Abstract
Language aptitude has recently regained interest in cognitive neuroscience. Traditional language aptitude testing included phonemic coding ability, associative memory, grammatical sensitivity and inductive language learning. Moreover, domain-general cognitive abilities are associated with individual differences in language aptitude, together with factors that have yet to be elucidated. Beyond domain-general cognition, it is also likely that aptitude and experience in domain-specific but non-linguistic fields (e.g. music or numerical processing) influence and are influenced by language aptitude. We investigated some of these relationships in a sample of 152 participants, using exploratory graph analysis, across different levels of regularisation, i.e. sensitivity. We carried out a meta cluster analysis in a second step to identify variables that are robustly grouped together. We discuss the data, as well as their meta-network groupings, at a baseline network sensitivity level, and in two analyses, one including and the other excluding dyslexic readers. Our results show a stable association between language and cognition, and the isolation of multilingual language experience, musicality and literacy. We highlight the necessity of a more comprehensive view of language and of cognition as multivariate systems.
Original language | English |
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Article number | 149109 |
Number of pages | 23 |
Journal | Brain Research |
Volume | 1842 |
Early online date | 2 Jul 2024 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | E-pub ahead of print - 2 Jul 2024 |
Austrian Fields of Science 2012
- 501030 Cognitive science
- 602040 Psycholinguistics
Keywords
- Behavioural testing
- Deep phenotyping
- General cognition
- Language aptitude
- Literacy
- Memory
- Network analysis