CRCNS US-German Research Proposal: Language representations in bilinguals

这个项目的首要目标是揭示语言相关的信息是如何在双语者的大脑中表现和处理的。为了做到这一点，该项目将使用功能性磁共振成像来记录双语受试者在阅读两种不同语言的文本段落时的大脑活动。这些数据将被分析，并使用称为体素建模的尖端方法建模。这项研究的结果将提供关于多种语言的句法和语义信息如何在个体双语大脑中表示和组织的重要见解，以及这些表征如何灵活地部署以促进多语言理解。提高我们对双语者语言表征的理解将改善语言障碍的诊断和治疗，增强语言教育方法，并推进机器翻译技术。在过去的10年中，该项目团队开发了一种新颖而敏感的体素建模方法，用于分析和建模功能磁共振成像数据。这种方法以前所未有的细节恢复了人类大脑皮层的功能图。该项目团队将使用这个强大的框架来研究双语者大脑中的语言表征。在目标1中，该项目将比较德语和英语双语者在语言理解过程中获得的大脑皮层地图中的词汇语义信息。在目标2中，该项目将比较目标1中检查的同一个体在语言理解过程中获得的皮层地图中所表示的句法信息。在目标3中，该项目将比较双语者在语言理解过程中获得的皮层语义和句法图，这些双语者知道两种非常不同的语言，汉语和英语。这些实验将回答双语者语义表征的几个重要问题：不同语言之间语义和句法信息的功能表征是相似的还是不同的？不同语言之间的语义表征有什么相同点和不同点？句法特征是如何表现的？这些表现在不同语言中有何不同？德国联邦教育和研究部（BMBF）正在资助一个配套项目。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The overarching goal of this project is to uncover how language-related information is represented andprocessed in the brains of bilinguals. To do this the project will use functional magnetic resonance imaging torecord brain activity in bilingual subjects while they read passages of text in two different languages.These data will be analyzed and modeled using a cutting-edge approach called voxelwise modeling.The results of this study will provide crucial insights regarding how syntactic and semanticinformation about multiple languages are represented and organized in individual bilingual brains,and how these representations are flexibly deployed to facilitate multi-language comprehension.Improving our understanding of language representations in bilinguals will improve diagnosis andtreatment of language disorders, enhance methods for language education, and advance machinetranslation technologies.Over the past 10 years the project team has developed a novel and sensitive voxelwise modeling approach foranalyzing and modeling fMRI data. This approach recovers functional maps in the human cerebral cortex inunprecedented detail. The project team will use this powerful framework to study language representation in the brains ofbilingual speakers. In Aim 1 the project will compare lexical semantic information represented in cortical maps obtainedduring language comprehension in bilinguals in both German and English. In Aim 2 the project will compare syntacticinformation represented in cortical maps obtained during language comprehension in the same individualsexamined in Aim 1. In Aim 3 the project will compare cortical semantic and syntactic maps obtained during languagecomprehension in bilinguals who know two very different languages, Chinese and English. Together theseexperiments will answer several important questions about semantic representation in bilinguals: Are thefunctional representations of semantic and syntactic information similar or different across languages? What arethe similarities and differences in semantic representations across languages? How are syntactic featuresrepresented and how do these representations differ across languages?A companion project is being funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, Germany (BMBF).This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.