Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T07:36:31.012Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Neural correlates of grammatical inflection in older native and second-language speakers*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 January 2017

KRISTIN PREHN Open the ORCID record for KRISTIN PREHN [Opens in a new window] ,
BENEDIKT TAUD ,
JANA REIFEGERSTE ,
HARALD CLAHSEN  and
AGNES FLÖEL
KRISTIN PREHN*
Affiliation:
Department of Neurology & NeuroCure Clinical Research Center, Charité UniversitätsmedizinBerlin
BENEDIKT TAUD
Affiliation:
Department of Neurology & NeuroCure Clinical Research Center, Charité UniversitätsmedizinBerlin
JANA REIFEGERSTE
Affiliation:
Potsdam Research Institute for Multilingualism
HARALD CLAHSEN
Affiliation:
Potsdam Research Institute for Multilingualism
AGNES FLÖEL
Affiliation:
Department of Neurology & NeuroCure Clinical Research Center, Charité UniversitätsmedizinBerlin
*
Address for correspondence: Kristin Prehn, Department of Neurology & NeuroCure Clinical Research Center, Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Charitéplatz 1, 10117Berlin[email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Speaking a late-acquired second language (L2) involves increased cognitive demands, as has been shown mainly in young and middle-aged adults. To investigate grammatical inflection in older L2 speakers, we acquired behavioral and functional magnetic resonance imaging data, while L1 and L2 speakers performed a grammaticality judgment task. L2 speakers showed higher error rates than native speakers, specifically when incorrect forms had to be rejected. Poorer performance in L2 speakers was accompanied by increased activity in the medial superior frontal gyrus (SFG), indicating the additional recruitment of executive control mechanisms. In addition, post-hoc within-group comparisons of behavioral and neural correlates provide evidence for dual-mechanism models in older adults, suggesting that language processing involves both procedural and declarative memory systems. Moreover, we demonstrated that speaking an L2 requires more executive control and relies to a lesser extent on the procedural memory system than speaking one's own native language.

Keywords

Agingsecond-language speakersfMRImorphologygrammatical inflectionexecutive functions
Type
Research Article
Information
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition , Volume 21 , Issue 1 , January 2018 , pp. 1 - 12
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

We would like to thank all participants for their time and effort to complete the study.

