Researchers have discovered that speakers of four highly contrasting languages — Spanish, English, Hebrew and Chinese — show very similar patterns of brain activity during reading and speech, which suggests the underlying network for language processing might be more universal than previously understood.
At a news conference yesterday, where results of three international and interdisciplinary studies were announced, National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU) psychology professor Li Jun-ren (李俊仁) said his team tracked and compared reading and speech perception of native speakers of the four languages using functional magnetic resonance imaging and found mostly identical brain activation.
“We could not tell what language a participant speaks from their brain scan, because the same brain areas are activated regardless of what language they speak. We showed, for the first time, that there could be an invariant and universal brain network for reading and speech processing regardless of linguistic differences,” Li said.
It has been a topic of debate whether brain systems could be language specific, but the research showed that both the left and right hemispheres of the brain, but particularly the left hemisphere, are activated when speakers of any of the tested languages are performing reading or speech tasks, which suggests that language processing is predominantly operated by the left hemisphere, and that there could be a universal brain system for all languages, he said.
The finding debunks a myth that Chinese languages were predominantly processed by the right hemisphere, compared with alphabetic languages processed by the left hemisphere, because Chinese was considered a pictorial language and the right hemisphere has been associated with image processing, he added.
Other studies support Li’s findings: A study conducted by National Yang Ming University neuroscience professor Kuo Wen-jui (郭文瑞) discovered that two particular neural circuits, a shape recognition system and a gesture recognition system, are similarly activated and show identical patterns of activation in Chinese speakers and French speakers.
Meanwhile, similar activation patterns in two regions of the left inferior frontal lobe were found across Chinese and French participants when they are processing complex number words, such as seven-hundred-ninety-four, which suggests these regions serve as the neural bases for forming complex number words in different languages, according to a study by National Central University neuroscience professor Denise Wu (吳嫻).
“About 150 years ago, [French physician] Paul Broca proposed that the left hemisphere is responsible for language processing. Today, our team confirmed that reading, writing and arithmetic processing is done by the left hemisphere, which is a universal phenomenon across languages. The team’s findings are to be remembered for a long time,” former minister of education Ovid Tzeng (曾志朗) said.
EXPANSIONIST: China deploys an average of 40 to 50 warships and coast guard vessels daily in the South China Sea, despite pledges not to militarize the region, an official said China is attempting to expand its influence across the First Island Chain and increase pressure on Japan by sending coast guard vessels into waters off of Taiwan under the pretext of maritime negotiations with Japan and the Philippines, a national security official said yesterday. China’s recent actions in the waters east of Taiwan and Japan and the Philippines’ exclusive economic zones (EEZ) are attempts to establish dominance in First Island Chain waters, said the official who declined to be named, adding that this is “expansion disguised as law enforcement.” Framing China’s actions solely as a cross-strait issue is a serious misjudgment that
Through analyzing fossil evidence, a research team at National Taiwan University (NTU) discovered the largest endemic bird to have lived in Taiwan, naming it Pavo miejue, or extinct peafowl (滅絕孔雀). The Mikado pheasant, which is printed on the back of the NT$1,000 bank note, was previously believed to be the biggest endemic bird to Taiwan. The research team’s findings suggest that Pavo miejue lived during the Pleistocene epoch tens of thousands of years ago. It is the first endemic extinct bird species discovered and formally named in Taiwan. The study was coauthored by NTU Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修),
Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport is to suspend its automated Skytrain service connecting Terminal 1 and Terminal 2 starting on July 1 to facilitate connection works for the upcoming Terminal 3, the airport operator said today. Passengers and staff who need to travel between the two terminals after the suspension can instead use the Taoyuan MRT or the airport's 24-hour shuttle bus service, Taoyuan International Airport Corp said. The Taoyuan MRT Airport Line directly links the two terminals, while the shuttle buses are to operate around the clock, the company added. The Skytrain provides free transportation between the airport’s two terminals for travelers and
Taiwan ranked 42nd in terms of peacefulness among 163 countries, down five places from last year, according to this year’s Global Peace Index. With an overall score of 1.751, Taiwan dropped from 37th last year, the report published by the global Institute for Economics and Peace showed. The overall score measures a country’s level of peacefulness using 23 quantitative and qualitative indicators across three domains — ongoing domestic and international conflict, societal safety and security, and militarization. While Taiwan ranked 42nd worldwide, it was listed in ninth place among the 19 Asian-Pacific countries in the report, after New Zealand, Singapore, Japan, Malaysia,
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