Neural correlates of object-extracted relative clause processing across English and Chinese

AbstractAn under-studied facet of the neurobiology of language is whether, and if so, when, the brain bases of language processing differ across languages. English and Mandarin Chinese present an opportunity to investigate this with object-extracted relative clauses (ORCs), as these constructions exhibit radical typological differences in these two languages. While ORCs have been extensively studied in both languages, it is important that previous experimental results be validated and extended using naturalistic stimuli. ORCs were analyzed in fMRI data collected while English and Chinese participants listened to naturalistic, translation-equivalent stories. A general linear model analysis was performed, calculating effects for ORC processing and the associated contrast between the two languages A voxel-level intersection was calculated between the English and Chinese ORC effects to identify common regions of selectively increased activation. In English, ORC processing was associated with increased activation in the left posterior temporal lobe, angular gyrus, inferior frontal gyrus, precuneus, and posterior cingulate cortex. Similar results were found for Chinese, with the addition of: bilateral mid/anterior superior temporal gyrus and right inferior frontal gyrus. Contrasting the two languages, greater activation was found for Chinese participants than English participants in bilateral superior temporal gyrus and bilateral primary auditory cortex. The results implicate a common collection of brain regions for ORC processing. However, the additionally activated regions for Chinese participants are interpreted as subserving supplemental processing related to structural disambiguation. The results indicate that naturalistic language processing recruits extended language network regions in order to incorporate incoming linguistic information with previous context.