Taskspecific signatures in the expert brain: Differential correlates of translation and reading in professional interpreters Abstract   Insights on the neurocognitive particularities of expert individuals have benefited from language studies on professional simultaneous interpreters (PSIs). Accruing research indicates that behavioral advantages in this population are restricted to those skills that are directly taxed during professional practice (e.g., translation as opposed to reading), but little is known about the neural signatures of such selective effects. To illuminate the issue, we recruited 17 PSIs and 15 noninterpreter bilinguals and compared behavioral and electrophysiological markers of word reading and translation from and into their native and nonnative languages (L1 and L2, respectively). PSIs exhibited greater deltatheta (1xe2x80x938xc2xa0xe2x80x8bHz) power across all tasks over varying topographies, but these were accompanied by faster performance only in the case of translation conditions. Moreover, neural differences in PSIs were most marked for L2L1 translation (the dominant interpreting direction in their market), which exhibited maximally widespread modulations that selectively correlated with behavioral outcomes. Taken together, our results suggest that interpreting experience involves distinct neural signatures across reading and translation mechanisms, but that these are systematically related with processing efficiency only in domains that face elevated demands during everyday practice (i.e., L2L1 translation). These findings can inform models of simultaneous interpreting, in particular, and expert cognitive processing, in general.

Interparticipant consistency of languageprocessing networks during abstract thoughts Abstract   Human brain imaging typically employs structured and controlled tasks to avoid variable and inconsistent activation patterns. Here we expand this assumption by showing that an extremely openended, highlevel cognitive task of thinking about an abstract content, loosely defined as xe2x80x9cabstract thinkingxe2x80x9d  leads to highly consistent activation maps. Specifically, we show that activation maps generated during such cognitive process were precisely located relative to borders of wellknown networks such as internal speech, visual and motor imagery. The activation patterns allowed decoding the thought condition at u003e95%. Surprisingly, the activated networks remained the same regardless of changes in thought content. Finally, we found remarkably consistent activation maps across individuals engaged in abstract thinking. This activation bordered, but strictly avoided visual and motor networks. On the other hand, it overlapped with left lateralized language networks. Activation of the default mode network (DMN) during abstract thought was similar to DMN activation during rest. These observations were supported by a quantitative neuronal distance metric analysis. Our results reveal that despite its high level, and varied content nature  abstract thinking activates surprisingly precise and consistent networks in participantsu0027 brains.