title: Universal brain signature of proficient reading: Evidence from four contrasting languages.
abstract: We propose and test a theoretical perspective in which a universal hallmark of successful literacy acquisition is the convergence of the speech and orthographic processing systems onto a common network of neural structures, regardless of how spoken words are represented orthographically in a writing system. During functional MRI, skilled adult readers of four distinct and highly contrasting languages, Spanish, English, Hebrew, and Chinese, performed an identical semantic categorization task to spoken and written words. Results from three complementary analytic approaches demonstrate limited language variation, with speech-print convergence emerging as a common brain signature of reading proficiency across the wide spectrum of selected languages, whether their writing system is alphabetic or logographic, whether it is opaque or transparent, and regardless of the phonological and morphological structure it represents.
authors.affiliation: Haskins Laboratories, New Haven, CT 06511; Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06269;
authors.forename: Jay G
authors.initials: JG
authors.lastname: Rueckl
authors.affiliation: Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language, 2009 Donostia-San Sebastian, Spain;
authors.forename: Pedro M
authors.initials: PM
authors.lastname: Paz-Alonso
authors.affiliation: Haskins Laboratories, New Haven, CT 06511; Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06269;
authors.forename: Peter J
authors.initials: PJ
authors.lastname: Molfese
authors.affiliation: Institute of Neuroscience, National Yang-Ming University, 11221 Taipei, Taiwan;
authors.forename: Wen-Jui
authors.initials: WJ
authors.lastname: Kuo
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, The Hebrew University, 91905 Jerusalem, Israel;
authors.forename: Atira
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bick
authors.affiliation: Haskins Laboratories, New Haven, CT 06511; frosts@haskins.yale.edu.
authors.forename: Stephen J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Frost
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Francisco, CA 94143;
authors.forename: Roeland
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Hancock
authors.affiliation: Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, National Central University, 32001 Taoyuan, Taiwan;
authors.forename: Denise H
authors.initials: DH
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.affiliation: Haskins Laboratories, New Haven, CT 06511;
authors.forename: William Einar
authors.initials: WE
authors.lastname: Mencl
authors.affiliation: Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language, 2009 Donostia-San Sebastian, Spain;
authors.forename: Jon Andoni
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Duñabeitia
authors.affiliation: Department of Educational Psychology and Counseling, National Taiwan Normal University, 10610 Taipei, Taiwan;
authors.forename: Jun-Ren
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.affiliation: Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language, 2009 Donostia-San Sebastian, Spain;
authors.forename: Myriam
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Oliver
authors.affiliation: Haskins Laboratories, New Haven, CT 06511; Department of Psychology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089; Department of Linguistics, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089;
authors.forename: Jason D
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Zevin
authors.affiliation: Haskins Laboratories, New Haven, CT 06511; Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Francisco, CA 94143;
authors.forename: Fumiko
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Hoeft
authors.affiliation: Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language, 2009 Donostia-San Sebastian, Spain; IKERBASQUE, Basque Foundation for Science, 48013 Bilbao, Spain;
authors.forename: Manuel
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Carreiras
authors.affiliation: Brain Science Research Center, National Chiao Tung University, 300 Hsinchu, Taiwan; Institute of Linguistics, Academia Sinica, 115 Taipei, Taiwan; College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Taipei Medical University, 110 Taipei, Taiwan;
authors.forename: Ovid J L
authors.initials: OJ
authors.lastname: Tzeng
authors.affiliation: Haskins Laboratories, New Haven, CT 06511; Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06269; Department of Linguistics, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06511.
authors.forename: Kenneth R
authors.initials: KR
authors.lastname: Pugh
authors.affiliation: Haskins Laboratories, New Haven, CT 06511; Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language, 2009 Donostia-San Sebastian, Spain; Department of Psychology, The Hebrew University, 91905 Jerusalem, Israel;
authors.forename: Ram
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Frost
mesh_terms: D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D011932:Reading; D013060:Speech; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: cross-language invariance; functional MRI; word recognition