1Psychology, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore, 2Centre for Research And Development in Learning, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore
Activation likelihood estimation meta-analyses were adopted to investigate
how English and Chinese differ in semantic neural bases. Results reveal that English
semantic processing specifically recruited the left visual cortex and left IPL,
while the right visual cortex and left MFG were exclusively employed by Chinese
semantic processing. This language specialization was reflected in modality
effects, as English semantics appeared to be retrieved more acoustically than
visually whereas such gradient was diminished in Chinese. Level effects were
less differentiated by English and Chinese since language particularities seemed to be cancelled out after within-language comparison between levels. These
findings deepened our understanding of how linguistic features, presentation
modalities, and levels shape the semantic brain.
