Neuropsychologia

A long-standing debate surrounding the neural bases of social concepts concerns the role of anterior temporal lobe (ATL). One perspective suggests ATL subregions are dedicated specifically to social knowledge; another suggests the ATLs constitute a domain-general hub for conceptual knowledge, but with graded functional specialisation depending on connectivity to modality specific spokes. The positions have been difficult to adjudicate due to many confounding factors in tests of social and non-social knowledge. We address these challenges via three innovations in assessment of knowledge in frontotemporal dementia (FTD). First, we introduce a new task that controls for several potential confounds. Second, we apply mixed linear models to behavioural data analysis, allowing further control over confounding factors. Third, we extend the mixed-model approach to lesion-symptom mapping, identifying cortical regions where structural pathology yields a disproportionate impairment on social versus non-social knowledge when other factors are controlled. We used these techniques to probe social and non-social knowledge in FTD subtypes: semantic dementia (SD), associated with asymmetric-bilateral ATL atrophy (n=21), and behavioural-variant (bvFTD), characterised by frontoinsular atrophy (n=24). When confounding factors were controlled, people with SD showed an equal impairment for social and non-social concepts, whereas those with bvFTD were disproportionately impaired on social concepts. The differential impairment of social concepts was associated with atrophy in the insula, orbitofrontal and ventromedial prefrontal cortex and other regions implicated in social knowledge generally. The results suggest that the bilateral ATLs constitute a domain-general semantic hub, whereas ventral prefrontal and insula cortex contribute preferentially to knowledge about people.

Many forms of memory are thought to rely on visual imagery, but individuals who report lacking visual imagery (aphantasia) can still perform various memory tasks. There is, however, evidence that aphantasia may lead to less detailed autobiographical memories, suggesting there may be deficits in the underlying cognitive processes that support personal memories. One such process is associative memory, which requires binding of different types of information. Here, we tested whether associative visual memory is intact in aphantasia. We assessed 72 self-identified individuals with aphantasia and 77 controls who reported having visual imagery. Participants completed an associative memory task which involved memorising displays where a unique object in a specific location was associated with a particular colour fixation point. Individuals with aphantasia performed equivalently to controls for object locations and outperformed controls on the associated object-identity. In addition, whereas controls were significantly worse at remembering associated object-identity than object-location, individuals with aphantasia showed no such difference. Both groups showed good metacognitive performance evidenced by a positive correlation between confidence and accuracy; there were no significant differences in confidence between the groups. Reported strategies varied between groups: a large proportion of control participants reported using visual imagery and self-reported use of imagery positively correlated with performance. Conversely, individuals with aphantasia mostly reported using nonvisual strategies to remember the associations. Overall, the findings suggest that individuals with aphantasia can form associative memories using nonvisual strategies. Thus, difficulties with autobiographical memory in aphantasia seem unlikely to be due to fundamental issues with associative memory.

Empirical evidence from traditional inhibitory control tasks regarding inhibitory deficits in high autistic traits has been mixed, indicating that this issue remains controversial. Although sex differences are widely documented in autistic cognitive profiles, their role in inhibitory gating mechanisms remains underexplored. Given that the expression of inhibitory gating deficits may be modulated by the social versus non-social nature of stimuli, and no prior study has investigated this topic by integrating both sex differences and stimulus domain, we addressed these two questions with the attribute amnesia paradigm. We manipulated stimulus type (non-social vs. social). In Experiment 1, participants performed a location task with animal drawings as targets and were unexpectedly asked to report animal identity on a surprise trial. High autistic trait females showed significantly higher accuracy on the surprise trial than all other groups, reflecting a failure to actively filter out task-irrelevant non-social information, that is, a reduced inhibitory gating efficiency. In Experiment 2, using face stimuli and a self-vs. other-face design, this gating deficit was no longer expressed: all groups performed at chance levels on the identity judgment, regardless of autistic trait level, sex, or face type. This dissociation aligns with a dual-mechanism framework: the inhibitory gating deficit in high autistic trait females is specific to non-social stimuli and masked by camouflaging for social ones. This study demonstrates that the inhibitory gating deficit in high autistic trait females is not a global impairment but rather a stimulus-dependent one, highlighting the need to consider sex and stimulus type.

