title: Language differences in the brain network for reading in naturalistic story reading and lexical decision.
abstract: Differences in how writing systems represent language raise important questions about whether there could be a universal functional architecture for reading across languages. In order to study potential language differences in the neural networks that support reading skill, we collected fMRI data from readers of alphabetic (English) and morpho-syllabic (Chinese) writing systems during two reading tasks. In one, participants read short stories under conditions that approximate natural reading, and in the other, participants decided whether individual stimuli were real words or not. Prior work comparing these two writing systems has overwhelmingly used meta-linguistic tasks, generally supporting the conclusion that the reading system is organized differently for skilled readers of Chinese and English. We observed that language differences in the reading network were greatly dependent on task. In lexical decision, a pattern consistent with prior research was observed in which the Middle Frontal Gyrus (MFG) and right Fusiform Gyrus (rFFG) were more active for Chinese than for English, whereas the posterior temporal sulcus was more active for English than for Chinese. We found a very different pattern of language effects in a naturalistic reading paradigm, during which significant differences were only observed in visual regions not typically considered specific to the reading network, and the middle temporal gyrus, which is thought to be important for direct mapping of orthography to semantics. Indeed, in areas that are often discussed as supporting distinct cognitive or linguistic functions between the two languages, we observed interaction. Specifically, language differences were most pronounced in MFG and rFFG during the lexical decision task, whereas no language differences were observed in these areas during silent reading of text for comprehension.
authors.affiliation: Key Lab for Behavior & Cognitive Neuroscience of Shaanxi Province, School of Psychology, Shaanxi Normal University, Xi'an, China.
authors.forename: Xiaojuan
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Key Lab for Behavior & Cognitive Neuroscience of Shaanxi Province, School of Psychology, Shaanxi Normal University, Xi'an, China; Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Jianfeng
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, University of California Irvine, Irvine, California, United States of America.
authors.forename: Jie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: Haskins Laboratories, Yale University, New Haven, CT, United States of America.
authors.forename: W Einar
authors.initials: WE
authors.lastname: Mencl
authors.affiliation: State Key laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning & IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Hua
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Shu
authors.affiliation: Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China; Haskins Laboratories, Yale University, New Haven, CT, United States of America; Departments of Psychology and Linguistics, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, United States of America.
authors.forename: Jason David
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Zevin
mesh_terms: D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008037:Linguistics; D008297:Male; D017397:Prefrontal Cortex / Q000502:physiology