References

Abutalebi, J., & Green, D. (2007). Bilingual language production: The neurocognition of language representation and control. Journal of Neurolinguistics, 20 (3), 242–275.Google Scholar
Abutalebi, J., & Green, D. W. (2016). Neuroimaging of language control in bilinguals: neural adaptation and reserve. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 4, 699–698.Google Scholar
Alladi, S., Bak, T. H., Duggirala, V., Surampudi, B., Shailaja, M., Shukla, A. K., Chaudhuri, J. R., & Kaul, S. (2013). Bilingualism delays age at onset of dementia, independent of education and immigration status. Neurology, 81 (22), 1938–1944.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ashburner, J. (2007). A fast diffeomorphic image registration algorithm. NeuroImage, 38 (1), 95–113.Google Scholar
Bialystok, E., Poarch, G., Luo, L., & Craik, F. I. (2014). Effects of bilingualism and aging on executive function and working memory. Psychology and Aging, 29 (3), 696–705.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bialystok, E., Craik, F. I., Klein, R., & Viswanathan, M. (2004). Bilingualism, aging, and cognitive control: evidence from the Simon task. Psychology and Aging, 19 (2), 290–303.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Barnes, J., Ridgway, G. R., Bartlett, J., Henley, S. M. D., Lehmann, M., Hobbs, N., Clarkson, M. J., MacManus, D. G., Ourselin, S., & Fox, N. C. (2010). Head size, age and gender adjustment in MRI studies: a necessary nuisance? NeuroImage, 53 (4), 1244–1255.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Berres, M., Monsch, A. U., Bernasconi, F., Thalmann, B., & Stahelin, H. B. (2000). Normal ranges of neuropsychological tests for the diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease. Studies in Health Technology and Informatics, 77, 195–199.Google Scholar
Branzi, F. M., Della Rosa, P. A., Canini, M., Costa, A., & Abutalebi, J. (2016). Language Control in Bilinguals: Monitoring and Response Selection. Cerebral Cortex, 26 (6), 2367–2380.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Clahsen, H., & Felser, C. (2006). Grammatical processing in language learners. Applied Psycholinguistics, 27 (1), 3–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Courtney, S. M., Petit, L., Maisog, J. M., Ungerleider, L. G., & Haxby, J. V. (1998). An area specialized for spatial working memory in human frontal cortex. Science, 279 (5355), 1347–1351.Google Scholar
Dale, A. M. (1999). Optimal Experimental Design for Event-Related fMRI. Human Brain Mapping, 114 (8), 109–114.Google Scholar
Davis, S. W., Zhuang, J., Wright, P., & Tyler, L. K. (2014). Age-related sensitivity to task-related modulation of language-processing networks. Neuropsychologia, 63, 107–115.Google Scholar
Dreher, J. C., & Grafman, J. (2003). Dissociating the roles of the rostral anterior cingulate and the lateral prefrontal cortices in performing two tasks simultaneously or successively. Cerebral Cortex, 13 (4), 329–339.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
du Boisgueheneuc, F., Levy, R., Volle, E., Seassau, M., Duffau, H., Kinkingnehun, S., Samson, Y., Zhang, S., & Dubois, B. (2006). Functions of the left superior frontal gyrus in humans: a lesion study. Brain, 129 (12), 3315–3328.Google Scholar
Felser, C., & Clahsen, H. (2009). Grammatical Processing of Spoken Language in Child and Adult Language Learners. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 38 (3), 305–319.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gatterer, G., Fischer, P., Simanyi, M., & Danielczyk, W. (1989). The A-K-T (“Alters-Konzentrations-Test”) a new psychometric test for geriatric patients. Functional Neurology, 4 (3), 273–276.Google Scholar
Glascher, J. (2009). Visualization of group inference data in functional neuroimaging. Neuroinformatics, 7 (1), 73–82.Google Scholar
Gold, B. T., Kim, C., Johnson, N. F., Kryscio, R. J. & Smith, C. D. (2013). Lifelong bilingualism maintains neural efficiency for cognitive control in aging. Journal of Neuroscience, 33 (2), 387–396.Google Scholar
Green, D. W., & Abutalebi, J. (2013). Language control in bilinguals: The adaptive control hypothesis. Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 25 (5), 515–530.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hahne, A., Mueller, J. L., & Clahsen, H. (2006). Morphological processing in a second language: behavioral and event-related brain potential evidence for storage and decomposition. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 18 (1), 121–134.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Henson, R.N. (2015). Design efficiency. In Toga, A.W. (ed.), Brain Mapping: An Encyclopedic Reference. pp. 489–494. Academic Press: Elsevier.Google Scholar
