Schedule of Events | Symposia

Neural patterns reflect quiz performance in novice sign language learners

Poster Session E - Monday, March 31, 2025, 2:30 – 4:30 pm EDT, Back Bay Ballroom/Republic Ballroom

Megan E. Hillis¹ (megan.e.hillis.gr@dartmouth.edu), David J. M. Kraemer¹; ¹Dartmouth College

Studies of language processing have demonstrated that the same concept cued by homologous words in two different languages can evoke partially shared neural patterns, often attributed to underlying semantic meaning. However, it is unclear at what point in the learning trajectory this overlap may emerge, and whether individual differences in this neural signal can reflect comprehension. Forty English speakers with no prior experience in American Sign Language (ASL) completed a series of brief online lessons followed by fMRI scanning. During the scan, they viewed single-word video clips of ASL signs that they had learned as well as new, unstudied words. Using representational similarity analysis (RSA), we identify brain regions where neural patterns reflect semantic relationships between the stimuli, indicating that activity in these regions tracks word meaning. Then, we demonstrate that in several of these regions, including the left inferior frontal gyrus, left temporal pole, and bilateral early visual areas, the difference between responses to studied versus unstudied ASL words predicts student performance on a recall quiz immediately before the scan as well as one week later. Our results provide evidence for the ability of multivariate neuroimaging analysis approaches to detect individual-level shifts in understanding in the earliest stages of language learning.

Topic Area: LANGUAGE: Semantic