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Beber S, Bontempi G, Miceli G, Tettamanti M. The Neurofunctional Correlates of Morphosyntactic and Thematic Impairments in Aphasia: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis. Neuropsychol Rev 2024:10.1007/s11065-024-09648-0. [PMID: 39214956 DOI: 10.1007/s11065-024-09648-0] [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: 07/26/2023] [Accepted: 07/30/2024] [Indexed: 09/04/2024]
Abstract
Lesion-symptom studies in persons with aphasia showed that left temporoparietal damage, but surprisingly not prefrontal damage, correlates with impaired ability to process thematic roles in the comprehension of semantically reversible sentences (The child is hugged by the mother). This result has led to challenge the time-honored view that left prefrontal regions are critical for sentence comprehension. However, most studies focused on thematic role assignment and failed to consider morphosyntactic processes that are also critical for sentence processing. We reviewed and meta-analyzed lesion-symptom studies on the neurofunctional correlates of thematic role assignment and morphosyntactic processing in comprehension and production in persons with aphasia. Following the PRISMA checklist, we selected 43 papers for the review and 27 for the meta-analysis, identifying a set of potential bias risks. Both the review and the meta-analysis confirmed the correlation between thematic role processing and temporoparietal regions but also clearly showed the involvement of prefrontal regions in sentence processing. Exploratory meta-analyses suggested that both thematic role and morphosyntactic processing correlate with left prefrontal and temporoparietal regions, that morphosyntactic processing correlates with prefrontal structures more than with temporoparietal regions, and that thematic role assignment displays the opposite trend. We discuss current limitations in the literature and propose a set of recommendations for clarifying unresolved issues.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sabrina Beber
- Center for Mind/Brain Sciences (CIMeC), University of Trento, Rovereto, TN, 38122, Italy.
| | - Giorgia Bontempi
- Center for Mind/Brain Sciences (CIMeC), University of Trento, Rovereto, TN, 38122, Italy
| | - Gabriele Miceli
- Center for Mind/Brain Sciences (CIMeC), University of Trento, Rovereto, TN, 38122, Italy
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Regev TI, Casto C, Hosseini EA, Adamek M, Ritaccio AL, Willie JT, Brunner P, Fedorenko E. Neural populations in the language network differ in the size of their temporal receptive windows. Nat Hum Behav 2024:10.1038/s41562-024-01944-2. [PMID: 39187713 DOI: 10.1038/s41562-024-01944-2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/16/2023] [Accepted: 07/03/2024] [Indexed: 08/28/2024]
Abstract
Despite long knowing what brain areas support language comprehension, our knowledge of the neural computations that these frontal and temporal regions implement remains limited. One important unresolved question concerns functional differences among the neural populations that comprise the language network. Here we leveraged the high spatiotemporal resolution of human intracranial recordings (n = 22) to examine responses to sentences and linguistically degraded conditions. We discovered three response profiles that differ in their temporal dynamics. These profiles appear to reflect different temporal receptive windows, with average windows of about 1, 4 and 6 words, respectively. Neural populations exhibiting these profiles are interleaved across the language network, which suggests that all language regions have direct access to distinct, multiscale representations of linguistic input-a property that may be critical for the efficiency and robustness of language processing.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tamar I Regev
- Brain and Cognitive Sciences Department, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA.
- McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA.
| | - Colton Casto
- Brain and Cognitive Sciences Department, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA.
- McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA.
- Program in Speech and Hearing Bioscience and Technology (SHBT), Harvard University, Boston, MA, USA.
- Kempner Institute for the Study of Natural and Artificial Intelligence, Harvard University, Allston, MA, USA.
| | - Eghbal A Hosseini
- Brain and Cognitive Sciences Department, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA
- McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA
| | - Markus Adamek
- National Center for Adaptive Neurotechnologies, Albany, NY, USA
- Department of Neurosurgery, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO, USA
| | | | - Jon T Willie
- National Center for Adaptive Neurotechnologies, Albany, NY, USA
- Department of Neurosurgery, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO, USA
| | - Peter Brunner
- National Center for Adaptive Neurotechnologies, Albany, NY, USA
- Department of Neurosurgery, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO, USA
- Department of Neurology, Albany Medical College, Albany, NY, USA
| | - Evelina Fedorenko
- Brain and Cognitive Sciences Department, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA.
- McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA.
- Program in Speech and Hearing Bioscience and Technology (SHBT), Harvard University, Boston, MA, USA.
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Fahey D, Fridriksson J, Hickok G, Matchin W. Lesion-symptom Mapping of Acceptability Judgments in Chronic Poststroke Aphasia Reveals the Neurobiological Underpinnings of Receptive Syntax. J Cogn Neurosci 2024; 36:1141-1155. [PMID: 38437175 PMCID: PMC11095916 DOI: 10.1162/jocn_a_02134] [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] [Indexed: 03/06/2024]
Abstract
Disagreements persist regarding the neural basis of syntactic processing, which has been linked both to inferior frontal and posterior temporal regions of the brain. One focal point of the debate concerns the role of inferior frontal areas in receptive syntactic ability, which is mostly assessed using sentence comprehension involving complex syntactic structures, a task that is potentially confounded with working memory. Syntactic acceptability judgments may provide a better measure of receptive syntax by reducing the need to use high working memory load and complex sentences and by enabling assessment of various types of syntactic violations. We therefore tested the perception of grammatical violations by people with poststroke aphasia (n = 25), along with matched controls (n = 16), using English sentences involving errors in word order, agreement, or subcategorization. Lesion data were also collected. Control participants performed near ceiling in accuracy with higher discriminability of agreement and subcategorization violations than word order; aphasia participants were less able to discriminate violations, but, on average, paralleled control participants discriminability of types of violations. Lesion-symptom mapping showed a correlation between discriminability and posterior temporal regions, but not inferior frontal regions. We argue that these results diverge from models holding that frontal areas are amodal core regions in syntactic structure building and favor models that posit a core hierarchical system in posterior temporal regions.
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Regev TI, Kim HS, Chen X, Affourtit J, Schipper AE, Bergen L, Mahowald K, Fedorenko E. High-level language brain regions process sublexical regularities. Cereb Cortex 2024; 34:bhae077. [PMID: 38494886 DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhae077] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/12/2023] [Revised: 02/05/2024] [Accepted: 02/07/2024] [Indexed: 03/19/2024] Open
Abstract
A network of left frontal and temporal brain regions supports language processing. This "core" language network stores our knowledge of words and constructions as well as constraints on how those combine to form sentences. However, our linguistic knowledge additionally includes information about phonemes and how they combine to form phonemic clusters, syllables, and words. Are phoneme combinatorics also represented in these language regions? Across five functional magnetic resonance imaging experiments, we investigated the sensitivity of high-level language processing brain regions to sublexical linguistic regularities by examining responses to diverse nonwords-sequences of phonemes that do not constitute real words (e.g. punes, silory, flope). We establish robust responses in the language network to visually (experiment 1a, n = 605) and auditorily (experiments 1b, n = 12, and 1c, n = 13) presented nonwords. In experiment 2 (n = 16), we find stronger responses to nonwords that are more well-formed, i.e. obey the phoneme-combinatorial constraints of English. Finally, in experiment 3 (n = 14), we provide suggestive evidence that the responses in experiments 1 and 2 are not due to the activation of real words that share some phonology with the nonwords. The results suggest that sublexical regularities are stored and processed within the same fronto-temporal network that supports lexical and syntactic processes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tamar I Regev
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, United States
- McGovern Institute for Brain Research, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, United States
| | - Hee So Kim
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, United States
- McGovern Institute for Brain Research, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, United States
| | - Xuanyi Chen
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, United States
- McGovern Institute for Brain Research, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, United States
- Department of Cognitive Sciences, Rice University, Houston, TX 77005, United States
| | - Josef Affourtit
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, United States
- McGovern Institute for Brain Research, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, United States
| | - Abigail E Schipper
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, United States
| | - Leon Bergen
- Department of Linguistics, University of California San Diego, San Diego CA 92093, United States
| | - Kyle Mahowald
- Department of Linguistics, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, United States
| | - Evelina Fedorenko
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, United States
- McGovern Institute for Brain Research, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, United States
- The Harvard Program in Speech and Hearing Bioscience and Technology, Boston, MA 02115, United States
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Pasquiou A, Lakretz Y, Thirion B, Pallier C. Information-Restricted Neural Language Models Reveal Different Brain Regions' Sensitivity to Semantics, Syntax, and Context. NEUROBIOLOGY OF LANGUAGE (CAMBRIDGE, MASS.) 2023; 4:611-636. [PMID: 38144237 PMCID: PMC10745090 DOI: 10.1162/nol_a_00125] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/23/2023] [Accepted: 09/28/2023] [Indexed: 12/26/2023]
