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Montalti M, Calbi M, Umiltà MA, Gallese V, Cuccio V. The role of motor inhibition in implicit negation processing: two Go/No-Go behavioral studies. PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH 2024; 88:1169-1181. [PMID: 38483573 PMCID: PMC11143020 DOI: 10.1007/s00426-024-01941-0] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/22/2023] [Accepted: 02/22/2024] [Indexed: 06/02/2024]
Abstract
Several studies demonstrated that explicit forms of negation processing (e.g., "I don't know") recruits motor inhibitory mechanisms. However, whether this is also true for implicit negation, in which the negative meaning is implicated but not explicitly lexicalized in the sentence (e.g., "I ignore"), has never been studied before. Two Go/No-Go studies, which differed only for the time-windows to respond to the Go stimulus, were carried out. In each, participants (N = 86 in experiment 1; N = 87 in experiment 2) respond to coloured circle while reading task-irrelevant affirmative, explicit negative and implicit negative sentences. We aimed to investigate whether: (i) the processing of implicit negations recruits inhibitory mechanisms; (ii) these inhibitory resources are differently modulated by implicit and explicit negations. Results show that implicit negative sentences recruit the inhibitory resources more strongly when compared to explicit ones, probably due to their inferential nature, likely requiring deeper processing of the negative meaning. Implicit and inferential meaning (i.e., pragmatic information) are grounded too in the same mechanisms that integrate action with perception. Such findings provide further evidence to the embodied account of language, showing that even abstract aspects, like implicit negation, are grounded in the sensory-motor system, by means of functional link between language and motor activity.
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Affiliation(s)
- Martina Montalti
- Department of Medicine and Surgery, Unit of Neuroscience, University of Parma, Parma, Italy.
- Lab Neuroscience & Humanities, University of Parma, Parma, Italy.
- Department of Clinical and Experimental Sciences, University of Brescia, Brescia, Italy.
| | - Marta Calbi
- Department of Medicine and Surgery, Unit of Neuroscience, University of Parma, Parma, Italy
- Lab Neuroscience & Humanities, University of Parma, Parma, Italy
- Department of Philosophy "Piero Martinetti", State University of Milan, Milan, MI, Italy
| | - Maria Alessandra Umiltà
- Lab Neuroscience & Humanities, University of Parma, Parma, Italy
- Department of Food and Drug, University of Parma, Parma, Italy
| | - Vittorio Gallese
- Department of Medicine and Surgery, Unit of Neuroscience, University of Parma, Parma, Italy.
- Lab Neuroscience & Humanities, University of Parma, Parma, Italy.
| | - Valentina Cuccio
- Department of Ancient and Modern Civilizations, University of Messina, Messina, Italy
- Department of Cognitive Sciences, Psychology, Education and Cultural Studies, University of Messina, Messina, Italy
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2
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Zuanazzi A, Ripollés P, Lin WM, Gwilliams L, King JR, Poeppel D. Negation mitigates rather than inverts the neural representations of adjectives. PLoS Biol 2024; 22:e3002622. [PMID: 38814982 PMCID: PMC11139306 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3002622] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/27/2023] [Accepted: 04/11/2024] [Indexed: 06/01/2024] Open
Abstract
Combinatoric linguistic operations underpin human language processes, but how meaning is composed and refined in the mind of the reader is not well understood. We address this puzzle by exploiting the ubiquitous function of negation. We track the online effects of negation ("not") and intensifiers ("really") on the representation of scalar adjectives (e.g., "good") in parametrically designed behavioral and neurophysiological (MEG) experiments. The behavioral data show that participants first interpret negated adjectives as affirmative and later modify their interpretation towards, but never exactly as, the opposite meaning. Decoding analyses of neural activity further reveal significant above chance decoding accuracy for negated adjectives within 600 ms from adjective onset, suggesting that negation does not invert the representation of adjectives (i.e., "not bad" represented as "good"); furthermore, decoding accuracy for negated adjectives is found to be significantly lower than that for affirmative adjectives. Overall, these results suggest that negation mitigates rather than inverts the neural representations of adjectives. This putative suppression mechanism of negation is supported by increased synchronization of beta-band neural activity in sensorimotor areas. The analysis of negation provides a steppingstone to understand how the human brain represents changes of meaning over time.
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Affiliation(s)
- Arianna Zuanazzi
- Department of Psychology, New York University, New York, New York, United States of America
| | - Pablo Ripollés
- Department of Psychology, New York University, New York, New York, United States of America
- Music and Audio Research Lab (MARL), New York University, New York, New York, United States of America
- Center for Language, Music and Emotion (ClaME), New York University, New York, New York, United States of America
| | - Wy Ming Lin
- Hector Research Institute for Education Sciences and Psychology, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany
| | - Laura Gwilliams
- Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, California, United States of America
| | - Jean-Rémi King
- Department of Psychology, New York University, New York, New York, United States of America
- Ecole Normale Supérieure, PSL University, Paris, France
| | - David Poeppel
- Department of Psychology, New York University, New York, New York, United States of America
- Center for Language, Music and Emotion (ClaME), New York University, New York, New York, United States of America
- Ernst Strüngmann Institute for Neuroscience, Frankfurt, Germany
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3
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El Ouardi L, Yeou M, Faroqi-Shah Y. Neural correlates of pronoun processing: An activation likelihood estimation meta-analysis. BRAIN AND LANGUAGE 2023; 246:105347. [PMID: 37847932 PMCID: PMC11305457 DOI: 10.1016/j.bandl.2023.105347] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/23/2023] [Revised: 08/30/2023] [Accepted: 10/10/2023] [Indexed: 10/19/2023]
Abstract
Pronouns are unique linguistic devices that allow for the expression of referential relationships. Despite their communicative utility, the neural correlates of the operations involved in reference assignment and/or resolution, are not well-understood. The present study synthesized the neuroimaging literature on pronoun processing to test extant theories of pronoun comprehension. Following the PRISMA guidelines and thebest-practice recommendations for neuroimaging meta-analyses, a systematic literature search and record assessment were performed. As a result, 16 fMRI studies were included in the meta-analysis, and were coded in Scribe 3.6 for inclusion in the BrainMap database. The activation coordinates for the contrasts of interest were transformed into Talairach space and submitted to an Activation Likelihood Estimation (ALE) meta-analysis in GingerALE 3.0.1. The results indicated that pronoun processing had functional convergence in the left posterior middle and superior temporal gyri, potentially reflecting the retrieval, prediction and integration roles of these areas for pronoun processing.
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Affiliation(s)
- Loubna El Ouardi
- Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, United States; Applied Language and Culture Studies Laboratory, Chouaib Doukkali University, El Jadida, Morocco.
| | - Mohamed Yeou
- Applied Language and Culture Studies Laboratory, Chouaib Doukkali University, El Jadida, Morocco
| | - Yasmeen Faroqi-Shah
- Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, United States
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4
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Banks B, Borghi AM, Fargier R, Fini C, Jonauskaite D, Mazzuca C, Montalti M, Villani C, Woodin G. Consensus Paper: Current Perspectives on Abstract Concepts and Future Research Directions. J Cogn 2023; 6:62. [PMID: 37841672 PMCID: PMC10573588 DOI: 10.5334/joc.238] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/18/2022] [Accepted: 08/12/2022] [Indexed: 10/17/2023] Open
Abstract
concepts are relevant to a wide range of disciplines, including cognitive science, linguistics, psychology, cognitive, social, and affective neuroscience, and philosophy. This consensus paper synthesizes the work and views of researchers in the field, discussing current perspectives on theoretical and methodological issues, and recommendations for future research. In this paper, we urge researchers to go beyond the traditional abstract-concrete dichotomy and consider the multiple dimensions that characterize concepts (e.g., sensorimotor experience, social interaction, conceptual metaphor), as well as the mediating influence of linguistic and cultural context on conceptual representations. We also promote the use of interactive methods to investigate both the comprehension and production of abstract concepts, while also focusing on individual differences in conceptual representations. Overall, we argue that abstract concepts should be studied in a more nuanced way that takes into account their complexity and diversity, which should permit us a fuller, more holistic understanding of abstract cognition.
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Affiliation(s)
- Briony Banks
- Department of Psychology, Lancaster University, UK
| | - Anna M. Borghi
- Department of Dynamic and Clinical Psychology, and Health Studies, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy
- Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies, Italian National Research Council, Rome, Italy
| | - Raphaël Fargier
- Department of Special Needs Education, University of Oslo, Norway
| | - Chiara Fini
- Department of Dynamic and Clinical Psychology, and Health Studies, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy
| | - Domicele Jonauskaite
- Faculty of Psychology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
- Institute of Psychology, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Claudia Mazzuca
- Department of Dynamic and Clinical Psychology, and Health Studies, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy
| | - Martina Montalti
- Department of Clinical and Experimental Sciences, University of Brescia, Italy
- Department of Medicine and Surgery – Unit of Neuroscience, University of Parma, Italy
| | - Caterina Villani
- Department of Modern Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, University of Bologna, Italy
| | - Greg Woodin
- Department of English Language and Linguistics, University of Birmingham, UK
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Vanek N, Zhang H. On truth and polarity in negation processing: language-specific effects in non-linguistic contexts. Front Psychol 2023; 14:1244249. [PMID: 37663332 PMCID: PMC10468976 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1244249] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/22/2023] [Accepted: 08/02/2023] [Indexed: 09/05/2023] Open
Abstract
Introduction This study examines how negation is processed in a nonverbal context (e.g., when assessing ▲ ≠ ▲) by speakers of a truth-based system like Mandarin and a polarity-based system like English. In a truth-based system, negation may take longer to process because it is typically attached to the negation as a whole (it is not true that triangle does not equal triangle), whereas in polarity-based systems, negation is processed relatively faster because it is attached to just the equation symbol (triangle does not equal triangle), which is processed relatively faster. Our hypothesis was that negation processing routines previously observed for verbal contexts, namely that speakers of Mandarin get slowed down more when processing negative stimuli than positive stimuli compared to speakers of English, also extend to contexts when language use is not obligatory. Methods To test this, we asked participants to agree/disagree with equations comprising simple shapes and positive '=' or negative '≠' equation symbols. English speakers showed a response-time advantage over Mandarin speakers in negation conditions. In a separate experiment, we also tested the contribution of equation symbols '≠'/'=' to the cognitive demands by asking participants to judge shape sameness in symbol-free trials, such as ▲ ■. This comparison allowed us to test whether crosslinguistic differences arise not because of shape congruence judgement but arguably due to negation attachment. Results and discussion The effect of the '≠' symbol on shape congruence was language-specific, speeding up English speakers but slowing down Mandarin speakers when the two shapes differed. These findings suggest language-specific processing of negation in negative equations, interpreted as novel support for linguistic relativity.
