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Executive function is necessary to enhance lexical processing in a less proficient L2: Evidence from fMRI during picture naming

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 June 2006

ARTURO E. HERNANDEZ  and
GAYANE MESCHYAN
ARTURO E. HERNANDEZ
Affiliation:
University of Houston
GAYANE MESCHYAN
Affiliation:
University of Houston
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Abstract

Recent work in the bilingual literature suggests that naming pictures in a second language (L2) differs from naming pictures in the first language (L1) because of effortful lexical retrieval. This finding has received some support in the neuroimaging literature (De Blesser et al., 2003). In the current study, twelve Spanish-English bilinguals, who had learned English later in early adulthood, were asked to name pictures covertly in either Spanish or English while being scanned with functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI). Picture naming in the second language (L2) relative to the native language (L1) revealed increased activity in the right insula, anterior cingulate gyrus and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and the left fusiform gyrus. These results are consistent with the view that picture naming in a less proficient L2 requires increased effort to establish links between motor codes and visual forms.

Type
Research Article
Information
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition , Volume 9 , Issue 2 , July 2006 , pp. 177 - 188
Copyright
Cambridge University Press 2006

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Footnotes

Support for this research was provided by the Brain Mapping Medical Research Organization, Brain Mapping Support Foundation, Pierson-Lovelace Foundation, The Ahmanson Foundation, Tamkin Foundation, Jennifer Jones-Simon Foundation, The Capital Group Companies Charitable Foundation, Robson Family, and the Northstar Fund. Additional support was provided by a National Center for Research Resources grant (RR12169) and the grants entitled “fMRI studies on language and task switching in Spanish-English Bilinguals” (NSF BCS0092043) and “Neural correlates of grammatical gender processing” (NSF INT0202686). We would like to thank Lindsay Carr, Jeannine Shaughnessy and Kelly King for assistance on various aspects of this project. We would also like to thank Fred Saab for assistance in data analysis and Vivian Valentin, Benjamin Storm, and Ann Firestine for assistance in data collection.