Can grammatical gender in a bilingual's first language shape gender-stereotype processing in a second language? Spanish (L1)-English (L2) bilinguals (n = 28) and English monolinguals (n = 28) completed an event-related potential (ERP) priming task in which English pronouns (SHE/HE) followed gender-stereotyped English nouns, half of which had gender-marked Spanish translation equivalents (e.g., NURSE 'enfermera/o', SURGEON 'cirujana/o'), and half unmarked translation equivalents (e.g., SINGER 'cantante', JANITOR 'conserje'). Both groups showed asymmetric stereotype priming: male pronouns elicited a larger N400 for incongruent than congruent primes, whereas female pronouns elicited a larger P300 for incongruent than congruent primes. Crucially, only bilinguals showed modulation by Spanish grammatical gender marking: the N400 effect for male pronouns was larger for primes with gender-marked than unmarked Spanish translations. These findings provide neural evidence that grammatical gender in a bilingual's first language can influence gender-stereotype processing in a second language, linking cross-linguistic activation to social cognition.

The vestibular system has been implicated in several aspects of self-representation, including bodily self-location, yet its role in episodic source and reality monitoring remains unclear. Moreover, symptoms of depersonalisation and derealisation (DPDR) have been associated with both vestibular dysfunction and altered source and reality monitoring. We tested whether noisy galvanic vestibular stimulation (nGVS) modulates source and reality monitoring during a word-encoding paradigm and whether this increased symptoms of DPDR. Sixty young adults (N = 30 active nGVS, N = 30 sham) encoded words that varied by context (spoken vs. imagined), agentic source (self vs. other), and valence (positive vs. threat) before completing source/reality judgments. Active nGVS reduced overall accuracy relative to sham on both reality and source monitoring. Across conditions, self-referential items were remembered with greater sensitivity compared to other-referential items, and spoken items were recalled with greater sensitivity than imagined items. We additionally show an interaction effect whereby active nGVS reduced accuracy specifically for imagined and threat-valenced items. Trait DPDR did not moderate the effects of stimulation, although higher trait DPDR was associated with a more liberal reality-monitoring response criterion. Results indicate that transient vestibular perturbation via nGVS can impair source monitoring for internalised and threatening stimuli and impairs cognitive distinctions between internally and externally generated events in general, supporting a role for vestibular input in maintaining self-other and reality boundaries in episodic memory.

Languages vary in whether and how they encode gender. As societies pursue greater inclusiveness, gender-inclusive language (GIL) has emerged as a debated innovation, introducing pronouns and morphological strategies to neutralize grammatical gender (e.g., todxs, for todos/todas, "all"). Yet whether GIL actually reduces gender expectations remains empirically underexplored. Evidence at the neural level is especially scarce. To address this gap, we asked Italian speakers to categorize masculine (lui, "he") and feminine (lei, "she") pronouns following nouns with canonical (masculine -o, feminine -a) or neutralized endings (-*, -{schwa}). Noun gender-stereotypical association was independently manipulated (male-oriented, e.g., chirurgo/a/{schwa}/*, "surgeon"; female-oriented, e.g., maestra/o/{schwa}/*, "teacher"; neutral, e.g., vicina/o/{schwa}/*, "neighbor"). Recording response times and event-related potentials (ERPs) to target pronouns allowed us to assess their automatic integration and processing costs. Gender-incongruent pronouns after canonical forms elicited longer response times and larger N400 and P300 amplitudes, reflecting increased processing difficulty and reanalysis. Pronouns following GIL forms showed an intermediate processing profile. Response times fell between consistent and inconsistent conditions, N400 amplitude was larger than in the consistent condition, and P300 amplitude was reduced compared to the inconsistent condition. Together these findings indicate that both pronouns remained viable interpretations and could ultimately be integrated. Stereotype-based knowledge shaped early processing without preventing integration, predominantly for masculine pronouns. Overall, our findings provide the first neural evidence that, despite processing costs, GIL forms can foster gender-neutral representations, with relevance to ongoing societal debates and broader cross-linguistic implications.

