Auditory processing of interlingual homophones: an fNIRS investigation

ABSTRACT

To examine the neural dynamics of interlingual homophone (ILHP) word processing, we created a word list consisting of Turkish control and Turkish/English ILHP words and asked native Turkish speakers to perform one of the following tasks while their prefrontal activity was recorded with fNIRS: passive listening; word recognition; word memorisation. We found that left DLPFC was active during all tasks. The right DLPFC activity was increased during ILHP word recognition task possibly due to domain-general control networks for conflict monitoring, while the left DLPFC activity was increased for ILHP word memorisation task possibly due to the working memory related processes. These findings suggest that ILHP processing induce a competition between languages in the brain, supporting the BIA+ model and that right DLPFC could be part of the task/decision system of BIA+ model. Lastly, current findings suggest that task requirements can modulate the location and the magnitude of the brain activity.

KEYWORDS:

• fNIRS
• interlingual homophone
• DLPFC
• language
• bilingualism

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Nevroz Dilan Tanal and Özge Dağ for their assistance during data collection and Dr. Sinem Burcu Erdoğan for her support during data analysis. We also thank for Dr. Stepan Aleshin for his help in statistical analyses.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, HS, upon reasonable request.

Author contributions

All authors contributed to the experiment design. MCM carried out the experiments, analysed the data, and wrote the manuscript. All authors reviewed and contributed to the manuscript.

Additional information

Funding

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.