Brain activation for language and its relationship to cognitive and linguistic measures

Language learning and use relies on domain-specific, domain-general cognitive and sensory-motor functions. Using fMRI during story listening and behavioral tests, we investigated brain-behavior associations between linguistic and non-linguistic measures in individuals with varied multilingual experience and reading skills, including typical reading participants (TRs) and dyslexic readers (DRs). Partial Least Square Correlation revealed a main component linking cognitive, linguistic, and phonological measures to amodal/associative brain areas. A second analysis only in TRs revealed a stronger association between cognitive, linguistic, literacy and phonological skills within the same brain network as in the full sample, suggesting better speech-print convergence in TRs. In this sample, an additional component involving speed, automatization, and lexical access was associated with less involvement in unimodal, lower-level auditory, and motor brain areas. The complementarity between the two components likely reflects TRs’ reduced reliance on lower-level sensorimotor regions and greater engagement of higher-level cortices and skills. Overall, our work suggests convergence between behavioral measures of linguistic, domain-general cognitive and domain-specific non-linguistic skill, and between these behavioral measures and neural processing of language. This convergence is greater in TRs, suggesting more integrated processing in this group. Our work advocates a comprehensive, multimodal approach to understanding individual differences in language abilities and experience.