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Affiliation(s)
- Norbert Vanek
- School of Cultures, Languages and Linguistics, The University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand
- Experimental Research on Central European Languages Lab, Charles University, Prague, Czechia
| | - Haoruo Zhang
- College of Foreign Languages, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Shanghai, China
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Zang A, Beltrán D, Wang H, González KR, de Vega M. The negation-induced forgetting effect remains even after reducing associative interference. Cognition 2023; 235:105412. [PMID: 36812835 DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2023.105412] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/14/2022] [Revised: 02/12/2023] [Accepted: 02/13/2023] [Indexed: 02/22/2023]
Abstract
Recent research has provided evidence that negation processing recruits the neural network of response inhibition (de Vega et al., 2016). Furthermore, inhibition mechanisms also play a role in human memory. In two experiments, we aimed to assess how producing a negation in a verification task may impact long-term memory. Experiment 1 used the same memory paradigm as Mayo et al. (2014), consisting of several phases: first, reading a story describing the activity of a protagonist, immediately followed by a "yes-no" verification task, then a distractive task, and finally an incidental free recall test. Consistent with the previous results, negated sentences were recalled worse than affirmed sentences. Yet, there is a possible confounding between the effect of negation itself and the associative interference of two conflicting predicates - the original and the modified one - in negative trials. To avoid this, Experiment 2 modified the paradigm by including a story describing the activities of two protagonists in such a way that the affirmed and denied verification sentences had the same content, and only differed in the attribution of a specific event to the correct or wrong protagonist. The negation-induced forgetting effect was still powerful, while controlling for potential contaminating variables. Our finding would support that the impaired long-term memory could be ascribed to reusing the inhibitory mechanism of negation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Anqi Zang
- Instituto Universitario de Neurociencia, Universidad de La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain
| | - David Beltrán
- Instituto Universitario de Neurociencia, Universidad de La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain; Departamento de Psicología Básica I, Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED), Madrid, Spain.
| | - Huili Wang
- School of Foreign Languages, Hangzhou City University, Gongshu District, Hangzhou, China
| | - Katia Rolán González
- Instituto Universitario de Neurociencia, Universidad de La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain; Psychology Department, Universidad Isabel I, Spain
| | - Manuel de Vega
- Instituto Universitario de Neurociencia, Universidad de La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain
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7
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Montalti M, Calbi M, Cuccio V, Umiltà MA, Gallese V. Is motor inhibition involved in the processing of sentential negation? An assessment via the Stop-Signal Task. PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH 2023; 87:339-352. [PMID: 33905001 PMCID: PMC9873753 DOI: 10.1007/s00426-021-01512-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/28/2023]
Abstract
In the last decades, the embodied approach to cognition and language gained momentum in the scientific debate, leading to evidence in different aspects of language processing. However, while the bodily grounding of concrete concepts seems to be relatively not controversial, abstract aspects, like the negation logical operator, are still today one of the main challenges for this research paradigm. In this framework, the present study has a twofold aim: (1) to assess whether mechanisms for motor inhibition underpin the processing of sentential negation, thus, providing evidence for a bodily grounding of this logic operator, (2) to determine whether the Stop-Signal Task, which has been used to investigate motor inhibition, could represent a good tool to explore this issue. Twenty-three participants were recruited in this experiment. Ten hand-action-related sentences, both in affirmative and negative polarity, were presented on a screen. Participants were instructed to respond as quickly and accurately as possible to the direction of the Go Stimulus (an arrow) and to withhold their response when they heard a sound following the arrow. This paradigm allows estimating the Stop Signal Reaction Time (SSRT), a covert reaction time underlying the inhibitory process. Our results show that the SSRT measured after reading negative sentences are longer than after reading affirmative ones, highlighting the recruitment of inhibitory mechanisms while processing negative sentences. Furthermore, our methodological considerations suggest that the Stop-Signal Task is a good paradigm to assess motor inhibition's role in the processing of sentence negation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Martina Montalti
- grid.10383.390000 0004 1758 0937Department of Medicine and Surgery Unit of Neuroscience, University of Parma, Parma, Italy
| | - Marta Calbi
- grid.10383.390000 0004 1758 0937Department of Medicine and Surgery Unit of Neuroscience, University of Parma, Parma, Italy
| | - Valentina Cuccio
- grid.10438.3e0000 0001 2178 8421Department of Cognitive, Psychological, Pedagogical Sciences and Cultural Studies, University of Messina, Messina, Italy
| | - Maria Alessandra Umiltà
- grid.10383.390000 0004 1758 0937Department of Food and Drug, University of Parma, Parma, Italy
| | - Vittorio Gallese
- grid.10383.390000 0004 1758 0937Department of Medicine and Surgery Unit of Neuroscience, University of Parma, Parma, Italy ,grid.7468.d0000 0001 2248 7639Berlin School of Mind and Brain, Humboldt-Universität Zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany
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8
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Kuhnke P, Beaupain MC, Arola J, Kiefer M, Hartwigsen G. Meta-analytic evidence for a novel hierarchical model of conceptual processing. Neurosci Biobehav Rev 2023; 144:104994. [PMID: 36509206 DOI: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2022.104994] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/30/2022] [Revised: 11/29/2022] [Accepted: 12/07/2022] [Indexed: 12/14/2022]
Abstract
Conceptual knowledge plays a pivotal role in human cognition. Grounded cognition theories propose that concepts consist of perceptual-motor features represented in modality-specific perceptual-motor cortices. However, it is unclear whether conceptual processing consistently engages modality-specific areas. Here, we performed an activation likelihood estimation (ALE) meta-analysis across 212 neuroimaging experiments on conceptual processing related to 7 perceptual-motor modalities (action, sound, visual shape, motion, color, olfaction-gustation, and emotion). We found that conceptual processing consistently engages brain regions also activated during real perceptual-motor experience of the same modalities. In addition, we identified multimodal convergence zones that are recruited for multiple modalities. In particular, the left inferior parietal lobe (IPL) and posterior middle temporal gyrus (pMTG) are engaged for three modalities: action, motion, and sound. These "trimodal" regions are surrounded by "bimodal" regions engaged for two modalities. Our findings support a novel model of the conceptual system, according to which conceptual processing relies on a hierarchical neural architecture from modality-specific to multimodal areas up to an amodal hub.
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Affiliation(s)
- Philipp Kuhnke
- Lise Meitner Research Group Cognition and Plasticity, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany; Wilhelm Wundt Institute for Psychology, Leipzig University, Germany.
| | - Marie C Beaupain
- Lise Meitner Research Group Cognition and Plasticity, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany; Department of Psychology and Neurosciences, Leibniz Research Centre for Working Environment and Human Factors, Dortmund, Germany
| | - Johannes Arola
- Lise Meitner Research Group Cognition and Plasticity, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany
| | | | - Gesa Hartwigsen
- Lise Meitner Research Group Cognition and Plasticity, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany; Wilhelm Wundt Institute for Psychology, Leipzig University, Germany
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9
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Díaz-Rivera MN, Birba A, Fittipaldi S, Mola D, Morera Y, de Vega M, Moguilner S, Lillo P, Slachevsky A, González Campo C, Ibáñez A, García AM. Multidimensional inhibitory signatures of sentential negation in behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia. Cereb Cortex 2022; 33:403-420. [PMID: 35253864 PMCID: PMC9837611 DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhac074] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/08/2021] [Revised: 01/31/2022] [Accepted: 02/07/2022] [Indexed: 01/19/2023] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Processing of linguistic negation has been associated to inhibitory brain mechanisms. However, no study has tapped this link via multimodal measures in patients with core inhibitory alterations, a critical approach to reveal direct neural correlates and potential disease markers. METHODS Here we examined oscillatory, neuroanatomical, and functional connectivity signatures of a recently reported Go/No-go negation task in healthy controls and behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) patients, typified by primary and generalized inhibitory disruptions. To test for specificity, we also recruited persons with Alzheimer's disease (AD), a disease involving frequent but nonprimary inhibitory deficits. RESULTS In controls, negative sentences in the No-go condition distinctly involved frontocentral delta (2-3 Hz) suppression, a canonical inhibitory marker. In bvFTD patients, this modulation was selectively abolished and significantly correlated with the volume and functional connectivity of regions supporting inhibition (e.g. precentral gyrus, caudate nucleus, and cerebellum). Such canonical delta suppression was preserved in the AD group and associated with widespread anatomo-functional patterns across non-inhibitory regions. DISCUSSION These findings suggest that negation hinges on the integrity and interaction of spatiotemporal inhibitory mechanisms. Moreover, our results reveal potential neurocognitive markers of bvFTD, opening a new agenda at the crossing of cognitive neuroscience and behavioral neurology.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mariano N Díaz-Rivera
- Centro de Neurociencias Cognitivas, Universidad de San Andrés, Vito Dumas 284, Buenos Aires B1644BID, Argentina.,Agencia Nacional de Promoción Científica y Tecnológica (ANPCyT), C1425FQD, Godoy Cruz 2370, Buenos Aires, Argentina
| | - Agustina Birba
- Centro de Neurociencias Cognitivas, Universidad de San Andrés, Vito Dumas 284, Buenos Aires B1644BID, Argentina.,National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET), C1425FQD, Godoy Cruz 2290, Buenos Aires, Argentina
| | - Sol Fittipaldi
- Centro de Neurociencias Cognitivas, Universidad de San Andrés, Vito Dumas 284, Buenos Aires B1644BID, Argentina.,National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET), C1425FQD, Godoy Cruz 2290, Buenos Aires, Argentina
| | - Débora Mola
- Instituto de Investigaciones Psicológicas, CONICET, 5000, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Córdoba, Argentina
| | - Yurena Morera
- Instituto Universitario de Neurociencia (IUNE), Universidad de La Laguna, Campus de Guajara, 38205 La Laguna, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain
| | - Manuel de Vega
- Instituto Universitario de Neurociencia (IUNE), Universidad de La Laguna, Campus de Guajara, 38205 La Laguna, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain
| | - Sebastian Moguilner
- Global Brain Health Institute, University of California, San Francisco, CA94158, US; and Trinity College, Dublin D02DP21, , Ireland.,Latin American Brain Health Institute (BrainLat), Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez, 8320000, Santiago, Chile
| | - Patricia Lillo
- Departamento de Neurología Sur, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad de Chile, 8380000, Santiago, Chile.,Unidad de Neurología, Hospital San José, 8380000, Santiago, Chile.,Geroscience Center for Brain Health and Metabolism (GERO), 7800003, Santiago, Chile
| | - Andrea Slachevsky
- Geroscience Center for Brain Health and Metabolism (GERO), 7800003, Santiago, Chile.,Neuropsychology and Clinical Neuroscience Laboratory (LANNEC), Physiopathology Department, Neuroscience and East Neuroscience Departments, Faculty of Medicine, Institute of Biomedical Sciences (ICBM), University of Chile, 8380000, Santiago, Chile.,Memory and Neuropsychiatric Clinic (CMYN) Neurology Department, Hospital del Salvador and Faculty of Medicine, University of Chile, 7500000, Santiago, Chile.,Departamento de Medicina, Servicio de Neurología, Clínica Alemana-Universidad del Desarrollo, 7550000, Santiago, Chile
| | - Cecilia González Campo
- Centro de Neurociencias Cognitivas, Universidad de San Andrés, Vito Dumas 284, Buenos Aires B1644BID, Argentina.,National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET), C1425FQD, Godoy Cruz 2290, Buenos Aires, Argentina
| | - Agustín Ibáñez
- Centro de Neurociencias Cognitivas, Universidad de San Andrés, Vito Dumas 284, Buenos Aires B1644BID, Argentina.,National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET), C1425FQD, Godoy Cruz 2290, Buenos Aires, Argentina.,Global Brain Health Institute, University of California, San Francisco, CA94158, US; and Trinity College, Dublin D02DP21, , Ireland.,Latin American Brain Health Institute (BrainLat), Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez, 8320000, Santiago, Chile
| | - Adolfo M García
- Centro de Neurociencias Cognitivas, Universidad de San Andrés, Vito Dumas 284, Buenos Aires B1644BID, Argentina.,National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET), C1425FQD, Godoy Cruz 2290, Buenos Aires, Argentina.,Global Brain Health Institute, University of California, San Francisco, CA94158, US; and Trinity College, Dublin D02DP21, , Ireland.,Departamento de Lingüística y Literatura, Facultad de Humanidades, Universidad de Santiago de Chile, 7550000, Santiago, Chile
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10
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Kemmerer D. Revisiting the relation between syntax, action, and left BA44. Front Hum Neurosci 2022; 16:923022. [PMID: 36211129 PMCID: PMC9537576 DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2022.923022] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/18/2022] [Accepted: 09/05/2022] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Among the many lines of research that have been exploring how embodiment contributes to cognition, one focuses on how the neural substrates of language may be shared, or at least closely coupled, with those of action. This paper revisits a particular proposal that has received considerable attention—namely, that the forms of hierarchical sequencing that characterize both linguistic syntax and goal-directed action are underpinned partly by common mechanisms in left Brodmann area (BA) 44, a cortical region that is not only classically regarded as part of Broca’s area, but is also a core component of the human Mirror Neuron System. First, a recent multi-participant, multi-round debate about this proposal is summarized together with some other relevant findings. This review reveals that while the proposal is supported by a variety of theoretical arguments and empirical results, it still faces several challenges. Next, a narrower application of the proposal is discussed, specifically involving the basic word order of subject (S), object (O), and verb (V) in simple transitive clauses. Most languages are either SOV or SVO, and, building on prior work, it is argued that these strong syntactic tendencies derive from how left BA44 represents the sequential-hierarchical structure of goal-directed actions. Finally, with the aim of clarifying what it might mean for syntax and action to have “common” neural mechanisms in left BA44, two different versions of the main proposal are distinguished. Hypothesis 1 states that the very same neural mechanisms in left BA44 subserve some aspects of hierarchical sequencing for syntax and action, whereas Hypothesis 2 states that anatomically distinct but functionally parallel neural mechanisms in left BA44 subserve some aspects of hierarchical sequencing for syntax and action. Although these two hypotheses make different predictions, at this point neither one has significantly more explanatory power than the other, and further research is needed to elaborate and test them.
