title: Language modulates brain activity underlying representation of kinship terms.
abstract: Kinship terms have been found to be highly diverse across languages. Here we investigated the brain representation of kinship terms in two distinct populations, native Chinese and Caucasian English speakers, with a five-element kinship identification (FEKI) task. The neuroimaging results showed a common extensive frontal and parietal lobe brain activation pattern for different kinship levels for both Chinese and Caucasian English speakers. Furthermore, Chinese speakers had longer reaction times and elicited more fronto-parietal brain networks activation compared to English speakers in level three (e.g., uncle and nephew) and four (e.g., cousin), including an association between the middle frontal gyrus and superior parietal lobe, which might be associated with higher working memory, attention control, and social distance representation load in Chinese kinship system processing. These results contribute to our understanding of the representation of kinship terms in the two languages.
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100101, Beijing, China.|State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning &IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, China.|Center for Collaboration and Innovation in Brain and Learning Sciences, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, China.
authors.forename: Haiyan
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.affiliation: Beijing Institute of Biomedicine, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Yue
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Ge
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning &IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, China.|Center for Collaboration and Innovation in Brain and Learning Sciences, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, China.
authors.forename: Honghong
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Tang
authors.affiliation: Institute of Affective and Social Neuroscience, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, Guangdong.
authors.forename: Yue-Jia
authors.initials: YJ
authors.lastname: Luo
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Renmin University of China, Beijing, 100872, China.
authors.forename: Xiaoqin
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Mai
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning &IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, China.|Center for Collaboration and Innovation in Brain and Learning Sciences, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, China.
authors.forename: Chao
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Liu
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D044466:Asian People; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology; D001931:Brain Mapping; D005190:Family; D005260:Female; D005625:Frontal Lobe / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D010296:Parietal Lobe / Q000502:physiology*; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology*; D011932:Reading; D044465:White People