title: Balanced bilinguals favor lexical processing in their opaque language and conversion system in their shallow language.
abstract: Referred to as orthographic depth, the degree of consistency of grapheme/phoneme correspondences varies across languages from high in shallow orthographies to low in deep orthographies. The present study investigates the impact of orthographic depth on reading route by analyzing evoked potentials to words in a deep (French) and shallow (German) language presented to highly proficient bilinguals. ERP analyses to German and French words revealed significant topographic modulations 240-280 ms post-stimulus onset, indicative of distinct brain networks engaged in reading over this time window. Source estimations revealed that these effects stemmed from modulations of left insular, inferior frontal and dorsolateral regions (German>French) previously associated to phonological processing. Our results show that reading in a shallow language was associated to a stronger engagement of phonological pathways than reading in a deep language. Thus, the lexical pathways favored in word reading are reinforced by phonological networks more strongly in the shallow than deep orthography.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory for Cognitive and Neurological Sciences, Neurology Unit, Department of Medicine, Faculty of Science, University of Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Karin A
authors.initials: KA
authors.lastname: Buetler
authors.affiliation: Laboratory for Cognitive and Neurological Sciences, Neurology Unit, Department of Medicine, Faculty of Science, University of Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Diego
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: de León Rodríguez
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Marina
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Laganaro
authors.affiliation: Division of Cognitive and Restorative Neurology, Departments of Neurology and Clinical Research, Inselspital, Bern University Hospital and University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland.
authors.forename: René
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Müri
authors.affiliation: Perception and Eye Movement Laboratory, Departments of Neurology and Clinical Research, Inselspital, Bern University Hospital and University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland; Neurology and Neurorehabilitation Center, Luzerner Kantonsspital, Luzern, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Nyffeler
authors.affiliation: Laboratory for Cognitive and Neurological Sciences, Neurology Unit, Department of Medicine, Faculty of Science, University of Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Lucas
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Spierer
authors.affiliation: Laboratory for Cognitive and Neurological Sciences, Neurology Unit, Department of Medicine, Faculty of Science, University of Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland. Electronic address: jean-marie.annoni@unifr.ch.
authors.forename: Jean-Marie
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Annoni
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D005071:Evoked Potentials / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D005602:France; D005858:Germany; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008037:Linguistics; D019303:Multilingualism; D011932:Reading; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Bilingual; Dual-Route Model; EEG; ERP; Grapheme–phoneme conversion; Orthographic depth; Reading; Reading strategies; Topography; Words