Neural representations of new words: Does learning method matter?
Poster No:
997
Submission Type:
Abstract Submission
Authors:
Shuai Wang1, Sophie Restoy1, Julien Sein2, Bruno Nazarian2, Jean-luc Anton2, Anne-Sophie Dubarry3, Clément François1, Felipe Pegado4, Franck Lamberton5, Chotiga Pattamadilok1
Institutions:
1Aix Marseille Univ, CNRS, LPL, Aix-en-Provence, France, 2Aix Marseille Univ, CNRS, Centre IRM-INT@CERIMED, Institut des Neurosciences de la Timone; UMR 7289, Marseille, France, 3Aix Marseille Univ, CNRS, LNC, Marseille, France, 4Université Paris Cité; LaPsyDé; CNRS, Paris, France, 5CERMEP; Imagerie du vivant, MRI Department and CNRS UMS3453, Lyon, France
First Author:
Co-Author(s):
Julien Sein
Aix Marseille Univ, CNRS, Centre IRM-INT@CERIMED, Institut des Neurosciences de la Timone; UMR 7289
Marseille, France
Aix Marseille Univ, CNRS, Centre IRM-INT@CERIMED, Institut des Neurosciences de la Timone; UMR 7289
Marseille, France
Bruno Nazarian
Aix Marseille Univ, CNRS, Centre IRM-INT@CERIMED, Institut des Neurosciences de la Timone; UMR 7289
Marseille, France
Aix Marseille Univ, CNRS, Centre IRM-INT@CERIMED, Institut des Neurosciences de la Timone; UMR 7289
Marseille, France
Jean-luc Anton
Aix Marseille Univ, CNRS, Centre IRM-INT@CERIMED, Institut des Neurosciences de la Timone; UMR 7289
Marseille, France
Aix Marseille Univ, CNRS, Centre IRM-INT@CERIMED, Institut des Neurosciences de la Timone; UMR 7289
Marseille, France
Introduction:
Learning new vocabulary is part of everyday life. Sometimes new words are learned orally with or without seeing speakers' articulatory gestures. Sometimes, they are learned by reading. Our previous behavioral study suggests that new words which were learned by different methods might be consolidated and stored in the mental lexicon differently (Pattamadilok et al., 2022), with bimodal learning methods leading to higher learning efficiency than unimodal. This difference in learning efficiency could be due to the nature of the underlying representations built up by the different learning methods. Here, we combined a learning paradigm and fMRI to investigate 1) whether new words which were learned by different methods evoked the same or different brain activity, and 2) which learning method led to the brain activity that was most similar to known words.
Methods:
25 native French speakers were recruited. They were asked to learn three sets of 15 new words associated with 15 unknown objects by three methods, i.e., auditory alone (Aud), auditory associated with spelling (Aud-Ort) and auditory associated with articulatory gestures (Aud-Artic), in a within-subject design. The fMRI acquisition was conducted in two sessions: Immediately after the learning phase and ~24hrs later. In each session, participants performed an auditory lexical decision task on five categories of spoken inputs: pseudoword, known word and new words learned by the three methods. FMRIPrep and AFNI were used for processing MRI data. To address the first question, a multivariate model with Stimulus and Session as factors was applied for the group analysis at the whole-brain level (3dMVM). Activation induced by spoken words learned by the three methods were compared. The commonality of activation was examined by a conjunction analysis performed on the contrasts between each of the three methods and pseudowords. Statistical tests were FWE corrected at p < 0.05 (voxel-level p < 0.005). To address the second question, activation similarity was estimated between the five categories on both days by computing Spearman correlation on T maps.
Results:
On Day1, words learned by the Aud-Ort method led to higher activation in the left middle temporal gyrus (MTG), right ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) and right cerebellum 8b, and words learned by the Aud-Artic method led to higher activation in the left MTG and left vmPFC, both compared to words learned by the Aud method. The comparison between the two bimodal learning methods showed higher activation in right rectal gyrus in the Aud-Artic method (Fig. 1A). Interestingly, these differences disappeared after the consolidation period of one night (Day2). On Day1, the conjunction analysis showed a common network involved for all types of new words in the left inferior parietal lobule (IPL), left angular gyrus and left fusiform gyrus, which are parts of the language system, left cuneus, precuneus and middle cingulate, which are involved in episodic memory, as well as right superior occipital gyrus and right cerebellum 7a. On Day2, the common network was reduced to the left IPL and anterior fusiform, suggesting that the areas related to episodic memory were disengaged while part of the language system was maintained (Fig. 1B). The similarity matrix (Fig 2) showed that, within the classic language network (Lipkin et al., 2022), all types of new words became more similar to known words from Day1 to Day2, reflecting the impact of new knowledge consolidation.
·Figure 1
·Figure 2
Conclusions:
Our finding provides additional evidence supporting the Complementary Learning Systems model (Davis et al., 2009). The impact of learning modality was found at the initial stage of learning, i.e., when the newly learned information was still encoded in the episodic memory in a modality-specific manner. However, such impact disappeared once the knowledge had been consolidated and probably lexicalized.
Language:
Language Acquisition 1
Learning and Memory:
Long-Term Memory (Episodic and Semantic)
Modeling and Analysis Methods:
Activation (eg. BOLD task-fMRI) 2
Keywords:
FUNCTIONAL MRI
Language
Learning
1|2Indicates the priority used for review
Provide references using author date format
Lipkin, B. (2022), Probabilistic atlas for the language network based on precision fMRI data from >800 individuals. Scientific Data 9, 529
Pattamadilok, C. (2022), The contribution of visual articulatory gestures and orthography to speech processing: Evidence from novel word learning. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 48(10), 1542–1558