Chinese-English bilinguals show linguistic-perceptual links in the brain associating short spoken phrases with corresponding real-world natural action sounds by semantic category

Abstract

ABSTRACT Higher cognitive functions such as linguistic comprehension must ultimately relate to perceptual systems in the brain, though how and why this forms remains unclear. Different brain networks that mediate perception when hearing have recently been proposed to respect a taxonomic neurobiological model for the processing of different acoustic-semantic categories of real-world natural sounds. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) with Chinese/English bilingual listeners, the present study explored whether reception of short spoken phrases that described corresponding natural sounds, in both Chinese (Mandarin) and English, would engage overlapping brain regions at a semantic category level. The results revealed a double-dissociation of cortical regions that were preferential for representing knowledge of human versus environmental action events, whether conveyed through natural sounds or the corresponding spoken phrases depicted by either comprehended language. These findings of cortical hubs exhibiting linguistic-perceptual knowledge links at a semantic category level should help to advance neurocomputational models of the neurodevelopment of language systems.