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Affiliation(s)
- David Kemmerer
- Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IND, United States
- Department of Psychological Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IND, United States
- *Correspondence: David Kemmerer,
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11
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Zang A, de Vega M, Fu Y, Wang H, Beltrán D. Language switching may facilitate the processing of negative responses. Front Psychol 2022; 13:906154. [PMID: 36148105 PMCID: PMC9486385 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.906154] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/28/2022] [Accepted: 07/11/2022] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
It has been proposed that processing sentential negation recruits the neural network of inhibitory control (de Vega et al., 2016; Beltrán et al., 2021). In addition, inhibition mechanisms also play a role in switching languages for bilinguals (Kroll et al., 2015). Since both processes may share inhibitory resources, the current study explored for the first time whether and how language-switching influences the processing of negation. To this end, two groups of Spanish-English bilinguals participated in an encoding-verification memory task. They read short stories involving the same two protagonists (Montse and Jordi), referring to their activities in four different scenarios in Spanish or English. Following each story, the participants received verification questions requiring “yes” or “no” responses depending on whether a given fact was correctly referred to one of the protagonists. Some of the verification questions were in the story’s original language (non-switch condition) and others in the alternate language (switch condition). Results revealed that language-switching facilitated negative responses compared to affirmative responses, exclusively for questions switching from dominant language (L1) to non-dominant language (L2). This effect might reflect that the domain-general mechanisms of inhibitory control are recruited at least partially for both language switch and negation process simultaneously, although this phenomenon is modulated by language dominance.
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Affiliation(s)
- Anqi Zang
- Instituto Universitario de Neurociencia, Universidad de La Laguna, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain
| | - Manuel de Vega
- Instituto Universitario de Neurociencia, Universidad de La Laguna, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain
| | - Yang Fu
- Instituto Universitario de Neurociencia, Universidad de La Laguna, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain
| | - Huili Wang
- School of Foreign Languages, Zhejiang University City College, Hangzhou, China
- *Correspondence: Huili Wang,
| | - David Beltrán
- Instituto Universitario de Neurociencia, Universidad de La Laguna, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain
- Departamento de Psicología Básica I, Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED), Madrid, Spain
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12
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Giacobbe C, Raimo S, Cropano M, Santangelo G. Neural correlates of embodied action language processing: a systematic review and meta-analytic study. Brain Imaging Behav 2022; 16:2353-2374. [PMID: 35754077 DOI: 10.1007/s11682-022-00680-3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 04/21/2022] [Indexed: 12/01/2022]
Abstract
The neural correlates of action language processing are still debated within embodied cognition research and little is known about the flexible involvement of modality-specific pre-motor system and multimodal high-level temporo-parietal regions as a function of explicit and implicit tasks. A systematic review and the Activation likelihood estimation (ALE) meta-analyses on functional neuroimaging studies were performed to identify neural correlates of action language processing activated during explicit and implicit tasks. The contrast ALE meta-analysis revealed activation of modality-specific premotor area and inferior frontal areas during explicit action language tasks while a greater activation of posterior temporo-occipital areas emerged for implicit tasks. The conjunction analysis revealed overlap in the temporo-parietal multimodal high-level regions for both types of tasks. Functional specialization of the middle temporal gyrus was found where the more posterior-occipital part resulted activated during implicit action language tasks whereas the antero-lateral part was involved in explicit tasks. Our findings were discussed within a conceptual flexibility perspective about the involvement of both the modality-specific and multimodal brain system during action language processing depending on different types of tasks.
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Affiliation(s)
- Chiara Giacobbe
- Department of Psychology, University of Campania Luigi Vanvitelli, Viale Ellittico, 31, 81100, Caserta, Italy
| | - Simona Raimo
- Department of Medical and Surgical Sciences, University "Magna Graecia" of Catanzaro, Viale Europa, 88100, Catanzaro, Italy.
| | - Maria Cropano
- Department of Psychology, University of Campania Luigi Vanvitelli, Viale Ellittico, 31, 81100, Caserta, Italy
| | - Gabriella Santangelo
- Department of Psychology, University of Campania Luigi Vanvitelli, Viale Ellittico, 31, 81100, Caserta, Italy
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13
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Language specificity in the processing of affirmative and negative sentences. Neuroreport 2022; 33:153-162. [DOI: 10.1097/wnr.0000000000001771] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/25/2022]
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14
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Del Maschio N, Fedeli D, Garofalo G, Buccino G. Evidence for the Concreteness of Abstract Language: A Meta-Analysis of Neuroimaging Studies. Brain Sci 2021; 12:32. [PMID: 35053776 PMCID: PMC8773921 DOI: 10.3390/brainsci12010032] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/18/2021] [Revised: 12/06/2021] [Accepted: 12/13/2021] [Indexed: 11/17/2022] Open
Abstract
The neural mechanisms subserving the processing of abstract concepts remain largely debated. Even within the embodiment theoretical framework, most authors suggest that abstract concepts are coded in a linguistic propositional format, although they do not completely deny the role of sensorimotor and emotional experiences in coding it. To our knowledge, only one recent proposal puts forward that the processing of concrete and abstract concepts relies on the same mechanisms, with the only difference being in the complexity of the underlying experiences. In this paper, we performed a meta-analysis using the Activation Likelihood Estimates (ALE) method on 33 functional neuroimaging studies that considered activations related to abstract and concrete concepts. The results suggest that (1) concrete and abstract concepts share the recruitment of the temporo-fronto-parietal circuits normally involved in the interactions with the physical world, (2) processing concrete concepts recruits fronto-parietal areas better than abstract concepts, and (3) abstract concepts recruit Broca's region more strongly than concrete ones. Based on anatomical and physiological evidence, Broca's region is not only a linguistic region mainly devoted to speech production, but it is endowed with complex motor representations of different biological effectors. Hence, we propose that the stronger recruitment of this region for abstract concepts is expression of the complex sensorimotor experiences underlying it, rather than evidence of a purely linguistic format of its processing.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nicola Del Maschio
- Faculty of Psychology, Università Vita-Salute San Raffaele, 20132 Milano, Italy; (N.D.M.); (D.F.)
| | - Davide Fedeli
- Faculty of Psychology, Università Vita-Salute San Raffaele, 20132 Milano, Italy; (N.D.M.); (D.F.)
| | - Gioacchino Garofalo
- Divisione di Neuroscienze, Università Vita-Salute San Raffaele, 20132 Milano, Italy;
- IRCCS San Raffaele, 20132 Milano, Italy
| | - Giovanni Buccino
- Divisione di Neuroscienze, Università Vita-Salute San Raffaele, 20132 Milano, Italy;
- IRCCS San Raffaele, 20132 Milano, Italy
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15
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Vitale F, Monti I, Padrón I, Avenanti A, de Vega M. The neural inhibition network is causally involved in the disembodiment effect of linguistic negation. Cortex 2021; 147:72-82. [PMID: 35026556 DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2021.11.015] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/26/2021] [Revised: 09/14/2021] [Accepted: 11/15/2021] [Indexed: 12/21/2022]
Abstract
Negation applied to action contexts reduces the activation of the motor system. According to the Reusing Inhibition for Negation (RIN) hypothesis, such "disembodiment" effect occurs because understanding negations engages the reuse of inhibitory control mechanisms. Here, we investigated whether the right inferior frontal gyrus (rIFG) - a key area of the inhibitory control system - contributes to primary motor cortex (M1) processing of negated action-sentences. Using a perturb-and-measure paradigm, we applied off-line low-frequency repetitive TMS (rTMS) over the rIFG, before performing a reading task involving action and attentional sentences presented in both affirmative or negative form. During the reading task, motor excitability was assessed by recording motor-evoked potentials (MEPs) induced by single-pulse TMS (spTMS) over the left M1, at two loci in the sentence: the verb or the object. Results show that after sham stimulation (baseline), motor excitability measured on the verb, was reduced for negative, compared to affirmative action sentences. Crucially, neuromodulation of rIFG suppressed this inhibitory effect of negation, since motor excitability was equaled for negative and affirmative action sentences. As expected, no effect of negation was observed for attentional sentences or when the pulse was delivered over the object. Our study confirms that understanding negative action sentences inhibits M1. This effect took place at an early stage of semantic processing (i.e., while processing the verb in our task), and faded at a later time-point. Critically, by highlighting a causal role of rIFG in this motor inhibition, we provide direct neurophysiological support to the RIN hypothesis.
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Affiliation(s)
- Francesca Vitale
- Instituto Universitario de Neurociencia (IUNE), Universidad de La Laguna La Laguna, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain.
| | - Ilaria Monti
- Instituto Universitario de Neurociencia (IUNE), Universidad de La Laguna La Laguna, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain
| | - Iván Padrón
- Instituto Universitario de Neurociencia (IUNE), Universidad de La Laguna La Laguna, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain
| | - Alessio Avenanti
- Dipartimento di Psicologia and Centro Studi e Ricerche in Neuroscience Cognitive, Università di Bologna, Campus di Cesena Cesena, Italy; Centro de Investigación en Neuropsicología y Neurociencias Cognitivas, Universidad Católica Del Maule Talca, Chile
| | - Manuel de Vega
- Instituto Universitario de Neurociencia (IUNE), Universidad de La Laguna La Laguna, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain
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16
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Beltrán D, Liu B, de Vega M. Inhibitory Mechanisms in the Processing of Negations: A Neural Reuse Hypothesis. JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLINGUISTIC RESEARCH 2021; 50:1243-1260. [PMID: 34383177 PMCID: PMC8660707 DOI: 10.1007/s10936-021-09796-x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 07/19/2021] [Indexed: 05/23/2023]
Abstract
Negation is known to have inhibitory consequences for the information under its scope. However, how it produces such effects remains poorly understood. Recently, it has been proposed that negation processing might be implemented at the neural level by the recruitment of inhibitory and cognitive control mechanisms. On this line, this manuscript offers the hypothesis that negation reuses general-domain mechanisms that subserve inhibition in other non-linguistic cognitive functions. The first two sections describe the inhibitory effects of negation on conceptual representations and its embodied effects, as well as the theoretical foundations for the reuse hypothesis. The next section describes the neurophysiological evidence that linguistic negation interacts with response inhibition, along with the suggestion that both functions share inhibitory mechanisms. Finally, the manuscript concludes that the functional relation between negation and inhibition observed at the mechanistic level could be easily integrated with predominant cognitive models of negation processing.
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Affiliation(s)
- David Beltrán
- Departamento de Psicología Básica I, Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED), 28040, Madrid, Spain.
- Instituto Universitario de Neurociencia (IUNE), Universidad de La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain.
| | - Bo Liu
- Instituto Universitario de Neurociencia (IUNE), Universidad de La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain
- School of Foreign Languages, Dalian Maritime University, Dalian, China
| | - Manuel de Vega
- Instituto Universitario de Neurociencia (IUNE), Universidad de La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain
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17
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Nadarevic L, Symeonidou N, Kias A. In Colore Veritas? Color effects on the speed and accuracy of true/false responses. PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH 2021; 86:919-936. [PMID: 34050785 PMCID: PMC8942928 DOI: 10.1007/s00426-021-01528-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/25/2020] [Accepted: 05/03/2021] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
Abstract
In addition to their perceptual or aesthetic function, colors often carry conceptual meaning. In quizzes, for instance, true and false answers are typically marked in green and red. In three experiments, we used a Stroop task to investigate automatic green-true associations and red-false associations, respectively. In Experiments 1 and 2, stimuli were true statements (e.g., “tables are furniture”) and false statements (e.g., “bananas are buildings”) that were displayed in different combination of green, red, and gray depending on the experimental condition. In Experiment 3, we used true-related and false-related words shown in green, red, or gray. Participants had to indicate the validity (or semantic meaning) of each statement (or word) as fast and as accurately as possible. We expected that participants would perform best when they had to categorize green stimuli as “true” and red stimuli as “false”. The prediction was only confirmed when green and red stimuli were presented within the same context (i.e., same experimental condition). This finding supports the dimension-specificity hypothesis which states that cross-modal associations (here: associations between color and validity) depend on the context (here: the color-context). Moreover, the observed color-validity effects were stronger when participants had to categorize single words instead of sentences and when they had to provide speeded responses. Taken together, these results suggest that controlled processing counteracts the influence of automatic color associations on true/false responses.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lena Nadarevic
- Department of Psychology, School of Social Sciences, University of Mannheim, 68131, Mannheim, Germany.
| | - Nikoletta Symeonidou
- Department of Psychology, School of Social Sciences, University of Mannheim, 68131, Mannheim, Germany
| | - Alina Kias
- Department of Psychology, School of Social Sciences, University of Mannheim, 68131, Mannheim, Germany
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18
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Papitto G, Lugli L, Borghi AM, Pellicano A, Binkofski F. Embodied negation and levels of concreteness: A TMS study on German and Italian language processing. Brain Res 2021; 1767:147523. [PMID: 34010607 DOI: 10.1016/j.brainres.2021.147523] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/13/2021] [Revised: 04/23/2021] [Accepted: 05/15/2021] [Indexed: 12/01/2022]
Abstract
According to the embodied cognition perspective, linguistic negation may block the motor simulations induced by language processing. Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) was applied to the left primary motor cortex (hand area) of monolingual Italian and German healthy participants during a rapid serial visual presentation of sentences from their own language. In these languages, the negative particle is located at the beginning and at the end of the sentence, respectively. The study investigated whether the interruption of the motor simulation processes, accounted for by reduced motor evoked potentials (MEPs), takes place similarly in two languages differing on the position of the negative marker. Different levels of sentence concreteness were also manipulated to investigate if negation exerts generalized effects or if it is affected by the semantic features of the sentence. Our findings indicate that negation acts as a block on motor representations, but independently from the language and words concreteness level.