Source and reality monitoring enable individuals to distinguish the origins of remembered information, including whether information was self- or other-generated and whether it was perceived or imagined. Although the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) and temporoparietal junction (TPJ) have been implicated in these processes, their independent causal contributions remain unclear. We investigated whether focal transcranial direct current stimulation (f-tDCS) of the left dlPFC and left TPJ differentially modulates source and reality monitoring. One hundred participants were randomly assigned to receive anodal or sham stimulation of the left dlPFC or TPJ before completing an episodic memory task manipulating agent (self, experimenter), context (spoken, imagined), and emotional valence (positive, negative). Discrimination sensitivity (d') and response criterion (c) were examined separately. For source monitoring, stimulation interacted with context and cortical region: anodal dlPFC stimulation was associated with a greater spoken-imagined difference in self-experimenter discrimination than sham stimulation, whereas no equivalent context-dependent effect emerged following TPJ stimulation. For reality monitoring, stimulation effects also differed by cortical target, with reduced spoken-imagined discrimination following anodal relative to sham TPJ stimulation and no significant effect of dlPFC stimulation. These effects were not accompanied by corresponding stimulation effects on response criterion. Independent of stimulation, source discrimination was substantially greater for spoken than imagined information, while reality-monitoring sensitivity was enhanced for self-generated relative to experimenter-generated negative information. Together, these findings provide evidence that the dlPFC and TPJ make dissociable contributions to source and reality monitoring, while highlighting the importance of contextual and affective features in determining how the origins of memories are evaluated.

The absence of voluntary visual imagery, known as aphantasia, offers a unique lens into the role of visual imagery in visual memory processes such as face recognition. While aphantasics often report difficulties, behavioral differences in standard tasks have generally been small. One possibility is that the contribution of visual imagery becomes apparent only when face recognition is especially demanding. We compared age- and gender-matched aphantasics and typical imagers on the more challenging long-form version of the Cambridge Face Memory Test (CFMT+) and on a measure of inverted face recognition. We also included tasks assessing object recognition and face perception. No group differences emerged for face perception or object recognition. By contrast, typical imagers outperformed aphantasics under high visual and mnemonic demands in face recognition in the laboratory cohort, particularly at the highest difficulty level of the CFMT+ and in inverted face recognition. This effect was attenuated or even absent in the online cohort. Drift-diffusion modelling indicated that this discrepancy was primarily driven by reduced response caution in online typical imagers. A meta-analysis of published short-form CFMT studies (total N = 432) revealed a moderate and reliable advantage for typical imagers (hedges g [≤] 0.41). Finally, across cohorts and tasks, aphantasics reported consistently lower subjective confidence, independent of accuracy. Overall, these findings suggest that visual imagery benefits face recognition, and highlight the need for caution in online testing, the predominant approach in aphantasia research.

