title: fMRI Syntactic and Lexical Repetition Effects Reveal the Initial Stages of Learning a New Language.
abstract: When learning a new language, we build brain networks to process and represent the acquired words and syntax and integrate these with existing language representations. It is an open question whether the same or different neural mechanisms are involved in learning and processing a novel language compared with the native language(s). Here we investigated the neural repetition effects of repeating known and novel word orders while human subjects were in the early stages of learning a new language. Combining a miniature language with a syntactic priming paradigm, we examined the neural correlates of language learning on-line using functional magnetic resonance imaging. In left inferior frontal gyrus and posterior temporal cortex, the repetition of novel syntactic structures led to repetition enhancement, whereas repetition of known structures resulted in repetition suppression. Additional verb repetition led to an increase in the syntactic repetition enhancement effect in language-related brain regions. Similarly, the repetition of verbs led to repetition enhancement effects in areas related to lexical and semantic processing, an effect that continued to increase in a subset of these regions. Repetition enhancement might reflect a mechanism to build and strengthen a neural network to process novel syntactic structures and lexical items. By contrast, the observed repetition suppression points to overlapping neural mechanisms for native and new language constructions when these have sufficient structural similarities.
  
  
  
  Acquiring a second language entails learning how to interpret novel words and relations between words, and to integrate them with existing language knowledge. To investigate the brain mechanisms involved in this particularly human skill, we combined an artificial language learning task with a syntactic repetition paradigm. We show that the repetition of novel syntactic structures, as well as words in contexts, leads to repetition enhancement, whereas repetition of known structures results in repetition suppression. We thus propose that repetition enhancement might reflect a brain mechanism to build and strengthen a neural network to process novel syntactic regularities and novel words. Importantly, the results also indicate an overlap in neural mechanisms for native and new language constructions with sufficient structural similarities.
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, 6526 XD Nijmegen, The Netherlands, Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Donders Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging, Radboud University Nijmegen, 6525 EN Nijmegen, The Netherlands, kirsten.weber@mpi.nl.
authors.forename: Kirsten
authors.identifier: 0000-0001-8192-2207
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Weber
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853, and.
authors.forename: Morten H
authors.initials: MH
authors.lastname: Christiansen
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, 6526 XD Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Karl Magnus
authors.initials: KM
authors.lastname: Petersson
authors.affiliation: Department of Linguistics, Heinrich-Heine-University Düsseldorf, 40225 Düsseldorf, Germany.
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Indefrey
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, 6526 XD Nijmegen, The Netherlands, Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Donders Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging, Radboud University Nijmegen, 6525 EN Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Peter
authors.identifier: 0000-0001-7280-7549
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Hagoort
mesh_terms: D001931:Brain Mapping; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D007802:Language; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D010100:Oxygen / Q000097:blood; D012660:Semantics; D013067:Speech Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D013702:Temporal Lobe / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000502:physiology*; D013997:Time Factors; D014175:Translating; D014706:Verbal Learning / Q000502:physiology*
chemical_list: D010100:Oxygen
keywords: fMRI; language learning; miniature language; priming; repetition effects; syntax