Abstract
A fundamental question in neurolinguistics concerns the brain regions involved in syntactic and semantic processing during speech comprehension, both at the lexical (word processing) and supra-lexical levels (sentence and discourse processing). To what extent are these regions separated or intertwined? To address this question, we introduce a novel approach exploiting neural language models to generate high-dimensional feature sets that separately encode semantic and syntactic information. More precisely, we train a lexical language model, GloVe, and a supra-lexical language model, GPT-2, on a text corpus from which we selectively removed either syntactic or semantic information. We then assess to what extent the features derived from these information-restricted models are still able to predict the fMRI time courses of humans listening to naturalistic text. Furthermore, to determine the windows of integration of brain regions involved in supra-lexical processing, we manipulate the size of contextual information provided to GPT-2. The analyses show that, while most brain regions involved in language comprehension are sensitive to both syntactic and semantic features, the relative magnitudes of these effects vary across these regions. Moreover, regions that are best fitted by semantic or syntactic features are more spatially dissociated in the left hemisphere than in the right one, and the right hemisphere shows sensitivity to longer contexts than the left. The novelty of our approach lies in the ability to control for the information encoded in the models' embeddings by manipulating the training set. These "information-restricted" models complement previous studies that used language models to probe the neural bases of language, and shed new light on its spatial organization.
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Affiliation(s)
- Alexandre Pasquiou
- Cognitive Neuroimaging Unit (UNICOG), NeuroSpin, National Institute of Health and Medical Research (Inserm) and French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA), Frédéric Joliot Life Sciences Institute, Paris-Saclay University, Gif-sur-Yvette, France
- Models and Inference for Neuroimaging Data (MIND), NeuroSpin, French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA), Inria Saclay, Frédéric Joliot Life Sciences Institute, Paris-Saclay University, Gif-sur-Yvette, France
| | - Yair Lakretz
- Cognitive Neuroimaging Unit (UNICOG), NeuroSpin, National Institute of Health and Medical Research (Inserm) and French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA), Frédéric Joliot Life Sciences Institute, Paris-Saclay University, Gif-sur-Yvette, France
| | - Bertrand Thirion
- Models and Inference for Neuroimaging Data (MIND), NeuroSpin, French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA), Inria Saclay, Frédéric Joliot Life Sciences Institute, Paris-Saclay University, Gif-sur-Yvette, France
| | - Christophe Pallier
- Cognitive Neuroimaging Unit (UNICOG), NeuroSpin, National Institute of Health and Medical Research (Inserm) and French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA), Frédéric Joliot Life Sciences Institute, Paris-Saclay University, Gif-sur-Yvette, France
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Chen X, Affourtit J, Ryskin R, Regev TI, Norman-Haignere S, Jouravlev O, Malik-Moraleda S, Kean H, Varley R, Fedorenko E. The human language system, including its inferior frontal component in "Broca's area," does not support music perception. Cereb Cortex 2023; 33:7904-7929. [PMID: 37005063 PMCID: PMC10505454 DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhad087] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 10.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/12/2022] [Revised: 01/02/2023] [Accepted: 01/03/2023] [Indexed: 04/04/2023] Open
Abstract
Language and music are two human-unique capacities whose relationship remains debated. Some have argued for overlap in processing mechanisms, especially for structure processing. Such claims often concern the inferior frontal component of the language system located within "Broca's area." However, others have failed to find overlap. Using a robust individual-subject fMRI approach, we examined the responses of language brain regions to music stimuli, and probed the musical abilities of individuals with severe aphasia. Across 4 experiments, we obtained a clear answer: music perception does not engage the language system, and judgments about music structure are possible even in the presence of severe damage to the language network. In particular, the language regions' responses to music are generally low, often below the fixation baseline, and never exceed responses elicited by nonmusic auditory conditions, like animal sounds. Furthermore, the language regions are not sensitive to music structure: they show low responses to both intact and structure-scrambled music, and to melodies with vs. without structural violations. Finally, in line with past patient investigations, individuals with aphasia, who cannot judge sentence grammaticality, perform well on melody well-formedness judgments. Thus, the mechanisms that process structure in language do not appear to process music, including music syntax.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xuanyi Chen
- Department of Cognitive Sciences, Rice University, TX 77005, United States
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, United States
- McGovern Institute for Brain Research, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, United States
| | - Josef Affourtit
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, United States
