publications
publications by categories in reversed chronological order.
2026
- Rational language comprehension depends on priors about both meaning and structureM Poliak, Saima Malik-Moraleda, and Edward GibsonJournal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 2026
Language comprehension relies on integrating the perceived utterance with prior expectations. Previous investigations of expectations about sentence structure (the structural prior) have found that comprehenders often interpret rare constructions nonliterally. However, this work has mostly relied on analytic languages like English, where word order is the main way to indicate syntactic relations in the sentence. This raises the possibility that the structural prior over word order is not a universal part of the sentence processing toolkit, but rather a tool acquired only by speakers of languages where word order has special importance as the main source of syntactic information in the sentence. Moving away from English to make conclusions about more general cognitive strategies, we investigate whether the structural prior over word order is a part of language processing more universally using Hindi and Russian, synthetic languages with flexible word order. We found that noncanonical sentences were interpreted nonliterally more often than canonical sentences, even though we used flexible-word-order languages. We conclude that the structural prior over word order is always evaluated in language processing, regardless of language type.
@article{poliak2026rational, title = {Rational language comprehension depends on priors about both meaning and structure}, author = {Poliak, M and Malik-Moraleda, Saima and Gibson, Edward}, journal = {Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition}, volume = {52}, number = {2}, pages = {307}, year = {2026}, doi = {10.1037/xlm0001470}, }
2025
- Multilingual computational models capture a shared meaning component in brain responses across 21 languagesAG Varda, Saima Malik-Moraleda, G Tuckute, and Evelina FedorenkobioRxiv, 2025
At the heart of language neuroscience lies a fundamental question: How does the brain process the rich variety of languages? Multilingual neural network models offer a way to answer this question by representing linguistic content across languages in a shared space. Leveraging these advances, we evaluated the similarity of linguistic representations in speakers of 21 languages. We combined existing and newly collected fMRI data to test encoding models predicting brain activity in the language network using representations from multilingual models. Model representations reliably predicted brain responses within each language. Critically, encoding models can be transferred zero-shot across languages, so that a model trained to predict brain activity in a set of languages can account for responses in a held-out language. These results imply a shared cross-lingual component, which appears to be related to a shared meaning space.
@article{devarda2025multilingual, title = {Multilingual computational models capture a shared meaning component in brain responses across 21 languages}, author = {de Varda, AG and Malik-Moraleda, Saima and Tuckute, G and Fedorenko, Evelina}, journal = {bioRxiv}, year = {2025}, doi = {10.1101/2025.02.01.636044} } - Constructed languages are processed by the same brain mechanisms as natural languagesSaima Malik-Moraleda, Maya Taliaferro, Steve Shannon, Niharika Jhingan, Sara Swords, David J Peterson, Paul Frommer, Marc Okrand, Jessie Peterson, Ramsey Cardwell, Cassie Freeman, and Evelina FedorenkoProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2025
What constitutes a language? Natural languages share features with other domains: from math, to music, to gesture. However, the brain mechanisms that process linguistic input are highly specialized, showing little response to diverse nonlinguistic tasks. Here, we examine constructed languages (conlangs) to ask whether they draw on the same neural mechanisms as natural languages or whether they instead pattern with domains like math and programming languages. Using individual-subject fMRI analyses, we show that understanding conlangs recruits the same brain areas as natural language comprehension. This result holds for Esperanto (n = 19 speakers) and four fictional conlangs (Klingon, Na’vi, High Valyrian, and Dothraki). These findings suggest that conlangs and natural languages share critical features that allow them to draw on the same representations and computations, implemented in the left-lateralized network of brain areas. We argue that the critical shared feature of conlangs and natural languages is that they are symbolic systems capable of expressing an open-ended range of meanings about our outer and inner worlds.
