de Ciencias Humanas y Sociales, Universitat Jaume I, Castelló de la Plana, Spain.
authors: María-Ángeles
authors: MÁ
authors: Palomar-García
authors: Departament de Psicologia Bàsica, Clínica i Psicobiologia, Facultad de Ciencias Humanas y Sociales, Universitat Jaume I, Castelló de la Plana, Spain.
authors: Elisenda
authors: E
authors: Bueichekú
authors: Departament de Psicologia Bàsica, Clínica i Psicobiologia, Facultad de Ciencias Humanas y Sociales, Universitat Jaume I, Castelló de la Plana, Spain. Electronic address: avila@uji.es.
authors: César
authors: C
authors: Ávila
authors: Departament de Psicologia Bàsica, Clínica i Psicobiologia, Facultad de Ciencias Humanas y Sociales, Universitat Jaume I, Castelló de la Plana, Spain; Language Group, Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging, University College of London, United Kingdom.
authors: Ana
authors: A
authors: Sanjuán
authors: Center of Brain and Cognition, CBC, Universitat Pompeu i Fabra, Barcelona, Spain.
authors: Kristof
authors: K
authors: Strijkers
authors: Departament de Psicologia Bàsica, Clínica i Psicobiologia, Facultad de Ciencias Humanas y Sociales, Universitat Jaume I, Castelló de la Plana, Spain.
authors: Noelia
authors: N
authors: Ventura-Campos
authors: Center of Brain and Cognition, CBC, Universitat Pompeu i Fabra, Barcelona, Spain; Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats, ICREA, Barcelona, Spain.
authors: Albert
authors: A
authors: Costa
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001931:Brain Mapping; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D004292:Dominance, Cerebral / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D006179:Gyrus Cinguli / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D007089:Image Enhancement; D007090:Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D019303:Multilingualism; D009415:Nerve Net / Q000502:physiology; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology; D013067:Speech Perception; D014705:Verbal Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Bilingualism; First language; Speech comprehension; Speech production; fMRI