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De Rosa M, Vignali L, D’Urso A, Ktori M, Bottini R, Crepaldi D. Selective Neural Entrainment Reveals Hierarchical Tuning to Linguistic Regularities in Reading. NEUROBIOLOGY OF LANGUAGE (CAMBRIDGE, MASS.) 2024; 5:528-552. [PMID: 38911459 PMCID: PMC11192515 DOI: 10.1162/nol_a_00145] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/14/2023] [Accepted: 03/20/2024] [Indexed: 06/25/2024]
Abstract
Reading is both a visual and a linguistic task, and as such it relies on both general-purpose, visual mechanisms and more abstract, meaning-oriented processes. Disentangling the roles of these resources is of paramount importance in reading research. The present study capitalizes on the coupling of fast periodic visual stimulation and MEG recordings to address this issue and investigate the role of different kinds of visual and linguistic units in the visual word identification system. We compared strings of pseudo-characters; strings of consonants (e.g., sfcl); readable, but unattested strings (e.g., amsi); frequent, but non-meaningful chunks (e.g., idge); suffixes (e.g., ment); and words (e.g., vibe); and looked for discrimination responses with a particular focus on the ventral, occipito-temporal regions. The results revealed sensitivity to alphabetic, readable, familiar, and lexical stimuli. Interestingly, there was no discrimination between suffixes and equally frequent, but meaningless endings, thus highlighting a lack of sensitivity to semantics. Taken together, the data suggest that the visual word identification system, at least in its early processing stages, is particularly tuned to form-based regularities, most likely reflecting its reliance on general-purpose, statistical learning mechanisms that are a core feature of the visual system as implemented in the ventral stream.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mara De Rosa
- Cognitive Neuroscience Department, International School for Advanced Studies, Trieste, Italy
| | - Lorenzo Vignali
- Center for Mind/Brain Sciences (CIMeC), University of Trento, Mattarello, Trento, Italy
| | - Anna D’Urso
- Center for Mind/Brain Sciences (CIMeC), University of Trento, Mattarello, Trento, Italy
| | - Maria Ktori
- Cognitive Neuroscience Department, International School for Advanced Studies, Trieste, Italy
| | - Roberto Bottini
- Center for Mind/Brain Sciences (CIMeC), University of Trento, Mattarello, Trento, Italy
| | - Davide Crepaldi
- Cognitive Neuroscience Department, International School for Advanced Studies, Trieste, Italy
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Lago S, Pezzetta R, Gastaldon S, Peressotti F, Arcara G. Trial-by-trial fluctuations of pre-stimulus alpha power predict language ERPs. Psychophysiology 2023; 60:e14388. [PMID: 37477167 DOI: 10.1111/psyp.14388] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/01/2023] [Revised: 06/12/2023] [Accepted: 06/20/2023] [Indexed: 07/22/2023]
Abstract
Anticipatory mechanisms are known to play a key role in language, but they have been mostly investigated with violation paradigms, which only consider what happens after predictions have been (dis)confirmed. Relatively few studies focused on the pre-stimulus interval and found that stronger expectations are associated with lower pre-stimulus alpha power. However, alpha power also fluctuates spontaneously, in the absence of experimental manipulations; and in the attention and perception domains, spontaneously low pre-stimulus power is associated with better behavioral performance and with event-related potential (ERPs) with shorter latencies and higher amplitudes. Importantly, little is known about the role of alpha fluctuations in other domains, as it is in language. To this aim, we investigated whether spontaneous fluctuations in pre-stimulus alpha power modulate language-related ERPs in a semantic congruence task. Electrophysiology data were analyzed using Generalized Additive Mixed Models to model nonlinear interactions between pre-stimulus alpha power and EEG amplitude, at the single-trial level. We found that the N400 and the late posterior positivity/P600 were larger in the case of lower pre-stimulus alpha power. Still, while the N400 was observable regardless of the level of pre-stimulus power, a late posterior positivity/P600 effect was only observable for low pre-stimulus alpha power. We discuss these findings in light of the different, albeit connected, functional interpretations of pre-stimulus alpha and the ERPs according to both a nonpredictive interpretation focused on attentional mechanisms and under a predictive processing framework.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sara Lago
- IRCCS San Camillo Hospital, Venice, Italy
- Padova Neuroscience Centre (PNC), University of Padova, Padova, Italy
| | | | - Simone Gastaldon
- Padova Neuroscience Centre (PNC), University of Padova, Padova, Italy
- Department of Developmental and Social Psychology (DPSS), University of Padova, Padova, Italy
| | - Francesca Peressotti
- Padova Neuroscience Centre (PNC), University of Padova, Padova, Italy
- Department of Developmental and Social Psychology (DPSS), University of Padova, Padova, Italy
- Centro Interdipartimentale di Ricerca "I-APPROVE - International Auditory Processing Project in Venice", Venice, Italy