@article{malikmoraleda2025constructed, title = {Constructed languages are processed by the same brain mechanisms as natural languages}, author = {Malik-Moraleda, Saima and Taliaferro, Maya and Shannon, Steve and Jhingan, Niharika and Swords, Sara and Peterson, David J and Frommer, Paul and Okrand, Marc and Peterson, Jessie and Cardwell, Ramsey and Freeman, Cassie and Fedorenko, Evelina}, journal = {Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences}, volume = {122}, number = {12}, pages = {e2313473122}, year = {2025}, doi = {10.1073/pnas.2313473122}, }
2024
- Language processing in the brain across diverse languages and speakersSaima Malik-MoraledaHarvard University, 2024
A staggering 7,000 languages are spoken and signed around the world. Furthermore, the majority of the world’s population speak two or more languages. Nevertheless, language research – especially in neuroscience – has been limited to primarily monolingual speakers of a couple dozen languages, which makes our understanding of how the language system works incomplete and potentially biased. In my dissertation, I use a precision fMRI approach to paint a more complete picture of language processing in the brain by studying both diverse languages and diverse speakers. Language processing is supported by a set of inter-connected left-lateralized frontal and temporal areas jointly referred to as the language network. First, I asked whether core findings about this network generalize to speakers of typologically diverse languages. I found that four key properties of the language network are robustly present across 45 languages spanning 11 language families. I further extended these results to constructed languages such as Esperanto and Klingon, finding that all constructed languages recruited the same brain areas as natural languages. Second, I investigated the neural architecture of bilingual and monolingual speakers, finding that bilinguals engaged the executive control network to a greater extent than monolinguals during a demanding spatial working memory task. Last, I investigated the language network of polyglots – individuals with proficiency in five or more languages – finding that all languages consistently engaged all areas of the language network, and that higher-proficiency languages elicited stronger responses, with the exception of the native language.
@phdthesis{malikmoraleda2024thesis, title = {Language processing in the brain across diverse languages and speakers}, author = {Malik-Moraleda, Saima}, school = {Harvard University}, year = {2024}, } - Functional characterization of the language network of polyglots and hyperpolyglots with precision fMRISaima Malik-Moraleda, Olessia Jouravlev, Maya Taliaferro, Zachary Mineroff, Theodore Cucu, Kyle Mahowald, Idan A Blank, and Evelina FedorenkoCerebral Cortex, 2024
How do polyglots—individuals who speak five or more languages—process their languages, and what can this population tell us about the language system? Using fMRI, we identified the language network in each of 34 polyglots (including 16 hyperpolyglots with knowledge of 10+ languages) and examined its response to the native language, non-native languages of varying proficiency, and unfamiliar languages. All language conditions engaged all areas of the language network relative to a control condition. Languages that participants rated as higher proficiency elicited stronger responses, except for the native language, which elicited a similar or lower response than a non-native language of similar proficiency. Furthermore, unfamiliar languages that were typologically related to the participants’ high-to-moderate-proficiency languages elicited a stronger response than unfamiliar unrelated languages. The results suggest that the language network’s response magnitude scales with the degree of engagement of linguistic computations. We also replicated a prior finding of weaker responses to native language in polyglots than non-polyglot bilinguals. These results contribute to our understanding of how multiple languages coexist within a single brain.
@article{malikmoraleda2024polyglots, title = {Functional characterization of the language network of polyglots and hyperpolyglots with precision fMRI}, author = {Malik-Moraleda, Saima and Jouravlev, Olessia and Taliaferro, Maya and Mineroff, Zachary and Cucu, Theodore and Mahowald, Kyle and Blank, Idan A and Fedorenko, Evelina}, journal = {Cerebral Cortex}, volume = {34}, number = {3}, pages = {bhae049}, year = {2024}, doi = {10.1101/2023.01.19.524657}, }
2023
- Concepts are restructured during language contact: The birth of blue and other color concepts in Tsimane’-Spanish bilingualsSaima Malik-Moraleda, Kyle Mahowald, BR Conway, and Edward GibsonPsychological Science, 2023
Words and the concepts they represent vary across languages. Here we ask if mother-tongue concepts are altered by learning a second language. What happens when speakers of Tsimane’, a language with few consensus color terms, learn Bolivian Spanish, a language with more terms? Three possibilities arise: Concepts in Tsimane’ may remain unaffected, or they may be remapped, either by Tsimane’ terms taking on new meanings or by borrowing Bolivian-Spanish terms. We found that adult bilingual speakers (n = 30) remapped Tsimane’ concepts without importing Bolivian-Spanish terms into Tsimane’. All Tsimane’ terms become more precise; for example, concepts of monolingual shandyes and yushnus come to reflect the Bolivian-Spanish distinction of verde and azul. These results show that learning a second language can change the concepts in the first language.
