FMRI Differences Between Proficient And Non-proficient Chinese-English Bilinguals In Verbal And Spatial Information Processing

The purpose of this study is to explore the brain function patterns of Chinese-English proficient and non-proficient bilinguals in verbal and spatial information processing to clarify the impact of bilingual proficiency on verbal information processing and to further explore whether the impact can be migrated to the nature of different informationprocessing(i.e.spatial information).In this study,10 proficient Chinese-English bilinguals(eight levels of English proficiency)and 10 non-proficient Chinese-English bilinguals(Non-English professional test four levels)were selected using functional magnetic resonance(fMRI)to accomplish two verbal processing tasks(including Chinese reading and English reading)and two spatial processing tasks(including 3D graphics matching and 3D graphics rotation),by simultaneous scanning of their brain fMRI feedback signals,analyzed their brain region activation when the above tasks were completed.The research indicated:(1)In the processing of verbal information,the bilingual proficient group produced a large number of speech and semantic processing on the brain area of the bilateral activation,in the English processing compared with Chinese processing of the unique activation of the main results perform speech and semantic processing in the activation of the left brain area;the bilingual non-proficient group processed Chinese information mainly for the word semantics and sentence processing in brain area of bilateral activation,and in the English processing compared with Chinese processing of the unique activation of the results presented a large number of verbal of speech,shape and semantic activation in the bilateral brain.For the bilingual proficient group,the above results might indicate that their skilled application of English lead to a process of brain activation in English that approached the mother tongue processing of ordinary people,and that they were interfered by the English processing model and need alphabetic processing to complete the understanding of meaning and sentence.For bilingual non-proficient group,their bilateral activation patterns when working on English,on the one hand,might indicate that their English processing did not follow the mother tongue processing model,so there was a difference between the corresponding activation brain area and its mother tongue processing area;on the other hand,English reading is more difficult for them,so they need to mobilize more brain resources to complete the task.(2)In the spatial information processing,compared with the simple matching task,bilingual proficient and non-proficient group of psychological rotation operation of the brain activation mode perform convergence,both are mainly for a large number of frontal lobe,parietal lobe,and central to the brain side of the bilateral activation.Previous studies have often found that English single-language subjects were more likely to rely on the right brain,especially the right parietal region.The results of current research might indicate that Chinese-speaking subjects are more likely to synchronize the use of the left-brain step-by-step analysis of the processing and the overall processing resources of the right brain for the psychological rotation of the dynamic spatial information processing,thus showed significant cultural differences.In addition,the brain activation patterns of the two groups were subjected to psychological rotation,which showed that the differences in the activation mode of speech processing were not migrated to nonverbal information processing,that is,the effect of bilingual proficiency on cognitive processing only limited to the nature of the language of information processing.In summary,this study found that there were significant differences between bilingual proficient and non-proficient subjects in Chinese and English processing models,and the hypothesis that bilingual proficiency affecting language processing was preliminary verified.In addition,this study found that bilingual proficiency had no significant effect on nonverbal spatial information processing,indicating that the influence of language experience on cognitive processing was limited by the nature of processing information.These results are conducive to further enrich and develop the relationship theories of bilingual and cognitive.