Verbal fluency (VF) tasks are widely used to differentiate patients with cognitive impairment from healthy controls, but total word count produced during these tasks becomes unreliable when patients and controls exhibit comparable proficiency. This study examined, in detail, whether item-level and sequential properties of words produced during a VF task could reliably differentiate high-proficiency patients indistinguishable from controls by word count alone. Seventy-seven native Mandarin Chinese speakers (38 controls and 39 patients with mild cognitive impairment or mild dementia) completed a semantic VF task. Participants were subdivided by proficiency into four groups: high-proficiency controls (HC), low-proficiency controls (LC), high-proficiency patients (HP), and low-proficiency patients (LP). The LC and HP subgroups were matched on semantic fluency scores and thus provided a key focus for the investigation. We examined item-level properties (word frequency, contextual diversity, semantic diversity, surprisal) and sequential properties (positional frequency variation) of the words produced. Significant group differences emerged across item-level psycholinguistic properties, though these were primarily driven by the LP group, with no reliable differentiation between LC and HP. Crucially, positional frequency variation distinguished LC from HP. LC participants began their lists with high-frequency words followed by a systematic decline, whereas HP patients produced words within a consistently narrow frequency band throughout. These findings indicate that item-level psycholinguistic properties alone are insufficient to differentiate HP from LC, whereas sequential word frequency variation provides a potential index of cognitive impairment, reflecting underlying differences in semantic retrieval and memory organisation. Future work with larger samples is needed to validate generalisability.

This study investigated the role of the angular gyrus (AG) and its subregions in the elaboration of specific and categoric autobiographical memories (AMs). Using a cue-word fMRI paradigm, thirty-nine participants retrieved and elaborated on episodic (specific) and semantic (categoric) memories, rating the amount of detail of each recollection. Parametric analyses revealed that AG activity, particularly in posterior AG, was positively associated with the amount of detail retrieved, regardless of memory type. Specific memories elicited greater activation in right AG subregions compared to categoric memories. These findings support the AGs involvement in both episodic and semantic memory retrieval and suggest functional differentiation between its subregions.

Creative ideation involves a dynamic exchange between exploring new idea categories and exploiting familiar ones, reflecting optimal foraging principles. Although interoceptive signals, particularly cardiac activity, are associated with differences in attention and cognitive control, their role in explore-exploit dynamics during creative idea generation remains unknown. Recording both electroencephalography (EEG) and electrocardiography (ECG) data, we used convolution general linear models to examine cardiac-brain interactions underlying semantic exploration and exploitation during creative idea generation, in both spontaneous (self-selected) and directed (externally cued) conditions. Cardiac deceleration predicted ideation time: this relationship scaled nonlinearly during exploration (category switching), but linearly during exploitation (category persistence), in both conditions. Cardiac deceleration did not predict semantic distance (between response and cue word) or response accuracy during the directed condition, suggesting that heart rate slowing reflects cognitive effort allocation rather than ideational content. Cardiac phase systematically biased explore-exploit dynamics: spontaneous switching and accurate directed-switching were preferentially associated with diastolic phases and parieto-occipital alpha (8-12 Hz) desynchronization, whereas category persistence was associated with systolic phase timing and frontal theta (4-6 Hz) synchronization. The former activity was coupled to higher CD, as expected. However, the latter time-frequency activity was linked to responses timed to systole. These findings suggest that creative ideation unfolds through embodied cardiac-cortical coordination, whereby diastolic states are associated with flexible semantic exploration and alpha-related attentional dynamics, whereas systolic states are associated with exploitative persistence and theta-related control processes. This suggests interoceptive rhythms as temporal scaffolding that structures when and how ideas emerge, fundamentally expanding creativity neuroscience beyond purely cortical models.

Individuals vary in their ability to encode and recall new experiences, yet neural markers of memory have rarely been linked to these trait-level differences. Subsequent memory effects (SMEs) identify patterns of neural activity during encoding that predict whether an item will later be remembered or forgotten. In scalp EEG, SMEs are typically characterized by increased theta and gamma power with decreased alpha, a profile that has been interpreted as a signature of effective encoding. Here, we tested whether SMEs reflect individual differences in mnemonic ability by analyzing over 1.3 million encoding events from a large free recall dataset. At the group level, alpha suppression and theta enhancement predicted successful encoding, while gamma did not predict subsequent memory after controlling for serial position. Across individuals, better learners showed reduced SMEs in all three frequency bands. The neural contrast that defines successful encoding was therefore most pronounced among the poorest learners. These findings suggest that high-performing individuals are less reliant on phasic spectral activity for successful encoding, and that SMEs capture stable individual differences in encoding efficiency. HighlightsO_LIEEG activity during learning differentiates better from poorer learners C_LIO_LIEEG markers of successful encoding also reflect stable learning ability C_LIO_LIHigher-performing individuals show attenuated theta-alpha-gamma signatures C_LIO_LIEEG dynamics track both transient states and trait-like ability differences C_LI