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Affiliation(s)
- Giorgio Papitto
- Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Department of Neuropsychology, Leipzig, Germany; International Max Planck Research School on Neuroscience of Communication: Function, Structure, and Plasticity, Leipzig, Germany.
| | - Luisa Lugli
- Department of Philosophy and Communication, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy
| | - Anna M Borghi
- Department of Dynamic and Clinical Psychology, and Health Studies, Faculty of Medicine and Psychology, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy; Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies, National Research Council, Rome, Italy
| | - Antonello Pellicano
- Division of Clinical Cognitive Sciences, Department of Neurology, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany
| | - Ferdinand Binkofski
- Division of Clinical Cognitive Sciences, Department of Neurology, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany; Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-4), Research Center Jülich GmbH, Jülich, Germany
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19
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Balasubramani PP, Ojeda A, Grennan G, Maric V, Le H, Alim F, Zafar-Khan M, Diaz-Delgado J, Silveira S, Ramanathan D, Mishra J. Mapping cognitive brain functions at scale. Neuroimage 2021; 231:117641. [PMID: 33338609 PMCID: PMC8221518 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2020.117641] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/22/2020] [Revised: 10/31/2020] [Accepted: 12/08/2020] [Indexed: 12/30/2022] Open
Abstract
A fundamental set of cognitive abilities enable humans to efficiently process goal-relevant information, suppress irrelevant distractions, maintain information in working memory, and act flexibly in different behavioral contexts. Yet, studies of human cognition and their underlying neural mechanisms usually evaluate these cognitive constructs in silos, instead of comprehensively in-tandem within the same individual. Here, we developed a scalable, mobile platform, "BrainE" (short for Brain Engagement), to rapidly assay several essential aspects of cognition simultaneous with wireless electroencephalography (EEG) recordings. Using BrainE, we rapidly assessed five aspects of cognition including (1) selective attention, (2) response inhibition, (3) working memory, (4) flanker interference and (5) emotion interference processing, in 102 healthy young adults. We evaluated stimulus encoding in all tasks using the EEG neural recordings, and isolated the cortical sources of the spectrotemporal EEG dynamics. Additionally, we used BrainE in a two-visit study in 24 young adults to investigate the reliability of the neuro-cognitive data as well as its plasticity to transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). We found that stimulus encoding on multiple cognitive tasks could be rapidly assessed, identifying common as well as distinct task processes in both sensory and cognitive control brain regions. Event related synchronization (ERS) in the theta (3-7 Hz) and alpha (8-12 Hz) frequencies as well as event related desynchronization (ERD) in the beta frequencies (13-30 Hz) were distinctly observed in each task. The observed ERS/ERD effects were overall anticorrelated. The two-visit study confirmed high test-retest reliability for both cognitive and neural data, and neural responses showed specific TMS protocol driven modulation. We also show that the global cognitive neural responses are sensitive to mental health symptom self-reports. This first study with the BrainE platform showcases its utility in studying neuro-cognitive dynamics in a rapid and scalable fashion.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Alejandro Ojeda
- Neural Engineering and Translation Labs, Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA
| | - Gillian Grennan
- Neural Engineering and Translation Labs, Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA
| | - Vojislav Maric
- Neural Engineering and Translation Labs, Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA
| | - Hortense Le
- Neural Engineering and Translation Labs, Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA
| | - Fahad Alim
- Neural Engineering and Translation Labs, Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA
| | - Mariam Zafar-Khan
- Neural Engineering and Translation Labs, Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA
| | - Juan Diaz-Delgado
- Neural Engineering and Translation Labs, Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA
| | - Sarita Silveira
- Neural Engineering and Translation Labs, Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA
| | - Dhakshin Ramanathan
- Neural Engineering and Translation Labs, Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA; Department of Mental Health, VA San Diego Medical Center, San Diego, CA
| | - Jyoti Mishra
- Neural Engineering and Translation Labs, Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA.
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20
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de Vega M, Dutriaux L, Moreno IZ, García-Marco E, Seigneuric A, Gyselinck V. Crossing hands behind your back reduces recall of manual action sentences and alters brain dynamics. Cortex 2021; 140:51-65. [PMID: 33933930 DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2021.03.016] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/23/2020] [Revised: 01/24/2021] [Accepted: 03/19/2021] [Indexed: 10/21/2022]
Abstract
The embodied meaning approach posits that understanding action-related language recruits motor processes in the brain. However, the functional impact of these motor processes on cognition has been questioned. The present study aims to provide new electrophysiological (EEG) evidence concerning the role of motor processes in the comprehension and memory of action language. Participants read lists of sentences including manual-action or attentional verbs, while keeping their hands either in front of them or crossing them behind their back. Results showed that posture impacted selectively the processing of manual action sentence, and not of attentional sentences, in three different ways: 1) EEG fronto-central beta rhythms, a signature of motor processes, were desynchronized while reading action sentences in the hands-in-front posture compared to the hands-behind posture. The estimated source was the posterior cingulate cortex, involved in proprioceptive regulation. 2) Recall of nouns associated with manual sentences decreased when learning occurred in the hands-behind posture. 3) ERPs analysis revealed that the initial posture at learning modulates neural processes during subsequent recall of manual sentences in the left superior frontal gyrus, which is related to motor processes. These results provide decisive evidence for the functional involvement of embodied simulations in the encoding and retrieval of action-related language.
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Affiliation(s)
- Manuel de Vega
- Universidad de La Laguna, Instituto Universitario de Neurociencia (IUNE), Spain
| | - Léo Dutriaux
- Université de Paris, LMC(2), Paris, France; University of Trento, Center for Mind/Brain Sciences (CIMeC), Trento, Italy.
| | - Iván Z Moreno
- Universidad de La Laguna, Instituto Universitario de Neurociencia (IUNE), Spain
| | - Enrique García-Marco
- Universidad de La Laguna, Instituto Universitario de Neurociencia (IUNE), Spain; Facultad de Ciencias de la Salud, Universidad Europea de Canarias, La Orotava, Spain
| | - Alix Seigneuric
- EA4403 (UTRPP-LLSHS), MEDIALECT (Structure Fédérative de Recherche), Université Sorbonne Paris Nord, France
| | - Valérie Gyselinck
- Université Gustave Eiffel, Université de Paris, LaPEA, Versailles, France
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21
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Agmon G, Bain JS, Deschamps I. Negative polarity in quantifiers evokes greater activation in language-related regions compared to negative polarity in adjectives. Exp Brain Res 2021; 239:1427-1438. [PMID: 33682044 DOI: 10.1007/s00221-021-06067-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/18/2020] [Accepted: 02/16/2021] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Abstract
The processing of sentences with negative quantifiers (e.g., few) is more costly than of sentences that contain their positive counterparts (e.g., many). While this polarity effect is robust and reliably replicable, its neurological bases are not well understood. In this study, we use functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) paradigm for 30 participants to assess the polarity effect in sentences with polar quantifiers, and compare it with the polarity effect of polar adjectives. Both in quantifiers and in adjectives, the polarity effect manifests in the anterior insula bilaterally. The polarity effect in quantifiers, however, shows greater activation in the left hemisphere than it does for adjectives. In particular, left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and left superior temporal sulcus (STS) show increased activation for polarity in quantifiers than in adjectives, which is the evidence for the specific involvement of the language network in this type of polarity processing. Using the polarity effect in adjectives as a control, we provide further evidence for the linguistic complexity that negative quantifiers implicate on processing.
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Affiliation(s)
- Galit Agmon
- The Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel. .,The Gonda Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center, Bar-Ilan University, Building 901, Room 411, 5290002, Ramat Gan, Israel.
| | - Jonathan S Bain
- The Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel
| | - Isabelle Deschamps
- School of Human Services and Community Safety, Georgian College, Orillia, ON, Canada
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22
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Monaro M, Mazza C, Colasanti M, Ferracuti S, Orrù G, di Domenico A, Sartori G, Roma P. Detecting faking-good response style in personality questionnaires with four choice alternatives. PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH 2021; 85:3094-3107. [PMID: 33452928 PMCID: PMC8476468 DOI: 10.1007/s00426-020-01473-3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/19/2020] [Accepted: 12/29/2020] [Indexed: 11/06/2022]
Abstract
Deliberate attempts to portray oneself in an unrealistic manner are commonly encountered in the administration of personality questionnaires. The main aim of the present study was to explore whether mouse tracking temporal indicators and machine learning models could improve the detection of subjects implementing a faking-good response style when answering personality inventories with four choice alternatives, with and without time pressure. A total of 120 volunteers were randomly assigned to one of four experimental groups and asked to respond to the Virtuous Responding (VR) validity scale of the PPI-R and the Positive Impression Management (PIM) validity scale of the PAI via a computer mouse. A mixed design was implemented, and predictive models were calculated. The results showed that, on the PIM scale, faking-good participants were significantly slower in responding than honest respondents. Relative to VR items, PIM items are shorter in length and feature no negations. Accordingly, the PIM scale was found to be more sensitive in distinguishing between honest and faking-good respondents, demonstrating high classification accuracy (80–83%).
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Affiliation(s)
- Merylin Monaro
- Department of General Psychology, University of Padova, Padua, Italy.
| | - Cristina Mazza
- Department of Neuroscience, Imaging and Clinical Sciences, University "G.d'Annunzio", Chieti, Pescara, Italy
| | - Marco Colasanti
- Department of Human Neuroscience, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy
| | - Stefano Ferracuti
- Department of Human Neuroscience, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy
| | - Graziella Orrù
- Department of Surgical, Medical, Molecular and Critical Area Pathology, University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy
| | - Alberto di Domenico
- Department of Psychological, Health and Territorial Sciences, University "G.d'Annunzio", Chieti, Pescara, Italy
| | - Giuseppe Sartori
- Department of General Psychology, University of Padova, Padua, Italy
| | - Paolo Roma
- Department of Human Neuroscience, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy
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23
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Liu B, Gu B, Beltrán D, Wang H, de Vega M. Presetting an inhibitory state modifies the neural processing of negated action sentences. An ERP study. Brain Cogn 2020; 143:105598. [PMID: 32645511 DOI: 10.1016/j.bandc.2020.105598] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/29/2020] [Revised: 06/13/2020] [Accepted: 06/22/2020] [Indexed: 11/24/2022]
Abstract
It has been proposed that understanding negated action sentences (You don't cut the bread) uses the neural networks of action inhibition. The evidence comes from studies in which affirmative or negative action language immediately preceded a Go/NoGo task. It was found that negation selectively modulates inhibition-related signatures of NoGo trials, supporting the Reusing Inhibition for Negation (RIN) hypothesis. To further explore this hypothesis, this study tested the reverse effects; namely, how presetting an inhibitory state affects the processing of negated action sentences. To this end, Go/NoGo responses preceded sentence reading and EEG activities were recorded throughout the entire trials. ERP results indicate that the presetting of inhibition by the NoGo cue induced a sustained modulation of waveform for negated action sentences relative to affirmative ones, which began shortly after the negation operator onset and remained beyond the action verb onset. Crucially, the estimated sources of such effect were the right inferior frontal gyrus and the left middle frontal gyrus, both relevant regions in the action inhibition circuitry. These results, complemented by previous findings, support the idea that action inhibition and negated action language share neural mechanisms and influence each other, thus confirming and extending the RIN hypothesis.
