本研究採用事件相關功能性磁振造影實驗，主要探討雙語人士如何理解明喻句，比較受試者在處理以第二語言呈現的明喻句時，左右半腦涉入程度之差異，藉以鑑定一般類比推理網路的認知歷程；而過去對於明喻句相關實驗研究，僅專注於單語人士對明喻句的處理，提出內側前額葉一區有活化反應，並假設人類在不同類型的概念關係之間，皆運用非常相似的認知子程序進行處理。本實驗受試者為15名健康雙語人士（9名女性，6名男性，平均年齡25.1歲，年齡標準偏差為 2.5）。實驗刺激項共有125句簡短的英文句。共可分為五大類分別做為實驗控制變項，其中包含直述句（例如，他是一個捐助者）；三大類比喻句，如:定語比喻（例如，牛奶像絲綢），關係比喻（例如，蚊子像吸血鬼），雙明喻（例如，脊椎就像是樹幹），和語意異常（例如，一所學校就像一個三明治）。
成像結果顯示，整體而言相對於直述句，三大類比喻句的類比映射和推理決策在大腦的運作處理涉及內側前額葉。此外，由於額葉外側主要負責副語言線索回憶和檢索的腦區，故該部位亦參與比喻理解時的運作。而對於語意異常的句子，由於其語意內涵並非我們對於一般外在概念或經驗的認識，故在處理過程中，並未反應出腦中有特別認知努力的處理
實驗數據顯示，雙語使用者對於在比喻句進行理解時，會激活內側前額葉，此結果與過去針對單語人士所作的實驗研究成果相同。前額葉皮層的次區域和其它腦區，則會因處理比喻類型的不同，而呈現不同的結果反應。此外，調查結果顯示，當人類理解明喻句時，會同時牽涉左右腦半球的運作。因此，本研究對於過去雙側大腦半球同時處理形象化的語言之之理論提供支持。本研究進一步支持了認為對於形象化語言的處理為雙側大腦半球同時運作的假說。

Previous research on similes has only reported involvement of the medial frontal gyrus, focused on monolingual processing, and assumed different conceptual relations all engage similar cognitive subprocesses. Using event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), the present study investigated simile comprehension for Mandarin-English bilinguals in order to characterize the general analogical reasoning network as well as hemisphere involvement of second language simile processing. Fifteen healthy Mandarin-English bilinguals (9 females, 6 males; mean age=25.1, SD=2.5) participated in the fMRI experiment. Stimuli consisted of 125 short English sentences created for five conditions: literal sentences (e.g., he is a donor), attributive similes (e.g., Milk is like silk), relational similes (e.g., Mosquitoes are like vampires), double similes (e.g., A spine is like a tree trunk), and anomalous sentences (e.g., a school is like a sandwich). Imaging results revealed that similes, relative to literal sentences, involve the medial frontal gyrus in analogical mapping. Regions outside frontal cortices responsible for recollection and retrieval of paralinguistic cues were also engaged in simile comprehension. Anomalies, on the other hand, do not reflect further cognitive efforts spent in retrieving known knowledge and social cues helpful to understand the sentence meaning. Data indicated that simile comprehension in bilinguals activated the medial frontal gyrus as monolinguals reported in previous studies. The degree to which subregions in the prefrontal cortex and other brain areas are involved in simile comprehension is differentially modulated by subtypes of simile. The results also revealed that simile comprehension engaged both hemispheres, and thus provided support of bilateral hemisphere processing for figurative language.

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