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Published: 04 March 2021 Reading typically involves phonological mediation, especially for transparent orthographies with a regular letter to sound correspondence. In this study we ask whether phonological coding is a necessary part of the reading process by examining prelingually deaf individuals who are skilled readers of Spanish. We conducted two EEG experiments exploiting the pseudohomophone effect, in which nonwords that sound like words elicit phonological encoding during reading. The first, a semantic categorization task with masked priming, resulted in modulation of the N250 by pseudohomophone primes in hearing but not in deaf readers. The second, a lexical decision task, confirmed the pattern: hearing readers had increased errors and an attenuated N400 response for pseudohomophones compared to control pseudowords, whereas deaf readers did not treat pseudohomophones any differently from pseudowords, either behaviourally or in the ERP response. These results offer converging evidence that skilled deaf readers do not rely on phonological coding during visual word recognition. Furthermore, the finding demonstrates that reading can take place in the absence of phonological activation, and we speculate about the alternative mechanisms that allow these deaf individuals to read competently. The authors acknowledge financial support from the Basque Government through the BERC 2018-2021 program, the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (Agencia Estatal de Investigación, AEI), through the Severo Ochoa Programme for Centres/Units of Excellence in R&D (SEV‐2015‐490); and Grants (PSI-2016-76435-P to B.C.; ACELERA RED2018-102615-T, SAPIENTIA-CM H2019/HUM-5705 and PGC2018-097145-B-I00 to J.A.D.; and RTI2018-093547-B-I00 to M.C.); and fellowships (Juan de la Cierva Fellowships FJCI-2017-31806 to B.C. and IJCI-2016-27702 to S.C., and predoctoral fellowship BES-2013-064140 to N.F. from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (AEI); and H2020-MSCA-IF-2018-837228 to S.C. from the European Commission). This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 837228

Language comprehension depends on the ability to temporally process the periodic structure of the language signal. In this study we investigate temporal processing of Spanish Sign Language (LSE), isolating the specific contribution of signal modality through a comparison with spoken Spanish and the contribution of linguistic status by comparing language with a non-linguistic temporally structured visual signal. Twenty-three highly proficient hearing users of LSE performed an intelligibility task with these three types of materials, manipulated with different levels of temporal distortion. The results show that the distortion differently affects the intelligibility of these signals. Spanish is characterized by a threshold of temporal distortion, beyond which intelligibility rapidly decreases and is almost completely lost. Conversely, in LSE and the visual non-linguistic task greater temporal distortion led to a gradual and constant reduction in intelligibility with no clear threshold. LSE is more resilient to temporal manipulation compared to the visual non-linguistic signal: participants’ performance never drops below 50% even with the most severe distortion. Overall, these findings suggest that the temporal processing of language arises from the complex interaction between the properties of the sensory system and the special characteristics of the language signal.

Available online 21 June 2019. Spoken words and signs both consist of structured sub-lexical units. While phonemes unfold in time in the case of the spoken signal, visual sub-lexical units such as location and handshape are produced simultaneously in signs. In the current study we investigate the role of sub-lexical units in lexical access in spoken Spanish and in Spanish Sign Language (LSE) in hearing early bimodal bilinguals and in hearing second language (L2) learners of LSE, both native speakers of Spanish, using the visual world paradigm. Experiment 1 investigated phonological competition in spoken Spanish from words sharing onset or rhyme. Experiment 2 investigated competition in LSE from signs sharing handshape or location. For Spanish, the results confirm previous findings for word recognition: onset competition comes first and is more salient than rhyme competition. For sign recognition, native bimodal bilinguals (native speakers of spoken and signed languages) showed earlier competition from location than handshape, and overall stronger competition from handshape compared to location. Hearing bimodal bilinguals who learned LSE as a second language also experienced competition from both signed parameters. However, they showed later effects for location competitors and weaker effects for handshape competitors than native signers. Our results demonstrate that the temporal dynamics of spoken words and signs impact the time course of lexical co-activation. Furthermore, age of acquisition of the signed language modulates sub-lexical processing of signs, and may reflect enhanced abilities of native signers to use early phonological cues in transition movements to constrain sign recognition. This research was partially supported by Grants PSI2015-67353-R and PSI2016-76435-P from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness; the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement 654917; and the Severo Ochoa Programme for Centres/Units of Excellence in R&D (SEV‐2015‐490).

Online publication 9/12/2015 This study investigates cross-language and cross-modal activation in bimodal bilinguals. Two groups of hearing bimodal bilinguals, natives (Experiment 1) and late learners (Experiment 2), for whom spoken Spanish is their dominant language and Spanish Sign Language (LSE) their non-dominant language, performed a monolingual semantic decision task with word pairs heard in Spanish. Half of the word pairs had phonologically related signed translations in LSE. The results showed that bimodal bilinguals were faster at judging semantically related words when the equivalent signed translations were phonologically related while they were slower judging semantically unrelated word pairs when the LSE translations were phonologically related. In contrast, monolingual controls with no knowledge of LSE did not show any of these effects. The results indicate cross-language and cross-modal activation of the non-dominant language in hearing bimodal bilinguals, irrespective of the age of acquisition of the signed language. This research was partially funded by Grant PSI2012- 31448 from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness and by financial assistance as a Severo Ochoa Center of Excellence SEV-2015-0490.

