Early language exposure affects neural mechanisms of semantic representations

Abstract
Data availability
Article and author information

Abstract

One signature of the human brain is its ability to derive knowledge from language inputs, in addition to nonlinguistic sensory channels such as vision and touch. How does human language experience modulate the mechanism in which semantic knowledge is stored in the human brain? We investigated this question using a unique human model with varying amounts and qualities of early language exposure: early deaf adults who were born to hearing parents and had reduced early exposure and delayed acquisition of any natural human language (speech or sign), with early deaf adults who acquired sign language from birth as the control group that matches on nonlinguistic sensory experiences. Neural responses in a semantic judgment task with 90 written words that were familiar to both groups were measured using fMRI. The deaf group with reduced early language exposure, compared with the deaf control group, showed reduced semantic sensitivity, in both multivariate pattern (semantic structure encoding) and univariate (abstractness effect) analyses, in the left dorsal anterior temporal lobe (dATL). These results provide positive, causal evidence that language experience drives the neural semantic representation in the dATL, highlighting the roles of language in forming human neural semantic structures beyond nonverbal sensory experiences.

Data availability

Source data files have been provided for Table 1 and all the figures. Additional behavioral and neural data have been made available on OSF at the link https://osf.io/wz6q9/. The whole-brain unthresholded statistical maps have also been made available on NeuroVault at the link https://neurovault.org/collections/13705/. Deidentified Nifti files are not shared openly because of ethics constraints, but are available from the corresponding authors upon reasonable request.

The following data sets were generated

1. Wang X
(2022) Early language exposure affects neural mechanisms of semantic representations
Open Science Framework, 10.17605/OSF.IO/WZ6Q9.

https://cdn.elifesciences.org/articles/81681/https:/doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/WZ6Q9

Article and author information

Author details

Xiaosha Wang

State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China

For correspondence
wangxiaosha@bnu.edu.cn

Competing interests
No competing interests declared.

"This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-2133-8161
Bijun Wang

State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China

Competing interests
No competing interests declared.
Yanchao Bi

State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China

For correspondence
ybi@bnu.edu.cn

Competing interests
Yanchao Bi, Senior Editor, eLife.

"This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-0522-3372

Funding

National Science and Technology Innovation 2030 Major Program (2021ZD0204104)

Yanchao Bi

National Natural Science Foundation of China (31925020)

Yanchao Bi

National Natural Science Foundation of China (82021004)

Yanchao Bi

National Natural Science Foundation of China (32171052)

Xiaosha Wang

National Natural Science Foundation of China (31700943)

Xiaosha Wang

Changjiang Scholar Professorship Award (T2016031)

Yanchao Bi

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Ethics

Human subjects: All participants gave written informed consent and received monetary compensation for participation. The study was approved by the Human Subject Review Committee at Peking University (2017-09-01), China, in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki.

Copyright

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.