Abstract
Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to compare brain activation from Japanese readers reading hiragana (syllabic) and kanji (logographic) sentences, and English as a second language (L2). Kanji showed more activation than hiragana in right-hemisphere occipito-temporal lobe areas associated with visuospatial processing; hiragana, in turn, showed more activation than kanji in areas of the brain associated with phonological processing. L1 results underscore the difference in visuospatial and phonological processing demands between the systems. Reading in English as compared to either of the Japanese systems showed more activation in inferior frontal gyrus, medial frontal gyrus, and angular gyrus. The additional activation in English in these areas may have been associated with an increased cognitive demand for phonological processing and verbal working memory. More generally, L2 results suggest more effortful reading comprehension processes. The study contributes to the understanding of differential brain responses to different writing systems and to reading comprehension in a second language.
Highlights
The objective of the study was to investigate the brain activation associated with reading comprehension and different orthographies in two Japanese writing systems, and in English, a second language
Comprehension accuracy was not affected in L2
The brain differentially responds to the two orthographies, activating righthemisphere areas associated with the pictorial and visuospatial characteristic of kanji characters, and activating left and right-hemisphere areas associated with the syllabic nature of hiragana
Summary
The objective of the study was to investigate the brain activation associated with reading comprehension and different orthographies in two Japanese writing systems, and in English, a second language. The investigation of Japanese readers of English as a second language allows for a unique three-faceted comparison of reading different writing systems, with the L1 being written in a logographic system and in a non-alphabetic, syllabary system, and the L2 in an alphabetic, syllabic system. Address for correspondence: Center for Cognitive Brain Imaging, Carnegie Mellon University, Department of Psychology, 5000 Forbes Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15213 United States. Even though kanji and hiragana are orthographies of the same language, the different mapping of print to phonology and to meaning requires readers to rely on different cognitive processes. The L2-L1 differences are expected to reflect additional cognitive processes of reading in a foreign language, and in a different writing system in which the readers are relatively less proficient
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