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Affiliation(s)
- Bo Liu
- Instituto Universitario de Neurociencia, Universidad de La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain
| | - Beixian Gu
- Instituto Universitario de Neurociencia, Universidad de La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain
| | - David Beltrán
- Instituto Universitario de Neurociencia, Universidad de La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain; Departamento de Psicología Cognitiva, Universidad de La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain
| | - Huili Wang
- Institute for Language and Cognition, School of Foreign Languages, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian 116024, China
| | - Manuel de Vega
- Instituto Universitario de Neurociencia, Universidad de La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain; Departamento de Psicología Cognitiva, Universidad de La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain.
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Marrero H, Yagual SN, Gámez E, Urrutia M, Díaz JM, Beltrán D. Negation interacts with motivational direction in understanding action sentences. PLoS One 2020; 15:e0234304. [PMID: 32569322 PMCID: PMC7307726 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0234304] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/31/2019] [Accepted: 05/22/2020] [Indexed: 11/23/2022] Open
Abstract
Linguistic negation acts by inhibiting the representation of information under its scope, often leading to the representation of positive alternative states of affairs. Motivational direction refers to approach/avoidance intentionality in our interactions with environmental stimuli expressed by means of verbs (e.g., “accept” vs “reject”). We consider it plausible that negation interacts with direction to represent the true motivation of the protagonist in sentence understanding (e.g., if an approach action is negated it is represented as avoidance). In the first study, we examine this interaction offline by asking participants to judge approach or avoidance meaning of affirmative (e.g., “he/she included/excluded meat”) and negative sentences (“he/she did not include/exclude meat”). Results support that negation reversed participants’ interpretation of sentence motivational direction. In a further study, we carried out two probe recognition experiments to examine the interaction during sentence comprehension; in both, the critical probe was the word referring to the target of the action (e.g., “meat”). In the first experiment, participants had to recognize the probe word presented 1500 milliseconds after sentence offset, while for the second one, the delay was 500 milliseconds. Results showed that at 1500 ms, target recognition took significantly more time for negated avoidance sentences than for the other conditions. Therefore, representing negated avoidance sentences seems to imply more complex processing, as avoidance verbs would be implicitly negative. By contrast, at the 500 ms delay, negation impaired target recognition for both approach and avoidance sentences, suggesting an unspecific inhibitory effect of negation at that sentence processing stage. Implication of these results for both research on negation and in action understanding are discussed.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hipólito Marrero
- Departamento de Psicología Cognitiva, Social y organizacional, Universidad de La Laguna, La Laguna, Spain
- Instituto de Neurociencias de la Universidad de La Laguna, La Laguna, Spain
- * E-mail:
| | - Sara Nila Yagual
- Departamento de Psicología Cognitiva, Social y organizacional, Universidad de La Laguna, La Laguna, Spain
- Instituto de Neurociencias de la Universidad de La Laguna, La Laguna, Spain
- Facultad de Ciencias Sociales y de la Salud, Universidad Estatal Península de Santa Elena, La Libertad, Ecuador
| | - Elena Gámez
- Departamento de Psicología Cognitiva, Social y organizacional, Universidad de La Laguna, La Laguna, Spain
- Instituto de Neurociencias de la Universidad de La Laguna, La Laguna, Spain
| | - Mabel Urrutia
- Instituto de Neurociencias de la Universidad de La Laguna, La Laguna, Spain
- Facultad de Educación, Universidad de Concepción, Concepción, Chile
| | - Jose Miguel Díaz
- Departamento de Psicología Cognitiva, Social y organizacional, Universidad de La Laguna, La Laguna, Spain
- Instituto de Neurociencias de la Universidad de La Laguna, La Laguna, Spain
| | - David Beltrán
- Departamento de Psicología Cognitiva, Social y organizacional, Universidad de La Laguna, La Laguna, Spain
- Instituto de Neurociencias de la Universidad de La Laguna, La Laguna, Spain
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25
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Greco M, Canal P, Bambini V, Moro A. Modulating "Surprise" with Syntax: A Study on Negative Sentences and Eye-Movement Recording. JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLINGUISTIC RESEARCH 2020; 49:415-434. [PMID: 32036569 DOI: 10.1007/s10936-020-09691-x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/10/2023]
Abstract
This work focuses on a particular case of negative sentences, the Surprise Negation sentences (SNEGs). SNEGs belong to the class of expletive negation sentences, i.e., they are affirmative in meaning but involve a clausal negation. A clear example is offered by Italian: 'Enonmi è scesa dal treno Maria?!' (let. 'and not CLITIC.to_me is got off-the train Mary' = 'The surprise was that Maria got off the train!'). From a theoretical point of view, the interpretation of SNEGs as affirmative can be derived from their specific syntactic and semantic structure. Here we offer an implementation of the visual world paradigm to test how SNEGs are interpreted. Participants listened to affirmative, negative or expletive negative clauses while four objects (two relevant-either expected or unexpected-and two unrelated) were shown on the screen and their eye movements were recorded. Growth Curve Analysis showed that the fixation patterns to the relevant objects were very similar for affirmative and expletive negative sentences, while striking differences were observed between negative and affirmative sentences. These results showed that negation does play a different role in the mental representation of a sentence, depending on its syntactic derivation. Moreover, we also found that, compared to affirmative sentences, SNEGs require higher processing efforts due to both their syntactic complexity and pragmatic integration, with slower response time and lower accuracy.
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Affiliation(s)
- Matteo Greco
- Center for Neurocognition, Epistemology and Theoretical Syntax (NETS), Scuola Universitaria Superiore IUSS Pavia (University School for Advanced Studies IUSS Pavia), Piazza della Vittoria 15, 27100, Pavia, Italy.
| | - Paolo Canal
- Center for Neurocognition, Epistemology and Theoretical Syntax (NETS), Scuola Universitaria Superiore IUSS Pavia (University School for Advanced Studies IUSS Pavia), Piazza della Vittoria 15, 27100, Pavia, Italy
| | - Valentina Bambini
- Center for Neurocognition, Epistemology and Theoretical Syntax (NETS), Scuola Universitaria Superiore IUSS Pavia (University School for Advanced Studies IUSS Pavia), Piazza della Vittoria 15, 27100, Pavia, Italy
| | - Andrea Moro
- Center for Neurocognition, Epistemology and Theoretical Syntax (NETS), Scuola Universitaria Superiore IUSS Pavia (University School for Advanced Studies IUSS Pavia), Piazza della Vittoria 15, 27100, Pavia, Italy
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26
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Argiris G, Budai R, Maieron M, Ius T, Skrap M, Tomasino B. Neurosurgical lesions to sensorimotor cortex do not impair action verb processing. Sci Rep 2020; 10:523. [PMID: 31949237 PMCID: PMC6965077 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-019-57361-3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/23/2019] [Accepted: 12/23/2019] [Indexed: 11/29/2022] Open
Abstract
There is ongoing debate regarding the role that sensorimotor regions play in conceptual processing, with embodied theories supporting their direct involvement in processing verbs describing body part movements. Patient lesion studies examining a causal role for sensorimotor activation in conceptual task performance have suffered the caveat of lesions being largely diffuse and extensive beyond sensorimotor cortices. The current study addresses this limitation in reporting on 20 pre-operative neurosurgical patients with focal lesion to the pre- and post-central area corresponding to somatotopic representations. Patients were presented with a battery of neuropsychological tests and experimental tasks tapping into motor imagery and verbal conceptual verb processing in addition to neurophysiological measures including DTI, fMRI, and MEP being measured. Results indicated that left tumor patients who presented with a lesion at or near somatotopic hand representations performed significantly worse on the mental rotation hand task and that performance correlated with MEP amplitudes in the upper limb motor region. Furthermore, performance on tasks of verbal processing was within the normal range. Taken together, while our results evidence the involvement of the motor system in motor imagery processes, they do not support the embodied view that sensorimotor regions are necessary to tasks of action verb processing.
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Affiliation(s)
- Georgette Argiris
- Scientific Institute IRCCS "Eugenio Medea", Polo FVG, San Vito al Tagliamento, PN, Italy.
- Columbia University Medical Center, Neurological Institute, 710 West 168th Street, New York, NY, 10032, USA.
| | - Riccardo Budai
- Unità Operativa di Neurologia, Azienda Sanitaria Universitaria Integrata S. Maria della Misericordia, Udine, Italy
| | - Marta Maieron
- Fisica Medica, Azienda Sanitaria Universitaria Integrata S. Maria della Misericordia, Udine, Italy
| | - Tamara Ius
- Unità Operativa di Neurochirurgia, Azienda Sanitaria Universitaria Integrata S. Maria della Misericordia, Udine, Italy
| | - Miran Skrap
- Unità Operativa di Neurochirurgia, Azienda Sanitaria Universitaria Integrata S. Maria della Misericordia, Udine, Italy
| | - Barbara Tomasino
- Scientific Institute IRCCS "Eugenio Medea", Polo FVG, San Vito al Tagliamento, PN, Italy
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27
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Haase V, Spychalska M, Werning M. Investigating the Comprehension of Negated Sentences Employing World Knowledge: An Event-Related Potential Study. Front Psychol 2019; 10:2184. [PMID: 31749719 PMCID: PMC6843029 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02184] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/15/2019] [Accepted: 09/10/2019] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Previous event-related potential (ERP) studies comparing affirmative and negative sentences revealed an N400 for semantically mismatching final words, resulting in a larger N400 for false relative to true affirmative sentences and an opposite effect for negative sentences. Hence, the N400 was independent of the presence of a negation. However, the true negative as well as the false affirmative condition often contained entities or features from different semantic categories and thereby with weak feature overlap, such as e.g., A cat is (not) a saw or Fears are (not) round, which were then compared to true affirmative and false negative sentences containing entities with stronger feature overlap and partially even hyponomy relations, e.g., A cat is (not) an animal or Planets are (not) round. Employing world-knowledge variations, in the current study, we investigate whether increasing the feature overlap between the entities of all conditions leads to similar ERP-patterns as in the previous studies. For this purpose, we use sentences of the following type: George Clooney is (not) an actor vs. George Clooney is (not) a singer where both target words describe a similar profession and thereby function as alternatives to each other. However, in line with the previous studies, we find a truth by polarity interaction, namely, the N400 ERPs are significantly larger for false compared to true affirmative sentences, whereas the effect for negative sentences shows a reversed, though not significant, trend. Overall, the ERP-data suggest that the integration of a negation with the information in its scope is neither fully incremental nor fully delayed, which might be linked to the use of cohyponyms and to the increased feature overlap between alternatives (e.g., actor, singer). Additionally, questionnaire-based rating data show that affirmative sentences are perceived as more natural than negative sentences, and, moreover, that true sentences are perceived as more natural than false sentences, independent of their polarity.