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Grevisse D, Watorek M, Heidlmayr K, Isel F. Processing of complex morphosyntactic structures in French: ERP evidence from native speakers. Brain Cogn 2023; 171:106062. [PMID: 37473640 DOI: 10.1016/j.bandc.2023.106062] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/08/2023] [Revised: 07/05/2023] [Accepted: 07/07/2023] [Indexed: 07/22/2023]
Abstract
This event-related brain potentials (ERP) study investigated the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying the auditory processing of verbal complexity in French illustrated by the prescriptive present subjunctive mode. Using a violation paradigm, ERPs of 32 French native speakers were continuously recorded while they listened to 200 ecological French sentences selected from the INTEFRA oral corpus (2006). Participants performed an offline acceptability judgement task on each sentence, half of which contained a correct present subjunctive verbal agreement (reçoive) and the other half an incorrect present indicative one (peut). Critically, the present subjunctive mode was triggered either by verbs (Ma mère desire que j'apprenneMy mother wants me to learn) or by subordinating conjunctions (Pour qu'elle reçoiveSo that she receives). We found a delayed anterior negativity (AN) due to the length of the verbal forms and a P600 that were larger for incongruent than for congruent verbal agreement in the same time window. While the two effects were left lateralized for subordinating conjunctions, they were right lateralized for both structures with a larger effect for subordinating conjunctions than for verbs. Moreover, our data revealed that the AN/P600 pattern was larger in late position than in early ones. Taken together, these results suggest that morphosyntactic complexity conveyed by the French subjunctive involves at least two neurocognitive processes thought to support an initial morphosyntactic analysis (AN) and a syntactic revision and repair (posterior P600). These two processes may be modulated as a function of both the element (i.e., subordinating conjunction vs verb) that triggers the subjunctive mode and the moment at which this element is used while sentence processing.
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Affiliation(s)
- Daniel Grevisse
- Université Paris 8, Laboratoire Structures formelles du langage, CNRS, UMR 7023, France.
| | - Marzena Watorek
- Université Paris 8, Laboratoire Structures formelles du langage, CNRS, UMR 7023, France
| | - Karin Heidlmayr
- Université Paris Nanterre, Laboratoire Modèles, Dynamiques, Corpus, CNRS, UMR 7114, France
| | - Frédéric Isel
- Université Paris Nanterre, Laboratoire Modèles, Dynamiques, Corpus, CNRS, UMR 7114, France
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Syntax through the looking glass: A review on two-word linguistic processing across behavioral, neuroimaging and neurostimulation studies. Neurosci Biobehav Rev 2022; 142:104881. [DOI: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2022.104881] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/16/2022] [Revised: 09/13/2022] [Accepted: 09/15/2022] [Indexed: 11/23/2022]
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Cui LY, Cheng WW, Shan SR, Lv W, Sun CM, Li R, Zhou S, Chen ZM, Bao SY. Spontaneous quantitative processing in Chinese singular and plural picture naming: An event-related potentials analysis. Front Neurosci 2022; 16:898526. [PMID: 36303944 PMCID: PMC9594987 DOI: 10.3389/fnins.2022.898526] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/17/2022] [Accepted: 06/30/2022] [Indexed: 12/08/2022] Open
Abstract
Chinese nouns lack inflection and cannot reflect the quantitative relationship between singular and plural numbers. However, neural processes of picture naming are different from those of words. We assume that Chinese single and plural picture naming is different, and they may involve quantitative processing. Therefore, Experiment 1 was designed by picking picture naming as the task and Chinese as the target language and compared the accuracy, reaction time, and event-related potentials (ERPs) between single and plural picture naming, where two types of pictures were mixed. Although the T-test showed no significant differences in behavioral data, there were differences in ERPs. ERP differences involved two effects: P1 of 160-180 ms and P2 of 220-260 ms in the parietal-occipital lobe. These differences are suggested to reflect the neural differences in quantitative processing. Therefore, Chinese singular and plural picture naming consists of word production and implicit quantitative processing simultaneously. To explore the relationship between the two processings, we added a semantic factor (inanimate vs. animate items) to the quantity factor of Experiment 1 and carried out Experiment 2, with the observation indexes unchanged. There were no significant differences in behavioral data among the four conditions. After variance analysis, ERPs results indicated an interaction between semantic and quantitative factors in the central area at 180-280 ms. In summary, we suggest that Chinese singular and plural picture naming includes two simultaneous neural processing tasks: word production and quantitative processing, which interact in the central area at 180-280 ms.
