New paper: Visual brain regions support the auditory translation of foreign language words

In a new study published in Cerebral Cortex, we show that the specific method used to learn foreign language words can influence how the brain translates those words into one's native language. When participants in the study learned new words by performing semantically-related gestures, for example, their subsequent translation was supported by a brain region specialized in the processing of visual biological motion. This visual brain area did not contribute to the translation of foreign language vocabulary learned using other methods, such as viewing semantically-related pictures. These effects persisted up to 6 months following learning, and occurred for both concrete words such as violin and abstract words such as democracy.