Brain-LLM Alignment Tracks Training Data, Not Typology
Brain-LLM alignment is well established in English, yet the brain's language network is neuroanatomically universal across languages. Does alignment also generalize cross-linguistically, and what governs the variation? We test this using fMRI data from 112 participants across English, Chinese, and French (the Le Petit Prince corpus) and seven LLMs spanning English-dominant, Chinese-dominant, and multilingual architectures. Our central finding is that training-language dominance, not an inherent property of English, drives the alignment pattern: a Chinese-dominant model (Baichuan2-7B), architecture-matched to LLaMA-2-7B, reverses the gradient entirely, aligning best with Chinese brains and...
| Authors | Dongxin Guo, Jikun Wu, Siu Ming Yiu |
|---|---|
| Primary category | cs.CL |
| Published | 21 May 2026 |
| Last updated at source | 21 May 2026 |
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