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Functional neuroanatomy of arithmetic in monolingual and bilingual adults and children

Prior studies on the brain bases of arithmetic have not focused on (or even described) their participants' language backgrounds. Yet, unlike monolinguals, early bilinguals have the capacity to solve arithmetic problems in both of their two languages. This raises the question whether this abilit...

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Autores principales: Brignoni‐Pérez, Edith, Matejko, Anna A., Jamal, Nasheed I., Eden, Guinevere F.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8449110/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34255408
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/hbm.25587
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author Brignoni‐Pérez, Edith
Matejko, Anna A.
Jamal, Nasheed I.
Eden, Guinevere F.
author_facet Brignoni‐Pérez, Edith
Matejko, Anna A.
Jamal, Nasheed I.
Eden, Guinevere F.
author_sort Brignoni‐Pérez, Edith
collection PubMed
description Prior studies on the brain bases of arithmetic have not focused on (or even described) their participants' language backgrounds. Yet, unlike monolinguals, early bilinguals have the capacity to solve arithmetic problems in both of their two languages. This raises the question whether this ability, or any other experience that comes with being bilingual, affects brain activity for arithmetic in bilinguals relative to monolinguals. Here, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to compare brain activity in 44 English monolinguals and 44 Spanish‐English early bilinguals, during the solving of arithmetic problems in English. We used a factorial design to test for a main effect of bilingual Language Experience. Based on the known modulating roles of arithmetic operation and age, we used two arithmetic tasks (addition and subtraction) and studied two age groups (adults and children). When collapsing across operations and age, we found broad bilateral activation for arithmetic in both the monolingual group and the bilingual group. However, an analysis of variance revealed that there was no effect of Language Experience, nor an interaction of Language Experience with Operation or Age Group. Bayesian analyses within regions of interest chosen for their role in arithmetic further supported the finding of no effect of Language Experience on brain activity underlying arithmetic. We conclude that early bilingualism does not influence the functional neuroanatomy of simple arithmetic.
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spelling pubmed-84491102021-09-24 Functional neuroanatomy of arithmetic in monolingual and bilingual adults and children Brignoni‐Pérez, Edith Matejko, Anna A. Jamal, Nasheed I. Eden, Guinevere F. Hum Brain Mapp Research Articles Prior studies on the brain bases of arithmetic have not focused on (or even described) their participants' language backgrounds. Yet, unlike monolinguals, early bilinguals have the capacity to solve arithmetic problems in both of their two languages. This raises the question whether this ability, or any other experience that comes with being bilingual, affects brain activity for arithmetic in bilinguals relative to monolinguals. Here, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to compare brain activity in 44 English monolinguals and 44 Spanish‐English early bilinguals, during the solving of arithmetic problems in English. We used a factorial design to test for a main effect of bilingual Language Experience. Based on the known modulating roles of arithmetic operation and age, we used two arithmetic tasks (addition and subtraction) and studied two age groups (adults and children). When collapsing across operations and age, we found broad bilateral activation for arithmetic in both the monolingual group and the bilingual group. However, an analysis of variance revealed that there was no effect of Language Experience, nor an interaction of Language Experience with Operation or Age Group. Bayesian analyses within regions of interest chosen for their role in arithmetic further supported the finding of no effect of Language Experience on brain activity underlying arithmetic. We conclude that early bilingualism does not influence the functional neuroanatomy of simple arithmetic. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2021-07-13 /pmc/articles/PMC8449110/ /pubmed/34255408 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/hbm.25587 Text en © 2021 The Authors. Human Brain Mapping published by Wiley Periodicals LLC. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes.
spellingShingle Research Articles
Brignoni‐Pérez, Edith
Matejko, Anna A.
Jamal, Nasheed I.
Eden, Guinevere F.
Functional neuroanatomy of arithmetic in monolingual and bilingual adults and children
title Functional neuroanatomy of arithmetic in monolingual and bilingual adults and children
title_full Functional neuroanatomy of arithmetic in monolingual and bilingual adults and children
title_fullStr Functional neuroanatomy of arithmetic in monolingual and bilingual adults and children
title_full_unstemmed Functional neuroanatomy of arithmetic in monolingual and bilingual adults and children
title_short Functional neuroanatomy of arithmetic in monolingual and bilingual adults and children
title_sort functional neuroanatomy of arithmetic in monolingual and bilingual adults and children
topic Research Articles
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8449110/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34255408
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/hbm.25587
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