Basal Ganglia Striatum Executive Functioning in the Dorsolateral Prefrontal Circuit As a Neurocognitive Mechanism for Foreign Accents in Bilinguals — Presentation Detail — Celebration of Scholars

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Student presentations must have a faculty sponsor.

Abstracts must include a title and a description of the research, scholarship, or creative work. The description should be 150-225 words in length and constructed in a format or style appropriate for the presenter’s discipline.

The following points should be addressed within the selected format or style for the abstract:

A clear statement of the problem or question you pursued, or the scholarly goal or creative theme achieved in your work.
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A clear description of the methods used to achieve the purpose or goals for the work.
A statement of the conclusions, results, outcomes, or recommendations, or if the work is still in progress, the results you expect to report at the event.

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Additional Information

More information is available at carthage.edu/celebration-scholars/. The following are members of the Research, Scholarship, and Creativity Committee who are eager to listen to ideas and answer questions:

Jun Wang
Kim Instenes
John Kirk
Nora Nickels
Andrew Pustina
James Ripley

Basal Ganglia Striatum Executive Functioning in the Dorsolateral Prefrontal Circuit As a Neurocognitive Mechanism for Foreign Accents in Bilinguals

Name: Joscelyn Stefanek
Major: Neuroscience
Hometown: Green Bay, WI
Faculty Sponsor:
Other Sponsors: My primary sponsor is technically Dr. Penny Seymoure due to the thesis being completed in her last semester.
Type of research: Senior thesis

Abstract

Humanistic approaches theorized that bilingual and multilingual individuals exercise foreign accents as an interference of the first language acquired onto the speech of the second. Recent studies using fMRI, diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and other brain imaging methods, allow a reductionist structure-function model to suggest a biological mechanism for foreign accents. Investigators state that the dorsolateral prefrontal basal ganglia circuit is responsible for executive functioning of phonemes to reduce foreign accents. The neurocognitive mechanism for phonetic expression proposed in this poster presentation incorporates cognitive models with the structure-functional analysis of the dorsolateral prefrontal circuit. The increase in activity and white matter of the modulatory basal ganglia striatum in bilingual speech production supports executive functioning of the striatum in concordance with neuroanatomical models. The neurocognitive mechanism for phonetic expression suggests that the use of the corrective circuitry and immersion of both languages reduces the presence of a foreign accent. Future examination of age, secondary language learning paradigms, and the testing of language speech limitations can refine assumptions of the proposed neurocognitive mechanism. Refining of the neurocognitive mechanism for phonetic expression can assist individuals developing secondary language speech-related skills. Reducing foreign accents can holistically improve professional and colloquial communication in addition to social assimilation in foreign countries.

Poster file