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Neural substrates of sign language vocabulary processing in less-skilled hearing M2L2 signers: Evidence for difficult phonological movement perception

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 July 2017

JOSHUA T. WILLIAMS Open the ORCID record for JOSHUA T. WILLIAMS [Opens in a new window] ,
ISABELLE DARCY  and
SHARLENE D. NEWMAN
JOSHUA T. WILLIAMS*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Indiana University Program in Cognitive Science, Indiana University Speech and Hearing Sciences, Indiana University
ISABELLE DARCY
Affiliation:
Program in Cognitive Science, Indiana University Second Language Studies, Indiana University
SHARLENE D. NEWMAN
Affiliation:
Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Indiana University Program in Cognitive Science, Indiana University Program in Neuroscience, Indiana University
*
Address for correspondence: Joshua Williams, Cognitive Neuroimaging Laboratory, Indiana University, 1101 E. 10th Street, Bloomington, IN 47405. willjota@indiana.edu
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Abstract

No previous research has investigated the neural correlates of vocabulary acquisition in second language learners of sign language. The present study investigated whether poor vocabulary knowledge engaged similar prefrontal lexico-semantic regions as seen in unimodal L2 learners. Behavioral improvements in vocabulary knowledge in a cohort of M2L2 learners were quantified. Results indicated that there is significant increase in vocabulary knowledge after one semester, but stabilized in the second semester. A longitudinal fMRI analysis was implemented for a subset of learners who were followed for the entire 10 months during initial sign language acquisition. The results indicated that learners who had poor sign vocabulary knowledge consistently showed greater activation in regions involved in motor simulation, salience, biological motion and spatial processing, and lexico-semantic retrieval. In conclusion, poor vocabulary knowledge requires greater engagement of modality-independent and modality-dependent regions, which could account for behavioral evidence of difficulty in visual phonology processing.

Keywords

longitudinal designbimodal bilingualismsecond language acquisitionvocabulary knowledgeinitial inputvisual phonologyAmerican Sign Language
Type
Research Article
Information
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition , Volume 21 , Issue 3 , May 2018 , pp. 550 - 562
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

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Footnotes

*Supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship #1342962 (JTW). Funding also provided by the Indiana University Imaging Research Facility Brain Scan Credit Program (JTW, ID & SDN).

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