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Affiliation(s)
- Viviana Haase
- Institute of Philosophy II, Ruhr University Bochum, Bochum, Germany
| | - Maria Spychalska
- Institute of Philosophy II, Ruhr University Bochum, Bochum, Germany.,Department of German Language and Literature I, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany
| | - Markus Werning
- Institute of Philosophy II, Ruhr University Bochum, Bochum, Germany
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28
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Grodzinsky Y, Deschamps I, Pieperhoff P, Iannilli F, Agmon G, Loewenstein Y, Amunts K. Logical negation mapped onto the brain. Brain Struct Funct 2019; 225:19-31. [PMID: 31680213 PMCID: PMC6957563 DOI: 10.1007/s00429-019-01975-w] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/06/2019] [Accepted: 10/19/2019] [Indexed: 11/25/2022]
Abstract
High-level cognitive capacities that serve communication, reasoning, and calculation are essential for finding our way in the world. But whether and to what extent these complex behaviors share the same neuronal substrate are still unresolved questions. The present study separated the aspects of logic from language and numerosity-mental faculties whose distinctness has been debated for centuries-and identified a new cytoarchitectonic area as correlate for an operation involving logical negation. A novel experimental paradigm that was implemented here in an RT/fMRI study showed a single cluster of activity that pertains to logical negation. It was distinct from clusters that were activated by numerical comparison and from the traditional language regions. The localization of this cluster was described by a newly identified cytoarchitectonic area in the left anterior insula, ventro-medial to Broca's region. We provide evidence for the congruence between the histologically and functionally defined regions on multiple measures. Its position in the left anterior insula suggests that it functions as a mediator between language and reasoning areas.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yosef Grodzinsky
- Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Brain Research, Goodman Building, Safra Campus, The Hebrew University, 91904, Jerusalem, Israel. .,Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-1), Forschungszentrum Jülich, Jülich, Germany.
| | - Isabelle Deschamps
- Cervo Research Centre, Faculty of Medicine, Laval University, Quebec City, Canada.,Faculty of Human Services and Community Safety, Georgian College, Orillia, Ontario, Canada
| | - Peter Pieperhoff
- Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-1), Forschungszentrum Jülich, Jülich, Germany
| | - Francesca Iannilli
- Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-1), Forschungszentrum Jülich, Jülich, Germany
| | - Galit Agmon
- Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Brain Research, Goodman Building, Safra Campus, The Hebrew University, 91904, Jerusalem, Israel
| | - Yonatan Loewenstein
- Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Brain Research, Goodman Building, Safra Campus, The Hebrew University, 91904, Jerusalem, Israel.,Department of Neurobiology, The Alexander Silberman Institute of Life Sciences and The Federmann Center for the Study of Rationality, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel
| | - Katrin Amunts
- Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-1), Forschungszentrum Jülich, Jülich, Germany.,C. & O. Vogt Institute for Brain Research, University Hospital Düsseldorf, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany
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29
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Discourse management during speech perception: A functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study. Neuroimage 2019; 202:116047. [DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2019.116047] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/20/2018] [Revised: 07/09/2019] [Accepted: 07/22/2019] [Indexed: 11/22/2022] Open
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30
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Prystauka Y, Lewis AG. THE POWER OF NEURAL OSCILLATIONS TO INFORM SENTENCE COMPREHENSION: A LINGUISTIC PERSPECTIVE. LANGUAGE AND LINGUISTICS COMPASS 2019; 13:e12347. [PMID: 33042211 PMCID: PMC7546279 DOI: 10.1111/lnc3.12347] [Citation(s) in RCA: 37] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/25/2023]
Abstract
The field of psycholinguistics is currently experiencing an explosion of interest in the analysis of neural oscillations - rhythmic brain activity synchronized at different temporal and spatial levels. Given that language comprehension relies on a myriad of processes, which are carried out in parallel in distributed brain networks, there is hope that this methodology might bring the field closer to understanding some of the more basic (spatially and temporally distributed, yet at the same time often overlapping) neural computations that support language function. In this review we discuss existing proposals linking oscillatory dynamics in different frequency bands to basic neural computations, and review relevant theories suggesting associations between band-specific oscillations and higher-level cognitive processes. More or less consistent patterns of oscillatory activity related to certain types of linguistic processing can already be derived from the evidence that has accumulated over the past few decades. The centerpiece of the current review is a synthesis of such patterns grouped by linguistic phenomenon. We restrict our review to evidence linking measures of oscillatory power to the comprehension of sentences, as well as linguistically (and/or pragmatically) more complex structures. For each grouping, we provide a brief summary and a table of associated oscillatory signatures that a psycholinguist might expect to find when employing a particular linguistic task. Summarizing across different paradigms, we conclude that a handful of basic neural oscillatory mechanisms are likely recruited in different ways and at different times for carrying out a variety of linguistic computations.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yanina Prystauka
- Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Connecticut
- Connecticut Institute for the Brain and Cognitive Sciences
| | - Ashley Glen Lewis
- Radboud University, Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging, Nijmegen, the Netherlands
- Haskins Laboratories, New Haven, CT 06510, USA
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31
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Beltrán D, Morera Y, García-Marco E, de Vega M. Brain Inhibitory Mechanisms Are Involved in the Processing of Sentential Negation, Regardless of Its Content. Evidence From EEG Theta and Beta Rhythms. Front Psychol 2019; 10:1782. [PMID: 31440181 PMCID: PMC6694754 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01782] [Citation(s) in RCA: 29] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/21/2019] [Accepted: 07/17/2019] [Indexed: 11/24/2022] Open
Abstract
The two-step process account of negation understanding posits an initial representation of the negated events, followed by a representation of the actual state of events. On the other hand, behavioral and neurophysiological studies provided evidence that linguistic negation suppresses or reduces the activation of the negated events, contributing to shift attention to the actual state of events. However, the specific mechanism of this suppression is poorly known. Recently, based on the brain organization principle of neural reuse (Anderson, 2010), it has been proposed that understanding linguistic negation partially relies upon the neurophysiological mechanisms of response inhibition. Specifically, it was reported that negated action-related sentences modulate EEG signatures of response inhibition (de Vega et al., 2016; Beltrán et al., 2018). In the current EEG study, we ponder whether the reusing of response inhibition processes by negation is constrained to action-related contents or consists of a more general-purpose mechanism. To this end, we employed the same dual-task paradigm as in our prior study—a Go/NoGo task embedded into a sentence comprehension task—but this time including both action and non-action sentences. The results confirmed that the increase of theta power elicited by NoGo trials was modulated by negative sentences, compared to their affirmative counterparts, and this polarity effect was statistically similar for both action- and non-action-related sentences. Thus, a general-purpose inhibitory control mechanism, rather than one specific for action language, is likely operating in the comprehension of sentential negation to produce the transition between alternative representations.
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Affiliation(s)
- David Beltrán
- Instituto Universitario de Neurociencia, Universidad de La Laguna, San Cristóbal de La Laguna, Spain.,Departamento de Psicología Cognitiva, Universidad de La Laguna, San Cristóbal de La Laguna, Spain
| | - Yurena Morera
- Instituto Universitario de Neurociencia, Universidad de La Laguna, San Cristóbal de La Laguna, Spain.,Departamento de Psicología Cognitiva, Universidad de La Laguna, San Cristóbal de La Laguna, Spain
| | - Enrique García-Marco
- Instituto Universitario de Neurociencia, Universidad de La Laguna, San Cristóbal de La Laguna, Spain.,Centro Asociado de La Laguna, Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, Madrid, Spain.,Facultad de Psicología, Universidad Europea de Canarias, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain
| | - Manuel de Vega
- Instituto Universitario de Neurociencia, Universidad de La Laguna, San Cristóbal de La Laguna, Spain.,Departamento de Psicología Cognitiva, Universidad de La Laguna, San Cristóbal de La Laguna, Spain
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32
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Mkrtychian N, Blagovechtchenski E, Kurmakaeva D, Gnedykh D, Kostromina S, Shtyrov Y. Concrete vs. Abstract Semantics: From Mental Representations to Functional Brain Mapping. Front Hum Neurosci 2019; 13:267. [PMID: 31427938 PMCID: PMC6687846 DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2019.00267] [Citation(s) in RCA: 19] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/27/2019] [Accepted: 07/17/2019] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
The nature of abstract and concrete semantics and differences between them have remained a debated issue in psycholinguistic and cognitive studies for decades. Most of the available behavioral and neuroimaging studies reveal distinctions between these two types of semantics, typically associated with a so-called “concreteness effect.” Many attempts have been made to explain these differences using various approaches, from purely theoretical linguistic and cognitive frameworks to neuroimaging experiments. In this brief overview, we will try to provide a snapshot of these diverse views and relationships between them and highlight the crucial issues preventing this problem from being solved. We will argue that one potentially beneficial way forward is to identify the neural mechanisms underpinning acquisition of the different types of semantics (e.g., by using neurostimulation techniques to establish causal relationships), which may help explain the distinctions found between the processing of concrete and abstract semantics.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nadezhda Mkrtychian
- Laboratory of Behavioral Neurodynamics, St. Petersburg State University, Saint Petersburg, Russia
| | - Evgeny Blagovechtchenski
- Laboratory of Behavioral Neurodynamics, St. Petersburg State University, Saint Petersburg, Russia
| | - Diana Kurmakaeva
- Laboratory of Behavioral Neurodynamics, St. Petersburg State University, Saint Petersburg, Russia
| | - Daria Gnedykh
- Laboratory of Behavioral Neurodynamics, St. Petersburg State University, Saint Petersburg, Russia
| | - Svetlana Kostromina
- Laboratory of Behavioral Neurodynamics, St. Petersburg State University, Saint Petersburg, Russia
| | - Yury Shtyrov
- Laboratory of Behavioral Neurodynamics, St. Petersburg State University, Saint Petersburg, Russia.,Department of Clinical Medicine, Center of Functionally Integrative Neuroscience (CFIN), Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark
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33
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Sejunaite K, Lanza C, Riepe MW. Everyday Memory in Healthy Aging: Porous but Not Distorted. Front Aging Neurosci 2019; 11:153. [PMID: 31293413 PMCID: PMC6604723 DOI: 10.3389/fnagi.2019.00153] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/28/2018] [Accepted: 06/11/2019] [Indexed: 01/10/2023] Open
Abstract
Most studies targeting age-association of memory functions report a decline in recognition hits and an increase in false alarms. The goal of the present study was to assess these findings in tasks with day-to-day relevance. We investigated healthy young (YA; age 26.90 ± 3.55 years) and old (OA; age 69.80 ± 5.85 years) adults. Participants were asked to watch six news and six commercials and complete a recognition task relating to the information presented in the videos. OA had a lower hit rate in both news and commercials compared to YA. However, the number of false alarms (FA) was the same in both age groups. Applying signal detection theory, we found age differences in discriminability for both news and commercials paradigm. The groups showed no differences in bias and both chose a liberal answering tendency. We interpret our finding as a result of complex recognition items in an ecologically valid task. Multi-feature items offer an advantage in correct rejection—it is enough to know that at least one feature of an item is false. This benefit does not extend to hits, where all features of an item need to be recognized. This indicates that recognition memory of naturalistic stimuli in OA is porous, but not distorted.
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Affiliation(s)
- Karolina Sejunaite
- Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy II, Division of Mental Health & Old Age Psychiatry, University of Ulm, Ulm, Germany
| | - Claudia Lanza
- Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy II, Division of Mental Health & Old Age Psychiatry, University of Ulm, Ulm, Germany
| | - Matthias W Riepe
- Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy II, Division of Mental Health & Old Age Psychiatry, University of Ulm, Ulm, Germany
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34
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Mayo R. Knowledge and Distrust May Go a Long Way in the Battle With Disinformation: Mental Processes of Spontaneous Disbelief. CURRENT DIRECTIONS IN PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE 2019. [DOI: 10.1177/0963721419847998] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/15/2022]
Abstract
A common claim is that people have an easier time accepting information than rejecting it, resulting in gullibility. In this article, I review empirical research demonstrating how the human mind is equipped with successful and spontaneous rejection processes that may protect us from disinformation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ruth Mayo
- Department of Psychology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
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35
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Wang H, Li J, Wang X, Jiang M, Cong F, de Vega M. Embodiment Effect on the Comprehension of Mandarin Manual Action Language: An ERP Study. JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLINGUISTIC RESEARCH 2019; 48:713-728. [PMID: 30656462 DOI: 10.1007/s10936-018-09627-6] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/09/2023]
Abstract
Embodiment theories argue that language comprehension involves activating specific sensory-motor systems in the brain. Previous research performed in English and other Indo-European languages suggests that, when compared to compatible sentences referring to the same actions performed sequentially (e.g. 'After cleaning the wound he unrolled the bandage'), incompatible sentences describing two manual actions performed simultaneously by an agent (e.g. 'While cleaning the wound he unrolled the bandage') were worse understood and increased the event-related potentials (ERPs) component N400. The present ERP research aims to further investigate brain response to motor compatibility in native Mandarin speakers. The Chinese experimental sentences described two manual actions either in incongruent conditions marked by the Chinese parallel structure … … ('yibian…yibian…'/'while… while…') or congruent conditions marked by the sequential structure … … ('xian…ranhou…'/'firstly… then…'). The last action clause elicited larger fronto-central N400 in the incongruent condition, which reveals that there are semantic embodiment effects on the comprehension of Mandarin manual action language.