Working memory (WM) is often assumed to play a stronger role in mental operations than in pure storage. However, much of the evidence comes from tasks using novel stimuli requiring active maintenance. Everyday cognition, in contrast, often involves operating on information retrieved from long-term memory (LTM), which may not always require sustained WM storage. Moreover, prior evidence for enhanced WM involvement relies on univariate measures, which cannot separate procedural demands of operations from representational strength of operation-relevant items. Here, we used EEG to test how WM supports mental operations on LTM. First, participants studied color-position associations. Then, on each trial, a color cue prompted retrieval of its associated position, followed by a novel position. Across blocks, participants either performed a mental operation to compute the positions' spatial midpoint or judged whether the probe matched one of the memory positions. Representations of task type and memory position were assessed using MVPA and inverted encoding models on alpha-band power, respectively. Task type was decoded throughout the trial, reflecting persistent task-set representations. In contrast, LTM position was represented in WM more strongly for integration than recognition early in the retention and operation periods, but these differences were transient. These findings challenge the view that mental operations inherently demand enhanced WM engagement: when information is available in LTM, increased WM involvement is transient, not sustained.

In school-aged children, resting-state posterior alpha activity has been linked to thalamocortical signal coordination and literacy-related cognition. However, findings are mixed, partly because conventional band power measures conflate oscillatory (periodic) activity with the broadband aperiodic (1/f) background. We tested Chinese-English bilingual children in Grades 1 to 5 (N = 121; 72 families; mean age = 8.23 years, SD = 0.81) to examine if posterior periodic alpha power (8-12 Hz), isolated from aperiodic components, predicts foundational biliteracy skills (Chinese and English word reading and dictation). We also tested whether Chinese digit rapid automatized naming (CDRAN) mediates these associations. In regression models that accounted for family clustering and controlled for age, socioeconomic status (SES), and aperiodic components (exponent and offset), higher periodic alpha power uniquely predicted better performance on all four literacy outcomes. In structural equation models that accounted for family clustering, periodic alpha power predicted CDRAN ({beta} = .213, p = .011), and CDRAN significantly predicted Chinese word reading ({beta} = .442, p < .001), Chinese dictation ({beta} = .346, p = .003), English word reading ({beta} = .302, p < .001), and English dictation ({beta} = .349, p < .001). Indirect effects via CDRAN were significant for all outcomes. These findings suggest that aperiodic-adjusted periodic alpha power is associated with biliteracy variation across Chinese and English and that its association with biliteracy operates in part through rapid serial naming efficiency.

Acquiring reading proficiency, unlike spoken language, requires the brain to engage several specialized neural systems to map visual symbols (letters) to their corresponding phonological sounds (audiovisual integration), laying the foundation for fluent reading. This study investigates the neural and behavioral trajectory of developing audiovisual (AV) integration during the first year of learning to read. Thirty-two healthy Hebrew-speaking first-grade children were assessed at 3 time points across the school year: beginning, middle, and end of first grade. Participants underwent behavioral testing and brain fMRI scans while performing a block-design fMRI task involving AV matching or non-matching letters and sounds. Together with improvement in behavioral test scores related to general abilities, working memory, cognitive flexibility, and phonemic abilities, a Drift Diffusion Modeling (DDM) analysis of the accuracy and reaction time across sessions suggested faster and more efficient responses as the year progressed. fMRI results showed a significant increase in activation, from the beginning to the end of the first grade, in the left superior temporal gyrus (STG), frontal cortices and parietotemporal cortices, with a shift towards left-lateralization in the fusiform gyrus at the end of the year. These findings point towards the second half of the first grade as the time window for neural specialization and lateralization to phonological and orthographic information. A significant positive correlation between the fusiform gyrus activation and naming objects and colors scores across all sessions links this neural specialization to cognitive flexibility behavioral skills. Key pointsO_LISignificant increase, predominantly between the middle and end of the first grade, in activation in fusiform, left superior temporal, frontal, and parietotemporal cortices across the first grade. C_LIO_LISignificant left lateralization in the fusiform gyrus at the end of first grade. C_LIO_LIPositive correlation between naming skills and a bilateral fusiform gyrus activation throughout the first grade. C_LI