Online First March 23, 2017 This study investigated whether language control during language production in bilinguals generalizes across modalities, and to what extent the language control system is shaped by competition for the same articulators. Using a cued language-switching paradigm, we investigated whether switch costs are observed when hearing signers switch between a spoken and a signed language. The results showed an asymmetrical switch cost for bimodal bilinguals on reaction time (RT) and accuracy, with larger costs for the (dominant) spoken language. Our findings suggest important similarities in the mechanisms underlying language selection in bimodal bilinguals and unimodal bilinguals, with competition occurring at multiple levels other than phonology. This research was supported by Grant PSI2015-67353-R to Manuel Carreiras and Grant PSI2016-76435-P to Marcel R. Giezen and Brendan Costello from the MINECO, financial assistance as a Severo Ochoa Center of Excellence (SEV-2015–0490), and by Grant 249581/2013–2 from the Brazilian agency (CNPq) awarded to Patricia Dias.

Epub ahead of print 07/09/2015. This article was originally published with errors. This version has been amended. Please see Corrigendum (http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/23273798.2016.1144398). The neuroanatomical bases of bilingualism have recently received intensive attention. However, it is still a matter of debate how the brain structure changes due to bilingual experience since current findings are highly variable. The aim of this review is to examine these structural studies from a methodological perspective and to discuss two major methodological problems that could give rise to this variability. The first problem is sample selection, an issue directly related to the heterogeneous nature of bilingualism. The second problem is the inconsistency in the methods used for the analysis of brain imaging data. This review reveals that although structural changes related to bilingualism have been reported in regions comprising language/cognitive control and language processing, these results are not yet sufficiently numerous or consistent to allow important generalizations to be reached. Consequently, current evidence offers ambiguous support for neural models of bilingualism. This shortcoming in the field is exacerbated by critical methodological differences between studies that only further complicate the matter. We conclude by identifying issues that should be taken into consideration so that studies are more comparable and results are easier to aggregate and interpret. We also point out future directions that would allow for progress in the field. This article was partially supported by grants CONSOLIDERINGENIO2010 CSD2008-00048, PSI2012–32123 and PSI2012– 31448 from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, by ERC-2011-ADG-295362 grant from the European Research Council and by the AThEME project funded by the European Union Seventh Framework Programme [grant number 613465].

Published online: 12 Feb 2016 Six commentaries [Bialystok, E. (2015). How hazy views become full pictures. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience. doi:10.1080/23273798.2015.1074255; de Bruin, A., & Della Sala, S. (2015) The importance of language use when studying the neuroanatomical basis of bilingualism. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience. doi:10.1080/23273798.2015.1082608; Green, D. W., & Abutalebi, J. (2015). Language control and the neuroanatomy of bilingualism: In praise of variety. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience. doi:0.1080/23273798.2015.1084428; Kroll, J. and Chiarello, C. (2015). Language experience and the brain: Variability, neuroplasticity, and bilingualism. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience. doi:10.1080/23273798.2015.1086009; Luk, G., & Pliatsikas, C. (2015). Converging diversity to unity: Commentary on the neuroanatomy of bilingualism. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience; Paap, K. (2015). The neuroanatomy of bilingualism: Will winds of change lift the fog? Language, Cognition and Neuroscience. doi:10.1080/23273798.2015.1082607] were produced in relation to the review “The neuroanatomy of bilingualism: How to turn a hazy view into the full picture” (García-Pentón, L., Fernández, Y., Costello, B., Duñabeitia, J. A., & Carreiras, M. (2015). The neuroanatomy of bilingualism: How to turn a hazy view into the full picture. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience. doi:10.1080/23273798.2015.1068944). In the review, we argued that the available evidence for structural changes in bilingualism offers ambiguous support for current neural models of bilingualism and that this shortcoming in the field is exacerbated by critical methodological differences between studies. Thus, best practices need to be established for studying and modelling bilingualism. The commentaries bring to the discussion new perspectives and highlight additional challenges. Our response addresses the issues raised under two broad topics: the need to connect structural findings with behavioural and functional data, and a series of methodological concerns that are critical if the field is to advance. This article was partially supported by the Severo Ochoa program grant [SEV-2015-0490], and by grants from CONSOLIDER-INGENIO 2010 [CSD2008-00048], from the MINECO [PSI2012-32123, PSI2012-31448], from the Basque Government [PI-2015-1-27] and from the European Research Council [ERC-2011-ADG-295362].