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Affiliation(s)
- Huili Wang
- Institute for Language and Cognition, School of Foreign Languages, Dalian University of Technology, No. 2 Linggong Road, Ganjingzi District, Dalian, 116024, Liaoning, People's Republic of China.
| | - Jianrong Li
- Institute for Language and Cognition, School of Foreign Languages, Dalian University of Technology, No. 2 Linggong Road, Ganjingzi District, Dalian, 116024, Liaoning, People's Republic of China
| | - Xiaoshuang Wang
- Biomedical Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, 116024, China
| | - Meng Jiang
- Language and Brain Center, Sichuan International Studies University, Chongqing, 400031, Sichuan, China
| | - Fengyu Cong
- Biomedical Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, 116024, China
- Faculty of Information Technology, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland
| | - Manuel de Vega
- Instituto Universitario de Neurociencia (IUNE), Universidad de La Laguna, San Cristóbal de La Laguna, Canary Islands, Spain
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36
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Ghio M, Haegert K, Vaghi MM, Tettamanti M. Sentential negation of abstract and concrete conceptual categories: a brain decoding multivariate pattern analysis study. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 2019; 373:rstb.2017.0124. [PMID: 29914992 DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2017.0124] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 05/01/2018] [Indexed: 11/12/2022] Open
Abstract
We rarely use abstract and concrete concepts in isolation but rather embedded within a linguistic context. To examine the modulatory impact of the linguistic context on conceptual processing, we isolated the case of sentential negation polarity, in which an interaction occurs between the syntactic operator not and conceptual information in the negation's scope. Previous studies suggested that sentential negation of concrete action-related concepts modulates activation in the fronto-parieto-temporal action representation network. In this functional magnetic resonance imaging study, we examined the influence of negation on a wider spectrum of meanings, by factorially manipulating sentence polarity (affirmative, negative) and fine-grained abstract (mental state, emotion, mathematics) and concrete (related to mouth, hand, leg actions) conceptual categories. We adopted a multivariate pattern analysis approach, and tested the accuracy of a machine learning classifier in discriminating brain activation patterns associated to the factorial manipulation. Searchlight analysis was used to localize the discriminating patterns. Overall, the neural processing of affirmative and negative sentences with either an abstract or concrete content could be accurately predicted by means of multivariate classification. We suggest that sentential negation polarity modulates brain activation in distributed representational semantic networks, through the functional mediation of syntactic and cognitive control systems.This article is part of the theme issue 'Varieties of abstract concepts: development, use and representation in the brain'.
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Affiliation(s)
- Marta Ghio
- Institute for Experimental Psychology, Heinrich-Heine-University, Duesseldorf, Germany
| | - Karolin Haegert
- Institute for Experimental Psychology, Heinrich-Heine-University, Duesseldorf, Germany
| | - Matilde M Vaghi
- Department of Psychology, Behavioural and Clinical Neuroscience Institute, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
| | - Marco Tettamanti
- Division of Neuroscience, IRCCS San Raffaele Scientific Institute, 20132 Milano, Italy
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Al Roumi F, Dotan D, Yang T, Wang L, Dehaene S. Acquisition and processing of an artificial mini-language combining semantic and syntactic elements. Cognition 2019; 185:49-61. [DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2018.11.006] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/07/2018] [Revised: 11/16/2018] [Accepted: 11/19/2018] [Indexed: 01/29/2023]
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Zech N, Seemann M, Grzesiek M, Breu A, Seyfried TF, Hansen E. Nocebo Effects on Muscular Performance - An Experimental Study About Clinical Situations. Front Pharmacol 2019; 10:219. [PMID: 30914952 PMCID: PMC6421283 DOI: 10.3389/fphar.2019.00219] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/19/2018] [Accepted: 02/22/2019] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Introduction: Nocebo effects are not only seen in studies of pharmacology and placebo/nocebo research but also in clinical everyday situations. For generation of objective and quantitative data on the impact of negative communication we have evaluated the immediate effects of common sentences, non-verbal signals and situations in the medical context on muscular performance. Methods: In an experimental study, 46 volunteers were tested by dynamometry of the deltoid muscle group to evaluate the maximal muscular strength during arm abduction. Baseline values were compared to performance after exposure to 18 verbal and non-verbal suggestions. Suggestions suspected to be negative were alternated with and compared to positively formulated alternatives. Results: Verbal and non-verbal communication produced significant effects on muscular performance, resulting mainly in weakening. The decrease in muscle strength after risk information for informed consent (91.4% of baseline) was absent, when benefits of the treatment were named coincidently. The weakening effect of asking about "pain" and "nausea" (89.4%), and of the announcement of medical interventions (91.7%) could be avoided with alternative wording. Impairment of muscular performance was also observed with the nocebo-inducers negative memory (89.5%) or uncertain future (93.3%), in contrast to a positive memory or the orientation into the presence. Non-verbal suggestions like overhead anesthesia induction (89.9%), a transport in strict flat supine position (89.1%), or a view from the window to a parking lot (94.1%) significantly reduced maximal muscle strength, whereas face-to face induction, half-sitting position and a view into the landscape did not. 8 out of 9 tested clinical situations reduced maximal arm muscle strength significantly, whereas alternative formulations did not. Conclusion: This study describes a quick, simple and uniform test using objective measurement of maximal muscle strength to allow for identification, quantification, and comparison of negative suggestions, regardless of their specific content and effect. Muscle strength is a clinically relevant parameter with regard to early mobilization, risk of falling and sufficient breathing. Furthermore, the observed impairment of muscular performance could reflect a general "weakening effect" of negative suggestions. In addition, the test facilitates development and verification of appropriate alternatives to prevent nocebo effects in patients, thereby improving patient communication.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nina Zech
- Department of Anesthesiology, University Hospital Regensburg, Regensburg, Germany
| | - Milena Seemann
- Department of Anesthesiology, Klinikum Nürnberg, Nürnberg, Germany
| | - Magdalena Grzesiek
- Department of Anesthesiology, University Hospital Regensburg, Regensburg, Germany
| | - Anita Breu
- Department of Anesthesiology, Sana Clinics Cham, Cham, Germany
| | - Timo F Seyfried
- Department of Anesthesiology, University Hospital Regensburg, Regensburg, Germany
| | - Ernil Hansen
- Department of Anesthesiology, University Hospital Regensburg, Regensburg, Germany
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Role of the human mirror system in automatic processing of musical emotion: Evidence from EEG. ACTA PSYCHOLOGICA SINICA 2019. [DOI: 10.3724/sp.j.1041.2019.00795] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/25/2022]
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40
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Jiang J, Liu F, Zhou L, Jiang C. The neural basis for understanding imitation-induced musical meaning: The role of the human mirror system. Behav Brain Res 2018; 359:362-369. [PMID: 30458161 DOI: 10.1016/j.bbr.2018.11.020] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/21/2018] [Revised: 11/12/2018] [Accepted: 11/13/2018] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
Abstract
Music can convey meanings by imitating phenomena of the extramusical world, and these imitation-induced musical meanings can be understood by listeners. Although the human mirror system (HMS) is implicated in imitation, little is known about the HMS's role in making sense of meaning that derives from musical imitation. To answer this question, we used fMRI to examine listeners' brain activities during the processing of imitation-induced musical meaning with a cross-modal semantic priming paradigm. Eleven normal individuals and 11 individuals with congenital amusia, a neurodevelopmental disorder of musical processing, participated in the experiment. Target pictures with either an upward or downward movement were primed by semantically congruent or incongruent melodic sequences characterized by the direction of pitch change (upward or downward). When contrasting the incongruent with the congruent condition between the two groups, we found greater activations in the left supramarginal gyrus/inferior parietal lobule and inferior frontal gyrus in normals but not in amusics. The implications of these findings in terms of the role of the HMS in understanding imitation-induced musical meaning are discussed.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jun Jiang
- Music College, Shanghai Normal University, Shanghai, China
| | - Fang Liu
- School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences, University of Reading, Reading, UK
| | - Linshu Zhou
- Music College, Shanghai Normal University, Shanghai, China
| | - Cunmei Jiang
- Music College, Shanghai Normal University, Shanghai, China; Institute of Psychology, Shanghai Normal University, Shanghai, China.
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41
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García-Marco E, Morera Y, Beltrán D, de Vega M, Herrera E, Sedeño L, Ibáñez A, García AM. Negation markers inhibit motor routines during typing of manual action verbs. Cognition 2018; 182:286-293. [PMID: 30390568 DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2018.10.020] [Citation(s) in RCA: 15] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/11/2018] [Revised: 10/24/2018] [Accepted: 10/26/2018] [Indexed: 01/29/2023]
Abstract
We explored whether negation markers recruit inhibitory mechanisms during keyboard-based action-verb typing. In each trial, participants read two sentences: the first featured a context (There is a contract) and the second ended with a relevant verb which had to be immediately typed. Crucially, the verb could describe manual actions, non-manual actions or non-motor processes, with either affirmative (You do sign it) or negative (You don't sign it) polarity. We assessed the impact of verb type and polarity on two typing dimensions: motor programming (lapse between target onset and first keystroke) and motor execution (lapse between first and last keystroke). Negation yielded no effect on motor planning, but it selectively delayed typing execution for manual-action verbs, irrespective of the subjects' typing skills. This suggests that processing negations during comprehension of manual-action sentences recruits inhibitory mechanisms acting on same-effector movements. Our novel finding extends embodied models of language and effector-specific motor-language integration.
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Affiliation(s)
- Enrique García-Marco
- Instituto Universitario de Neurociencia (IUNE), Universidad de La Laguna (ULL), Tenerife, Spain; Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED), Spain
| | - Yurena Morera
- Instituto Universitario de Neurociencia (IUNE), Universidad de La Laguna (ULL), Tenerife, Spain
| | - David Beltrán
- Instituto Universitario de Neurociencia (IUNE), Universidad de La Laguna (ULL), Tenerife, Spain
| | - Manuel de Vega
- Instituto Universitario de Neurociencia (IUNE), Universidad de La Laguna (ULL), Tenerife, Spain
| | - Eduar Herrera
- Departamento de Estudios Psicológicos, Universidad Icesi, Cali, Colombia
| | - Lucas Sedeño
- Laboratory of Experimental Psychology and Neuroscience (LPEN), Institute of Cognitive and Translational Neuroscience (INCYT), INECO Foundation, Favaloro University, Buenos Aires, Argentina; National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET), Buenos Aires, Argentina
| | - Agustín Ibáñez
- Laboratory of Experimental Psychology and Neuroscience (LPEN), Institute of Cognitive and Translational Neuroscience (INCYT), INECO Foundation, Favaloro University, Buenos Aires, Argentina; National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET), Buenos Aires, Argentina; Universidad Autónoma del Caribe, Barranquilla, Colombia; Center for Social and Cognitive Neuroscience (CSCN), School of Psychology, Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez, Santiago de Chile, Chile; Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders, Australian Research Council (ARC), Sydney, Australia
| | - Adolfo M García
- Laboratory of Experimental Psychology and Neuroscience (LPEN), Institute of Cognitive and Translational Neuroscience (INCYT), INECO Foundation, Favaloro University, Buenos Aires, Argentina; National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET), Buenos Aires, Argentina; Faculty of Education, National University of Cuyo (UNCuyo), Mendoza, Argentina.
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42
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Semantic composition of sentences word by word: MEG evidence for shared processing of conceptual and logical elements. Neuropsychologia 2018; 119:392-404. [DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2018.08.016] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/11/2018] [Revised: 08/17/2018] [Accepted: 08/18/2018] [Indexed: 11/21/2022]
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43
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Sasaki AT, Okamoto Y, Kochiyama T, Kitada R, Sadato N. Distinct sensitivities of the lateral prefrontal cortex and extrastriate body area to contingency between executed and observed actions. Cortex 2018; 108:234-251. [PMID: 30261368 DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2018.08.003] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/11/2018] [Revised: 04/23/2018] [Accepted: 08/02/2018] [Indexed: 12/11/2022]
Abstract
Detecting relationships between our own actions and the subsequent actions of others is critical for our social behavior. Self-actions differ from those of others in terms of action kinematics, body identity, and feedback timing. Thus, the detection of social contingency between self-actions and those of others requires comparison and integration of these three dimensions. Neuroimaging studies have highlighted the role of the frontotemporal network in action representation, but the role of each node and their relationships are still controversial. Here, we conducted a functional MRI experiment to test the hypothesis that the lateral prefrontal cortex and lateral occipito-temporal cortex are critical for the integration processes for social contingency. Twenty-four adults performed right finger gestures and then observed them as feedback. We manipulated three parameters of visual feedback: action kinematics (same or different gestures), body identity (self or other), and feedback timing (simultaneous or delayed). Three-way interactions of these factors were observed in the left inferior and middle frontal gyrus (IFG/MFG). These areas were active when self-actions were directly fed back in real-time (i.e., the condition causing a sense of agency), and when participants observed gestures performed by others after a short delay (i.e., the condition causing social contingency). In contrast, the left extrastriate body area (EBA) was sensitive to the concordance of action kinematics regardless of body identity or feedback timing. Body identity × feedback timing interactions were observed in regions including the superior parietal lobule (SPL). An effective connectivity analysis supported the model wherein experimental parameters modulated connections from the occipital cortex to the IFG/MFG via the EBA and SPL. These results suggest that both social contingency and the sense of agency are achieved by hierarchical processing that begins with simple concordance coding in the left EBA, leading to the complex coding of social relevance in the left IFG/MFG.