Hopfinger, J. B., Buonocore, M. H., & Mangun, G. R. (2000). The neural mechanisms of top-down attentional control. Nature Neuroscience, 3 (3), 284–291.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Johnson, M. K., Raye, C. L., Mitchell, K. J., Greene, E. J., & Anderson, A. W. (2003). FMRI evidence for an organization of prefrontal cortex by both type of process and type of information. Cerebral Cortex, 13 (3), 265–273.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mumford, J. A., Davis, T., & Poldrack, R. A. (2014). The impact of study design on pattern estimation for single-trial multivariate pattern analysis. NeuroImage, 103, 130–138.Google Scholar
Newman, A. J., Pancheva, R., Ozawa, K., Neville, H. J., & Ullman, M. T. (2001). An event-related fMRI study of syntactic and semantic violations. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 30 (3), 339–364.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ni, W., Constable, R. T., Mencl, W. E., Pugh, K. R., Fulbright, R. K., Shaywitz, S. E., Shaywitz, B. A., Gore, J. C., & Shankweiler, D. (2000). An event-related neuroimaging study distinguishing form and content in sentence processing. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 12 (1), 120–133.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Oldfield, R. C. (1971). The assessment and analysis of handedness: the Edinburgh inventory. Neuropsychologia, 9 (1), 97–113.Google Scholar
Olsen, R. K., Pangelinan, M. M., Bogulski, C., Chakravarty, M. M., Luk, G., & Grady, C. L. (2015). The effect of lifelong bilingualism on regional grey and white matter volume. Brain Research, 1612, 128–139.Google Scholar
Penke, M., Weyerts, H., Gross, M., Zander, E., Münte, T. F., & Clahsen, H. (1997). How the brain processes complex words: an event-related potential study of German verb inflections. Cognitive Brain Research, 6 (1), 37–52.Google Scholar
Pinker, S., & Ullman, M. T. (2002). The past and future of the past tense. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 6 (11), 456–463.Google Scholar
Pliatsikas, C., Johnstone, T., & Marinis, T. (2014a). FMRI evidence for the involvement of the procedural memory system in morphological processing of a second language. PloS one, 9 (5), e97298.Google Scholar
Pliatsikas, C., Johnstone, T., & Marinis, T. (2014b). Gray matter volume in the cerebellum is related to the processing of grammatical rules in a second language: a structural voxel-based morphometry study. Cerebellum, 13, 55–63.Google Scholar
Rowe, J. B., Toni, I., Josephs, O., Frackowiak, R. S., & Passingham, R. E. (2000). The prefrontal cortex: response selection or maintenance within working memory? Science, 288 (5471), 1656–1660.Google Scholar
Rowe, J., Hughes, L., Eckstein, D., & Owen, A. M. (2008). Rule-Selection and Action-Selection have a Shared Neuroanatomical Basis in the Human Prefrontal and Parietal Cortex. Cerebral Cortex, 18, 2275–2285.Google Scholar
Schel, M. A., Kuhn, S., Brass, M., Haggard, P., Ridderinkhof, K. R., & Crone, E. A. (2014). Neural correlates of intentional and stimulus-driven inhibition: a comparison. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 8, 27.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Shafto, M. A., & Tyler, L. K. (2014). Language in the aging brain: the network dynamics of cognitive decline and preservation. Science, 346 (6209), 583–587.Google Scholar
Silver, M., Montana, G., & Nichols, T. E. (2011). False positives in neuroimaging genetics using voxel-based morphometry data. NeuroImage, 54 (2), 992–1000.Google Scholar
Taylor, J. S. H., Rastle, K., & Davis, M. H. (2013). Can Cognitive Models Explain Brain Activation During Word and Pseudoword Reading? A Meta-Analysis of 36 Neuroimaging Studies. Psychological Bulletin, 139 (4), 766–791.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tyler, L. K., Shafto, M. A., Randall, B., Wright, P., Marslen-Wilson, W. D., & Stamatakis, E. A. (2010). Preserving syntactic processing across the adult life span: the modulation of the frontotemporal language system in the context of age-related atrophy. Cerebral Cortex, 20 (2), 352–364.Google Scholar
Ullman, M. T. (2001). The neural basis of lexicon and grammar in first and second language: The declarative/procedural model. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 4, 105–122.Google Scholar
Ullman, M. T. (2004). Contributions of memory circuits to language: the declarative/procedural model. Cognition, 92 (1–2), 231–270.Google Scholar
Valian, V. (2015). Bilingualism and cognition. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 18 (1), 3–24.Google Scholar
Verhelst, N., Van Avermaet, P., Takala, S., Figueras, N., & North, B. (2009). Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: learning, teaching, assessment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Zhang, Y., Brady, M., & Smith, S. (2001). Segmentation of brain MR images through a hidden Markov random field model and the expectation-maximization algorithm. IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging, 20 (1), 45–57.Google Scholar