The Visual Word Form Area (VWFA), located in ventral occipitotemporal cortex, plays a critical role in skilled reading. Researchers have theorized that the VWFA develops in its specific anatomical location due to the convergence of major white matter tracts and proximity to functionally similar regions. This suggests that precise anatomical positioning may be crucial for optimal VWFA function. Previous research has identified several functional differences in this region between typical and struggling readers (i.e. dyslexia): struggling readers show weaker text-selective responses and often exhibit a smaller or even absent VWFA. However, it remains unexplored whether the precise anatomical location of this region also differs between typical and struggling readers. We tested whether VWFA anatomy differs between children with and without dyslexia (N=87). Participants completed a functional localizer, which we used to manually define the VWFA in each individuals native anatomy. We examined whether: (1) VWFA anatomical location relates to reading ability, (2) children with dyslexia show greater variability in VWFA location compared to typical readers, and (3) VWFA location with respect to white matter tracts relates to reading ability. Results reveal that, despite being smaller in children with dyslexia, there is no relationship between VWFA location and reading ability. Specifically, individual VWFA location relative to anatomy, relative to others VWFAs, and relative to white matter tracts, is not related to reading ability. These findings suggest that while the VWFAs general anatomy may be facilitated by development, its precise location remains stable and unrelated to reading proficiency.

Research suggests that motor difficulties in Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) are related to altered motor sequence planning, but it is unclear which mechanisms are affected, particularly in adults. This study addresses that gap by examining how the order of upcoming movements during the planning of skilled typing sequences affects motor production in adults with DCD. Previous monkey neurophysiology and behavioural findings in humans have shown that elements of a sequence are pre-ordered prior to execution, known as competitive queuing (CQ). CQ quality is predictive of subsequent performance, with skilled performers, those with fewer errors, having a larger position-dependent difference. DCD (N=28) and control participants (N=54) performed two 4-element finger sequences from memory in a delayed sequence production task over 3 sessions. Probe trials, which involved participants performing a single press after the Go Cue, assessed motor planning at each sequence position by measuring reaction time (RT) and error rate. We found that adults with DCD had a higher error rate and were slower to initiate and perform correct sequences. In terms of planning, the DCD group showed reduced preordering of sequence elements. Whilst the DCD group had a higher error rate on a working memory task, this was not correlated with the degree of pre-ordering of presses of the upcoming sequence. These findings suggest that disrupted motor sequence planning in DCD is characterised specifically by a failure to pre-order movements during the retrieval of sequences from memory. Additionally, motor sequence pre-ordering deficits in DCD are independent of general working memory impairments. These results extend prior evidence from motor imagery paradigms, demonstrating that internal modelling deficits are evident during the execution of motor plans. HighlightsO_LIAdults with DCD show diminished pre-ordering of sequential movements during planning. C_LIO_LIThe DCD group were slower to initiate and perform correct sequences from memory. C_LIO_LIMotor sequence planning is distinct from working memory performance. C_LIO_LIThis provides evidence for the IMD hypothesis in a skilled sequential task. C_LI