@article{malikmoraleda2023concepts, title = {Concepts are restructured during language contact: The birth of blue and other color concepts in Tsimane'-Spanish bilinguals}, author = {Malik-Moraleda, Saima and Mahowald, Kyle and Conway, BR and Gibson, Edward}, journal = {Psychological Science}, volume = {34}, number = {12}, pages = {1350--1362}, year = {2023}, doi = {10.1177/09567976231199742}, } - Color appearance and the end of Hering’s Opponent-Colors TheoryBR Conway, Saima Malik-Moraleda, and Edward GibsonTrends in Cognitive Sciences, 2023
Hering’s Opponent-Colors Theory has been central to understanding color appearance for 150 years. It aims to explain the phenomenology of colors with two linked propositions. First, a psychological hypothesis stipulates that any color is described necessarily and sufficiently by the extent to which it appears reddish-versus-greenish, bluish-versus-yellowish, and blackish-versus-whitish. Second, a physiological hypothesis stipulates that these perceptual mechanisms are encoded by three innate brain mechanisms. We review the evidence and conclude that neither side of the linking proposition is accurate: the theory is wrong. We sketch out an alternative, Utility-Based Coding, by which the known retinal cone-opponent mechanisms represent optimal encoding of spectral information given competing selective pressure to extract high-acuity spatial information; and phenomenological color categories represent an adaptive, efficient, output of the brain governed by behavioral demands.
@article{conway2023color, title = {Color appearance and the end of Hering's Opponent-Colors Theory}, author = {Conway, BR and Malik-Moraleda, Saima and Gibson, Edward}, journal = {Trends in Cognitive Sciences}, volume = {27}, number = {9}, pages = {791--804}, year = {2023}, doi = {10.1016/j.tics.2023.06.003}, } - The human language system, including its inferior frontal component in "Broca’s area," does not support music perceptionXiao Chen, Josh Affourtit, Rachel Ryskin, Tamar I Regev, Sam Norman-Haignere, Olessia Jouravlev, Saima Malik-Moraleda, Hope Kean, Rosemary Varley, and Evelina FedorenkoCerebral Cortex, 2023
Language and music are two human-unique capacities whose relationship remains debated. Some have argued for overlap in processing mechanisms, especially for structure processing. Such claims often concern the inferior frontal component of the language system located within "Broca’s area." However, others have failed to find overlap. Using a robust individual-subject fMRI approach, we examined the responses of language brain regions to music stimuli, and probed the musical abilities of individuals with severe aphasia. Across 4 experiments, we obtained a clear answer: music perception does not engage the language system, and judgments about music structure are possible even in the presence of severe damage to the language network. Thus, the mechanisms that process structure in language do not appear to process music, including music syntax.
@article{chen2023language, title = {The human language system, including its inferior frontal component in "Broca's area," does not support music perception}, author = {Chen, Xiao and Affourtit, Josh and Ryskin, Rachel and Regev, Tamar I and Norman-Haignere, Sam and Jouravlev, Olessia and Malik-Moraleda, Saima and Kean, Hope and Varley, Rosemary and Fedorenko, Evelina}, journal = {Cerebral Cortex}, volume = {33}, number = {12}, pages = {7904--7929}, year = {2023}, doi = {10.1093/cercor/bhad087}, }
2022
- An investigation across 45 languages and 12 language families reveals a universal language networkSaima Malik-Moraleda, Dima Ayyash, Julianne Gallée, Josh Affourtit, Maya Hoffmann, Zachary Mineroff, Olessia Jouravlev, and Evelina FedorenkoNature Neuroscience, 2022
To understand the architecture of human language, it is critical to examine diverse languages; however, most cognitive neuroscience research has focused on only a handful of primarily Indo-European languages. Here we report an investigation of the fronto-temporo-parietal language network across 45 languages and establish the robustness to cross-linguistic variation of its topography and key functional properties, including left-lateralization, strong functional integration among its brain regions and functional selectivity for language processing.
@article{malikmoraleda2022universal, title = {An investigation across 45 languages and 12 language families reveals a universal language network}, author = {Malik-Moraleda, Saima and Ayyash, Dima and Gall{\'e}e, Julianne and Affourtit, Josh and Hoffmann, Maya and Mineroff, Zachary and Jouravlev, Olessia and Fedorenko, Evelina}, journal = {Nature Neuroscience}, volume = {25}, number = {8}, pages = {1014--1019}, year = {2022}, doi = {10.1038/s41593-022-01114-5}, } - Hering’s opponent-colors theory fails a key test in a non-Western cultureBevil Conway, Saima Malik-Moraleda, and Edward GibsonIn Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 2022
Opponent Colors Theory advances that four colors have special status and are yoked in opponent fashion. Classic hue cancelation studies provide evidence for this theory: people readily pick out colors that are neither red nor green, usually yellow. Here we conducted a version of a hue-cancelation experiment with the Tsimane’ people, a non-industrialized culture in the Amazon. Tsimane’ speakers readily identified reddish and greenish color chips, but they showed idiosyncratic choices when asked to identify a color that is neither reddish nor greenish, unlike English speakers who consistently select focal yellow. The results add to a growing body of evidence that does not support Opponent Colors Theory.