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Affiliation(s)
- Li-yan Cui
- Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, Shenzhen People’s Hospital, The Second Clinical Medical College, Jinan University, The First Affiliated Hospital, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China
- Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, The First Affiliated Hospital of Jinan University, Guangzhou, China
| | - Wen-wen Cheng
- Department of Neurology, Maoming People’s Hospital, Maoming, China
- Wen-wen Cheng,
| | - Sha-rui Shan
- Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, The First Affiliated Hospital of Guangdong Pharmaceutical University, Guangzhou, China
| | - Wen Lv
- Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, Shenzhen People’s Hospital, The Second Clinical Medical College, Jinan University, The First Affiliated Hospital, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China
| | - Chen-ming Sun
- Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, Shenzhen People’s Hospital, The Second Clinical Medical College, Jinan University, The First Affiliated Hospital, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China
| | - Run Li
- Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, Shenzhen People’s Hospital, The Second Clinical Medical College, Jinan University, The First Affiliated Hospital, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China
| | - Shu Zhou
- Department of Neurology, Nanfang Hospital, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China
| | - Zhuo-ming Chen
- Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, The First Affiliated Hospital of Jinan University, Guangzhou, China
- Zhuo-ming Chen,
| | - Sheng-yong Bao
- Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, Shenzhen People’s Hospital, The Second Clinical Medical College, Jinan University, The First Affiliated Hospital, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China
- *Correspondence: Sheng-yong Bao,
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Pescuma VN, Zanini C, Crepaldi D, Franzon F. Form and Function: A Study on the Distribution of the Inflectional Endings in Italian Nouns and Adjectives. Front Psychol 2021; 12:720228. [PMID: 34690878 PMCID: PMC8529016 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.720228] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/03/2021] [Accepted: 09/09/2021] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Inflectional values, such as singular and plural, sustain agreement relations between constituents in sentences, allowing sentence parsing and prediction in online processing. Ideally, these processes would be facilitated by a consistent and transparent correspondence between the inflectional values and their form: for example, the value of plural should always be expressed by the same ending, and that ending should only express plural. Experimental research reports higher processing costs in the presence of a non-transparent relation between forms and values. While this effect was found in several languages, and typological research shows that consistency is far from common in morphological paradigms, it is still somewhat difficult to precisely quantify the transparency degree of the inflected forms. Furthermore, to date, no accounts have quantified the transparency in inflection with regard to the declensional classes and the extent to which it is expressed across different parts of speech, depending on whether these act as controllers of the agreement (e.g., nouns) or as targets (e.g., adjectives). We present a case study on Italian, a language that marks gender and number features in nouns and adjectives. This work provides measures of the distribution of forms in the noun and adjective inflection in Italian, and quantifies the degree of form-value transparency with respect to inflectional endings and declensional classes. In order to obtain these measures, we built Flex It, a dedicated large-scale database of inflectional morphology of Italian, and made it available, in order to sustain further theoretical and empirical research.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Chiara Zanini
- Romanisches Seminar, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
| | - Davide Crepaldi
- Neuroscience Area, International School for Advanced Studies, Trieste, Italy
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Franzon F, Zanini C, Rugani R. Cognitive and communicative pressures in the emergence of grammatical structure: A closer look at whether number sense is encoded in privileged ways. Cogn Neuropsychol 2020; 37:355-358. [DOI: 10.1080/02643294.2020.1802241] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/23/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Francesca Franzon
- Neuroscience Area, International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA), Trieste, Italy
| | - Chiara Zanini
- Romanisches Seminar (RoSe), Universität Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland
| | - Rosa Rugani
- Department of General Psychology, University of Padova, Padova, Italy
- Department of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA
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