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Affiliation(s)
- Akihiro T Sasaki
- National Institute for Physiological Sciences, Okazaki, Aichi, Japan; Pathophysiological and Health Science Team, RIKEN Center for Life Science Technologies, Kobe, Hyogo, Japan; Laboratory for Pathophysiological and Health Science, RIKEN Center for Biosystems Dynamics Research, Kobe, Hyogo, Japan; Health Evaluation Team, RIKEN Compass to Healthy Life Research Complex Program, Kobe, Hyogo, Japan
| | - Yuko Okamoto
- ATR-Promotions, Brain Activity Imaging Center, Kyoto, Japan; Research Center for Child Mental Development, University of Fukui, Yoshida, Fukui, Japan; Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International, Sorakugun, Kyoto, Japan
| | | | - Ryo Kitada
- School of Social Sciences, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.
| | - Norihiro Sadato
- National Institute for Physiological Sciences, Okazaki, Aichi, Japan; Division of Physiology, Department of Life Science, The Graduate University of Advanced Study (SOKENDAI), Okazaki, Aichi, Japan; Biomedical Imaging Research Center, University of Fukui, Yoshida, Fukui, Japan
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Beltrán D, Muñetón-Ayala M, de Vega M. Sentential negation modulates inhibition in a stop-signal task. Evidence from behavioral and ERP data. Neuropsychologia 2018. [PMID: 29518413 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2018.03.004] [Citation(s) in RCA: 24] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/16/2022]
Abstract
Embodiment theories claim that language meaning involves sensory-motor simulation processes in the brain. A challenge for these theories, however, is to explain how abstract words, such as negations, are processed. In this article, we test the hypothesis that understanding sentential negation (e.g., You will not cut the bread) reuses the neural circuitry of response inhibition. Participants read manual action sentences with either affirmative or negative polarity, embedded in a Stop-Signal paradigm, while their EEG was recorded. The results showed that the inhibition-related N1 and P3 components were enhanced by successful inhibition. Most important, the early N1 amplitude was also modulated by sentence polarity, producing the largest values for successful inhibitions in the context of negative sentences, whereas no polarity effect was found for failing inhibition or go trials. The estimated neural sources for N1 effects revealed activations in the right inferior frontal gyrus, a typical inhibition-related area. Also, the estimated stop-signal reaction time was larger in trials with negative sentences. These results provide strong evidence that action-related negative sentences consume neural resources of response inhibition, resulting in less efficient processing in the Stop-Signal task.
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Affiliation(s)
- David Beltrán
- Department of Cognitive Psychology, Universidad de La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain; Instituto Universitario de Neurociencia, Universidad de La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain.
| | - Mercedes Muñetón-Ayala
- Instituto Universitario de Neurociencia, Universidad de La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain; Universidad de Antioquia, Colombia
| | - Manuel de Vega
- Department of Cognitive Psychology, Universidad de La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain; Instituto Universitario de Neurociencia, Universidad de La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain
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Bruno V, Fossataro C, Garbarini F. Inhibition or facilitation? Modulation of corticospinal excitability during motor imagery. Neuropsychologia 2018; 111:360-368. [PMID: 29462639 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2018.02.020] [Citation(s) in RCA: 17] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/08/2017] [Revised: 12/21/2017] [Accepted: 02/16/2018] [Indexed: 10/18/2022]
Abstract
Motor imagery (MI) is the mental simulation of an action without any overt movement. Functional evidences show that brain activity during MI and motor execution (ME) largely overlaps. However, the role of the primary motor cortex (M1) during MI is controversial. Effective connectivity techniques show a facilitation on M1 during ME and an inhibition during MI, depending on whether an action should be performed or suppressed. Conversely, Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) studies report facilitatory effects during both ME and MI. The present TMS study shed light on MI mechanisms, by manipulating the instructions given to the participants. In both Experimental and Control groups, participants were asked to mentally simulate a finger-thumb opposition task, but only the Experimental group received the explicit instruction to avoid any unwanted fingers movements. The amplitude of motor evoked potentials (MEPs) to TMS during MI was compared between the two groups. If the M1 facilitation actually pertains to MI per se, we should have expected to find it, irrespective of the instructions. Contrariwise, we found opposite results, showing facilitatory effects (increased MEPs amplitude) in the Control group and inhibitory effects (decreased MEPs amplitude) in the Experimental group. Control experiments demonstrated that the inhibitory effect was specific for the M1 contralateral to the hand performing the MI task and that the given instructions did not compromise the subjects' MI abilities. The present findings suggest a crucial role of motor inhibition when a "pure" MI task is performed and the subjects are explicitly instructed to avoid overt movements.
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Affiliation(s)
- Valentina Bruno
- SpAtial, Motor & Bodily Awareness (SAMBA) Research Group, Department of Psychology, University of Turin, Via Po 14, 10123 Turin, Italy
| | - Carlotta Fossataro
- SpAtial, Motor & Bodily Awareness (SAMBA) Research Group, Department of Psychology, University of Turin, Via Po 14, 10123 Turin, Italy
| | - Francesca Garbarini
- SpAtial, Motor & Bodily Awareness (SAMBA) Research Group, Department of Psychology, University of Turin, Via Po 14, 10123 Turin, Italy.
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46
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El Haj M, Coello Y, Kapogiannis D, Gallouj K, Antoine P. Negative Prospective Memory in Alzheimer's Disease: "Do Not Perform That Action". J Alzheimers Dis 2018; 61:663-672. [PMID: 29226877 PMCID: PMC5925753 DOI: 10.3233/jad-170807] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/15/2022]
Abstract
Relatively to "standard" prospective memory, i.e., remembering to perform a future action, little is known about negative prospective memory, i.e., remembering not to perform a future action. This study investigated the latter ability in Alzheimer's disease (AD). AD participants and healthy older adults were asked to click on the keyboard or not to click on it when a cue word was encountered. Results showed more omissions (i.e., forgetting to click the keyboard when the instruction was to do so) in AD participants than in healthy older adults, suggesting a prospective memory deficit. Interestingly, more commissions (i.e., clicking the keyboard when the instruction was not to do so) were also observed in AD participants than in healthy older adults. Similar levels of commissions and omissions were observed in AD participants and in healthy older adults. Also, commissions and omissions were correlated with performance on an inhibition assessment task. Our findings reveal that AD is characterized by not only difficulty in the retrieval of recent information, but also difficulty to inhibit no-longer appropriate stimulus-response associations previously learned, suggesting a specific deficit of negative prospective memory in AD.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mohamad El Haj
- University of Lille, CNRS, CHU Lille, UMR 9193 - SCALab - Sciences Cognitives et Sciences Affectives, Lille, France
- Unité de Gériatrie, Centre Hospitalier de Tourcoing, Tourcoing, France
| | - Yann Coello
- University of Lille, CNRS, CHU Lille, UMR 9193 - SCALab - Sciences Cognitives et Sciences Affectives, Lille, France
| | | | - Karim Gallouj
- Unité de Gériatrie, Centre Hospitalier de Tourcoing, Tourcoing, France
| | - Pascal Antoine
- University of Lille, CNRS, CHU Lille, UMR 9193 - SCALab - Sciences Cognitives et Sciences Affectives, Lille, France
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Friederici AD, Chomsky N, Berwick RC, Moro A, Bolhuis JJ. Language, mind and brain. Nat Hum Behav 2017; 1:713-722. [DOI: 10.1038/s41562-017-0184-4] [Citation(s) in RCA: 137] [Impact Index Per Article: 19.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/11/2017] [Accepted: 07/21/2017] [Indexed: 11/10/2022]
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48
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Courson M, Macoir J, Tremblay P. Role of medial premotor areas in action language processing in relation to motor skills. Cortex 2017; 95:77-91. [PMID: 28858609 DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2017.08.002] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/09/2017] [Revised: 05/04/2017] [Accepted: 08/02/2017] [Indexed: 10/19/2022]
Abstract
The literature reports that the supplementary motor area (SMA) and pre-supplementary motor area (pre-SMA) are involved in motor planning and execution, and in motor-related cognitive functions such as motor imagery. However, their specific role in action language processing remains unclear. In the present study, we investigated the impact of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) over SMA and pre-SMA during an action semantic analogy task (SAT) in relation with fine motor skills (i.e., manual dexterity) and motor imagery abilities in healthy non-expert adults. The impact of rTMS over SMA (but not pre-SMA) on reaction times (RT) during SAT was correlated with manual dexterity. Specifically, results show that rTMS over SMA modulated RT for those with lower dexterity skills. Our results therefore demonstrate a causal involvement of SMA in action language processing, as well as the existence of inter-individual differences in this involvement. We discuss these findings in light of neurolinguistic theories of language processing.
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Affiliation(s)
- Melody Courson
- Département de Réadaptation, Université Laval, CERVO Brain Research Center, Québec, Qc., Canada
| | - Joël Macoir
- Département de Réadaptation, Université Laval, CERVO Brain Research Center, Québec, Qc., Canada
| | - Pascale Tremblay
- Département de Réadaptation, Université Laval, CERVO Brain Research Center, Québec, Qc., Canada.
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Sentential Negation Might Share Neurophysiological Mechanisms with Action Inhibition. Evidence from Frontal Theta Rhythm. J Neurosci 2017; 36:6002-10. [PMID: 27251621 DOI: 10.1523/jneurosci.3736-15.2016] [Citation(s) in RCA: 36] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/12/2015] [Accepted: 04/16/2016] [Indexed: 12/20/2022] Open
Abstract
UNLABELLED According to the literature, negations such as "not" or "don't" reduce the accessibility in memory of the concepts under their scope. Moreover, negations applied to action contents (e.g., "don't write the letter") impede the activation of motor processes in the brain, inducing "disembodied" representations. These facts provide important information on the behavioral and neural consequences of negations. However, how negations themselves are processed in the brain is still poorly understood. In two electrophysiological experiments, we explored whether sentential negation shares neural mechanisms with action monitoring or inhibition. Human participants read action-related sentences in affirmative or negative form ("now you will cut the bread" vs "now you will not cut the bread") while performing a simultaneous Go/NoGo task. The analysis of the EEG rhythms revealed that theta oscillations were significantly reduced for NoGo trials in the context of negative sentences compared with affirmative sentences. Given the fact that theta oscillations are often considered as neural markers of response inhibition processes, their modulation by negative sentences strongly suggests that negation uses neural resources of response inhibition. We propose a new approach that views the syntactic operator of negation as relying on the neural machinery of high-order action-monitoring processes. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Previous studies have shown that linguistic negation reduces the accessibility of the negated concepts and suppresses the activation of specific brain regions that operate in affirmative statements. Although these studies focus on the consequences of negation on cognitive and neural processes, the proper neural mechanisms of negation have not yet been explored. In the present EEG study, we tested the hypothesis that negation uses the neural network of action inhibition. Using a Go/NoGo task embedded in a sentence comprehension task, we found that negation in the context of NoGo trials modulates frontal theta rhythm, which is usually considered a signature of action inhibition and control mechanisms.
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Abstract
Research in cognitive neuroscience has shown that brain structures serving perceptual, emotional, and motor processes are also recruited during the understanding of language when it refers to emotion, perception, and action. However, the exact linguistic and extralinguistic conditions under which such language-induced activity in modality-specific cortex is triggered are not yet well understood. The purpose of this study is to introduce a simple experimental technique that allows for the online measure of language-induced activity in motor structures of the brain. This technique consists in the use of a grip force sensor that captures subtle grip force variations while participants listen to words and sentences. Since grip force reflects activity in motor brain structures, the continuous monitoring of force fluctuations provides a fine-grained estimation of motor activity across time. In other terms, this method allows for both localization of the source of language-induced activity to motor brain structures and high temporal resolution of the recorded data. To facilitate comparison of the data to be collected with this tool, we present two experiments that describe in detail the technical setup, the nature of the recorded data, and the analyses (including justification about the data filtering and artifact rejection) that we applied. We also discuss how the tool could be used in other domains of behavioral research.
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