The coordination of sensory processing and working memory (WM) is fundamental to cognition. Spatial organization of sensory processing and WM is known to be broadly distributed across the cortex, but finer-scale organization at the interfaces between these functions remains understudied. Although the notion of sharp parcellations of cortex into distinct functional modules dominates the field, a growing body of works support graded changes in function and anatomy in some cortical zones. Based on this and potential advantages of gradient organizational structure in frontal cortex, we hypothesized that sensory-WM interfaces in the frontal cortex are gradient-like, not boundary-like. We examined twenty bilateral cortical regions that participate in visual/auditory WM tasks. In five frontal cortical regions, group-level WM activation overlapped with sensory drive, but was spatially shifted. We compared subject-level (N=20) boundary and gradient models of change in function. Strong individual-level evidence for sensory-WM gradients was observed in pre-supplementary motor area, ventral premotor cortex, and anterior insula in both modalities and in dorsal premotor cortex for visual WM. Conversely, dorsolateral pre-frontal cortex yielded mixed results, favored distinct WM and sensory regions in the left hemisphere, and gave some evidence for gradients in the right hemisphere. These results provide evidence that sensory and WM regions in frontal cortex are largely not distinct with sharp boundaries at their interfaces but instead bleed into each other to form local rostral-caudal sensory-WM gradients. We speculate these gradients may allow efficient interfacing between sensory and WM representations, and/or fine-grained, task-dependent shifting between bottom-up sensory and top-down influences.

Audiovisual semantic matching can be achieved using either written words or pictures, yet whether these formats engage shared semantic matching representations with similar temporal dynamics remains unclear. We recorded electroencephalography from 27 participants while they performed audiovisual semantic matching tasks in which spoken words were paired with either written words or pictures. Stimuli included both natural and man-made objects. Time-resolved multivariate pattern analyses (MVPA or decoding), cross-decoding, and temporal generalization analyses were used to characterize the temporal dynamics of semantic processing. Reliable decoding of matching versus mismatching judgments emerged in both word and picture conditions. Decoding onset that significant above chance level occurred earlier for written words than for pictures and cross-decoding analyses revealed successful generalization between word and picture formats. Temporal generalization analyses further demonstrated distinct representational dynamics across formats, with word processing characterized by predominantly time-specific neural representations and picture processing showing more sustained and temporally stable representations. In addition, matching-related discrimination emerged earlier for natural objects than for man-made objects across both formats. The results suggest that speech-word matching shows earlier neural evidence of audiovisual alignment than speech-picture matching, potentially reflecting differences in how auditory linguistic input is integrated with visual information across representational formats.

Second language (L2) processing engages both language-specific and domain-general control systems, yet how these systems vary with L2 proficiency remains unclear. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine neural activity during L2 English processing in Korean-English (K-E) bilinguals across three proficiency levels (beginner, intermediate, advanced). Participants performed rhyme and spelling judgement tasks manipulating orthographic-phonological conflict. Behaviourally, conflict conditions reduced accuracy, with proficiency effects observed selectively in the rhyme task. fMRI results showed that conflict processing recruited frontoparietal control regions, including inferior frontal and parietal cortices, accompanied by deactivation in default mode network regions. Critically, proficiency-related effects differed by task. During rhyme judgement, advanced bilinguals showed greater activation in the left supramarginal gyrus (SMG) and cerebellum, whereas intermediate bilinguals exhibited greater recruitment of the left middle orbital gyrus and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex. During spelling judgement, advanced bilinguals showed greater thalamic activation alongside greater deactivation of the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Activity in the left SMG and cerebellum was positively associated with L2 reading score, and cerebellar activity was also associated with rhyme-task performance, whereas right DLPFC activity was negatively associated with the scores. These findings suggest that increasing L2 proficiency is associated less with altered recruitment of core reading regions than with task-specific shifts in the balance between phonological-specialized, subcortical attentional, and domain-general control systems supporting L2 processing.