%0 Journal Article
%T A behavioural exploration of language aptitude and experience, cognition and more using Graph Analysis.
%A Rampinini A
%A Balboni I
%A Golestani N
%A Berthele R
%J Brain Res
%V 1842
%N 0
%D 2024 Jul 2
%M 38964704
%F 3.61
%R 10.1016/j.brainres.2024.149109
%X Language aptitude has recently regained interest in cognitive neuroscience. Traditional language aptitude testing included phonemic coding ability, associative memory, grammatical sensitivity and inductive language learning. Moreover, domain-general cognitive abilities are associated with individual differences in language aptitude, together with factors that have yet to be elucidated. Beyond domain-general cognition, it is also likely that aptitude and experience in domain-specific but non-linguistic fields (e.g. music or numerical processing) influence and are influenced by language aptitude. We investigated some of these relationships in a sample of 152 participants, using exploratory graph analysis, across different levels of regularisation, i.e. sensitivity. We carried out a meta cluster analysis in a second step to identify variables that are robustly grouped together. We discuss the data, as well as their meta-network groupings, at a baseline network sensitivity level, and in two analyses, one including and the other excluding dyslexic readers. Our results show a stable association between language and cognition, and the isolation of multilingual language experience, musicality and literacy. We highlight the necessity of a more comprehensive view of language and of cognition as multivariate systems.