- McGovern Institute for Brain Research, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, United States
| | - Rachel Ryskin
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, United States
- McGovern Institute for Brain Research, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, United States
- Department of Cognitive & Information Sciences, University of California, Merced, Merced, CA 95343, United States
| | - Tamar I Regev
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, United States
- McGovern Institute for Brain Research, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, United States
| | - Samuel Norman-Haignere
- Department of Biostatistics & Computational Biology, University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, NY, United States
- Department of Neuroscience, University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, NY, United States
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, United States
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, United States
| | - Olessia Jouravlev
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, United States
- McGovern Institute for Brain Research, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, United States
- Department of Cognitive Science, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, Canada
| | - Saima Malik-Moraleda
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, United States
- McGovern Institute for Brain Research, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, United States
- The Program in Speech and Hearing Bioscience and Technology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, United States
| | - Hope Kean
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, United States
- McGovern Institute for Brain Research, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, United States
| | - Rosemary Varley
- Psychology & Language Sciences, UCL, London, WCN1 1PF, United Kingdom
| | - Evelina Fedorenko
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, United States
- McGovern Institute for Brain Research, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, United States
- The Program in Speech and Hearing Bioscience and Technology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, United States
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7
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Hu J, Small H, Kean H, Takahashi A, Zekelman L, Kleinman D, Ryan E, Nieto-Castañón A, Ferreira V, Fedorenko E. Precision fMRI reveals that the language-selective network supports both phrase-structure building and lexical access during language production. Cereb Cortex 2023; 33:4384-4404. [PMID: 36130104 PMCID: PMC10110436 DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhac350] [Citation(s) in RCA: 17] [Impact Index Per Article: 17.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/17/2022] [Revised: 08/01/2022] [Accepted: 08/02/2022] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
A fronto-temporal brain network has long been implicated in language comprehension. However, this network's role in language production remains debated. In particular, it remains unclear whether all or only some language regions contribute to production, and which aspects of production these regions support. Across 3 functional magnetic resonance imaging experiments that rely on robust individual-subject analyses, we characterize the language network's response to high-level production demands. We report 3 novel results. First, sentence production, spoken or typed, elicits a strong response throughout the language network. Second, the language network responds to both phrase-structure building and lexical access demands, although the response to phrase-structure building is stronger and more spatially extensive, present in every language region. Finally, contra some proposals, we find no evidence of brain regions-within or outside the language network-that selectively support phrase-structure building in production relative to comprehension. Instead, all language regions respond more strongly during production than comprehension, suggesting that production incurs a greater cost for the language network. Together, these results align with the idea that language comprehension and production draw on the same knowledge representations, which are stored in a distributed manner within the language-selective network and are used to both interpret and generate linguistic utterances.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jennifer Hu
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, United States
| | - Hannah Small
- Department of Cognitive Science, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218, United States
| | - Hope Kean
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, United States
- McGovern Institute for Brain Research, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, United States
| | - Atsushi Takahashi
- McGovern Institute for Brain Research, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, United States
| | - Leo Zekelman
- Program in Speech and Hearing Bioscience and Technology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, United States
| | | | - Elizabeth Ryan
- St. George’s Medical School, St. George’s University, Grenada, West Indies
| | - Alfonso Nieto-Castañón
- McGovern Institute for Brain Research, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, United States
- Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, Boston University, Boston, MA 02215, United States
| | - Victor Ferreira
- Department of Psychology, UCSD, La Jolla, CA 92093, United States
| | - Evelina Fedorenko
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, United States
- McGovern Institute for Brain Research, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, United States
