Function neuroimaging studies of Japanese-Chinese bilinguals phonological processing for language education

Language education is the teaching and learning of a foreign or second language, such as English or Japanese. The person who can master two or more kinds of language is called bilingual. In this study, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to visualize Japanese Chinese bilinguals´ brain activity in phonological processing of Chinese and Japanese characters. We investigate brain activations in processing Japanese phonological and font size by visual judgment tasks in fifteen Japanese subjects. Different activation patterns were observed between Chinese phonological and Japanese phonological judgment processing. We conclude that constellation of neural substrates was different for phonological processing.