Language modulates brain activity underlying representation of kinship terms

Abstract

Kinship terms have been found to be highly diverse across languages. Here we investigated the brain representation of kinship terms in two distinct populations, native Chinese and Caucasian English speakers, with a five-element kinship identification (FEKI) task. The neuroimaging results showed a common extensive frontal and parietal lobe brain activation pattern for different kinship levels for both Chinese and Caucasian English speakers. Furthermore, Chinese speakers had longer reaction times and elicited more fronto-parietal brain networks activation compared to English speakers in level three (e.g., uncle and nephew) and four (e.g., cousin), including an association between the middle frontal gyrus and superior parietal lobe, which might be associated with higher working memory, attention control, and social distance representation load in Chinese kinship system processing. These results contribute to our understanding of the representation of kinship terms in the two languages.