Figure 2.

The effect of second language vocabulary knowledge on left dorsal premotor activation. Top. The correlation between second language vocabulary score and activation for reading in Italian (continuous line) and English (dotted line) is shown separately for British and Italian subjects in the left dorsal premotor cortex at x = −52, y = +2, z = +44 and x = −54, y = −2, z = +42, respectively. These co-ordinates corresponded to the local maxima in the left premotor cortex for the correlation of second language vocabulary score and reading activation summed over first and second language conditions. The R values for the correlation between second language vocabulary score and reading activation were 0.68 (P < 0.001) for the British group and 0.38 (P < 0.05) for the Italian group in the first language; and 0.41 (P < 0.005) for the British group and 0.36 (P < 0.05) for the Italian group in the second language. Middle: Sagittal and coronal brain slices showing the anatomical location of the correlation between second language proficiency and reading activation (summed over first and second language), thresholded at P < 0.05 uncorrected for both groups. See Table 2b for details of the exact location, Z score and extent. Below: The effect size for each condition relative to falsefonts in the region showing an effect of second language vocabulary on reading all types of words. ER = English regularly spelled words. EI = English irregularly spelled words, I = Italian words and P = pseudowords. This plot shows that activation in this region was higher for pseudowords than first language words in both groups of subjects, consistent with a role in nonlexical reading.