Language
How does using hands vs speech change brain activity for language?
Open access · cc by · source: Europe PMC
While both sign and spoken languages share a core language network in the brain, they recruit different sensory-motor regions to support hand movements versus vocal articulation and hearing.
Key findings
For language production, signing triggered higher activity in the upper-limb areas of the motor cortex and the cerebellum, while speaking activated mouth-control regions and auditory areas. For comprehension, signed sentences recruited the parietal and premotor cortex, whereas spoken sentences activated auditory processing areas in the temporal lobe. Both languages shared a core bilateral network, showing that the brain adapts to the physical demands of language while using the same underlying linguistic systems.
Methodology
In the initial study, 14 bilingual participants overtly named 80 pictures in either American Sign Language or English while researchers used PET scans to track brain activity. In the subsequent study, 13 bilingual participants watched and listened to sentences in both languages during fMRI scans to measure brain activity during comprehension. Both studies directly compared the language modalities to see how the physical format of language impacts the brain.
Limitations
The study only involved hearing bilinguals who learned both languages from birth, so the findings may not apply to deaf signers or people who learn sign language later in life. Because the experiments examined single-word naming and individual sentences, they cannot show how the brain processes natural, continuous conversation. Additionally, the unexpected finding of reduced visual cortex activity during signing is speculative and requires further research to confirm if the brain actively suppresses visual feedback during self-signing.
How this study connects
Role on claims
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Functional neuroimaging demonstrates that signed and spoken languages share a common core linguistic network in the brain, despite relying on different modality-specific regions for sensory-motor execution.
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