Visual Word Recognition in Biscriptal Brains: An fMRI Investigation.

Abstract

Nelson and colleagues (2005) suggest that order of dominant script influences fusiform activity in Chinese-English biscriptals when performing a passive viewing task. However, it remains unclear if second script(S2) reading proficiency and/or the processing method used also contribute to the different fusiform activation patterns previously observed in biscriptals of different script acquisition orders. Using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) technique, this study investigated these effect of three possibilities (order of dominant script, English reading proficiency and type of processing) on the fusiform activations in 24 Chinese English biscriptals.Overall, findings in this study showed that the order of dominant script did not affect fusiform activation pattern when English reading proficiency was high. Instead, it was the type of processing method adopted to view English that shaped the fusiform activation. While this was often influenced by the level of S2 reading proficiency, it needs not be inter-dependent.