@inproceedings{conway2022hering, title = {Hering's opponent-colors theory fails a key test in a non-Western culture}, author = {Conway, Bevil and Malik-Moraleda, Saima and Gibson, Edward}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society}, volume = {44}, number = {44}, year = {2022}, } - Color naming in Tsimane’–Spanish bilinguals indicates that differential experience with content domains affects lexical accessSaima Malik-Moraleda, M Roca, and Edward GibsonScientific Reports, 2022
A standard assumption in the bilingual language processing literature is that the ease of access of a word in a language is determined by the speaker’s overall proficiency in the language. Alternatively, it could be that proficiency varies across semantic categories of the bilingual’s two languages. Here, we investigated lexical access in color terms in Tsimane’–Spanish bilinguals. Given that color terms are generally more frequent in Spanish than Tsimane’, participants may have better lexical access for color words in Spanish despite being overall more proficient in Tsimane’. Twenty-two Tsimane’–Spanish bilinguals took part in a picture naming task where participants labeled colors and animals. Participants were equally fast and accurate at naming animals in Tsimane’ and Spanish. However, participants were faster and more accurate at naming colors in Spanish than Tsimane’ except for the three color words that are most frequent in Tsimane’, for which they were equally fast in both languages. These results suggest that category-specific proficiency is a better predictor for lexical access than overall proficiency.
@article{malikmoraleda2022colornaming, title = {Color naming in Tsimane'--Spanish bilinguals indicates that differential experience with content domains affects lexical access}, author = {Malik-Moraleda, Saima and Roca, M and Gibson, Edward}, journal = {Scientific Reports}, volume = {12}, number = {1}, pages = {17479}, year = {2022}, doi = {10.1038/s41598-022-18461-9}, }
2021
- The domain-general multiple demand network is more active in early balanced bilinguals than monolinguals during executive processingSaima Malik-Moraleda, Theodore Cucu, Benjamin Lipkin, and Evelina FedorenkoNeurobiology of Language, 2021
The bilingual experience may place special cognitive demands on speakers and has been argued to lead to improvements in domain-general executive abilities, like cognitive control and working memory. Here we attempt to shed light on this question through an fMRI investigation of early balanced bilinguals (n = 55) and monolinguals (n = 54), using robust, previously validated individual-level markers of neural activity in the domain-general multiple demand network. We find that the bilinguals show significantly stronger neural responses to an executive task, and a larger difference between a harder and an easier condition, across the MD network. Although the neural group difference in the MD network appears robust, it remains difficult to causally link it to bilingual experience specifically.
@article{malikmoraleda2021domain, title = {The domain-general multiple demand network is more active in early balanced bilinguals than monolinguals during executive processing}, author = {Malik-Moraleda, Saima and Cucu, Theodore and Lipkin, Benjamin and Fedorenko, Evelina}, journal = {Neurobiology of Language}, volume = {2}, number = {4}, pages = {647--664}, year = {2021}, doi = {10.1162/nol_a_00058}, }
2018
- The consequences of literacy and schooling for parsing stringsSaima Malik-Moraleda, K Orihuela, M Carreiras, and JA DuñabeitiaLanguage, Cognition and Neuroscience, 2018
Word processing initially occurs through letter-by-letter parsing at early stages of reading development. Here we investigated the role of literacy in parsing both linguistic and nonlinguistic strings. Illiterates matched with schooled literates on socio-demographic and cognitive measures were presented with a character search task. Overall, literates performed better than illiterates in identifying constituents in linguistic and non-linguistic strings. Illiterates showed a similar performance for all types of strings. In contrast, literates showed a graded pattern with non-linguistic strings being processed much worse than linguistic strings. These results support domain-specific models of orthographic processing and demonstrate the impact of literacy on the ability of breaking down a word into its constituents.
@article{malikmoraleda2018consequences, title = {The consequences of literacy and schooling for parsing strings}, author = {Malik-Moraleda, Saima and Orihuela, K and Carreiras, M and Du{\~n}abeitia, JA}, journal = {Language, Cognition and Neuroscience}, volume = {33}, number = {3}, pages = {293--299}, year = {2018}, doi = {10.1080/23273798.2017.1313436}, }