- Program in Speech and Hearing Bioscience and Technology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, United States
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Wilson SM, Entrup JL, Schneck SM, Onuscheck CF, Levy DF, Rahman M, Willey E, Casilio M, Yen M, Brito AC, Kam W, Davis LT, de Riesthal M, Kirshner HS. Recovery from aphasia in the first year after stroke. Brain 2023; 146:1021-1039. [PMID: 35388420 PMCID: PMC10169426 DOI: 10.1093/brain/awac129] [Citation(s) in RCA: 38] [Impact Index Per Article: 38.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/11/2022] [Revised: 03/02/2022] [Accepted: 03/27/2022] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Most individuals who experience aphasia after a stroke recover to some extent, with the majority of gains taking place in the first year. The nature and time course of this recovery process is only partially understood, especially its dependence on lesion location and extent, which are the most important determinants of outcome. The aim of this study was to provide a comprehensive description of patterns of recovery from aphasia in the first year after stroke. We recruited 334 patients with acute left hemisphere supratentorial ischaemic or haemorrhagic stroke and evaluated their speech and language function within 5 days using the Quick Aphasia Battery (QAB). At this initial time point, 218 patients presented with aphasia. Individuals with aphasia were followed longitudinally, with follow-up evaluations of speech and language at 1 month, 3 months, and 1 year post-stroke, wherever possible. Lesions were manually delineated based on acute clinical MRI or CT imaging. Patients with and without aphasia were divided into 13 groups of individuals with similar, commonly occurring patterns of brain damage. Trajectories of recovery were then investigated as a function of group (i.e. lesion location and extent) and speech/language domain (overall language function, word comprehension, sentence comprehension, word finding, grammatical construction, phonological encoding, speech motor programming, speech motor execution, and reading). We found that aphasia is dynamic, multidimensional, and gradated, with little explanatory role for aphasia subtypes or binary concepts such as fluency. Patients with circumscribed frontal lesions recovered well, consistent with some previous observations. More surprisingly, most patients with larger frontal lesions extending into the parietal or temporal lobes also recovered well, as did patients with relatively circumscribed temporal, temporoparietal, or parietal lesions. Persistent moderate or severe deficits were common only in patients with extensive damage throughout the middle cerebral artery distribution or extensive temporoparietal damage. There were striking differences between speech/language domains in their rates of recovery and relationships to overall language function, suggesting that specific domains differ in the extent to which they are redundantly represented throughout the language network, as opposed to depending on specialized cortical substrates. Our findings have an immediate clinical application in that they will enable clinicians to estimate the likely course of recovery for individual patients, as well as the uncertainty of these predictions, based on acutely observable neurological factors.
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Affiliation(s)
- Stephen M Wilson
- Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN 37232, USA
- Department of Radiology and Radiological Sciences, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN 37232, USA
| | - Jillian L Entrup
- Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN 37232, USA
| | - Sarah M Schneck
- Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN 37232, USA
| | - Caitlin F Onuscheck
- Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN 37232, USA
| | - Deborah F Levy
- Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN 37232, USA
| | - Maysaa Rahman
- Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN 37232, USA
| | - Emma Willey
- Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN 37232, USA
| | - Marianne Casilio
- Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN 37232, USA
| | - Melodie Yen
- Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN 37232, USA
| | | | - Wayneho Kam
- Department of Neurology, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN 37232, USA
- Vanderbilt Stroke and Cerebrovascular Center, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN 37232, USA
| | - L Taylor Davis
- Department of Radiology and Radiological Sciences, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN 37232, USA
| | - Michael de Riesthal
- Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN 37232, USA
| | - Howard S Kirshner
- Department of Neurology, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN 37232, USA
- Vanderbilt Stroke and Cerebrovascular Center, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN 37232, USA
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9
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Fedorenko E, Ryskin R, Gibson E. Agrammatic output in non-fluent, including Broca's, aphasia as a rational behavior. APHASIOLOGY 2022; 37:1981-2000. [PMID: 38213953 PMCID: PMC10782888 DOI: 10.1080/02687038.2022.2143233] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/11/2022] [Accepted: 10/31/2022] [Indexed: 01/13/2024]
Abstract
Background Speech of individuals with non-fluent, including Broca's, aphasia is often characterized as "agrammatic" because their output mostly consists of nouns and, to a lesser extent, verbs and lacks function words, like articles and prepositions, and correct morphological endings. Among the earliest accounts of agrammatic output in the early 1900s was the "economy of effort" idea whereby agrammatic output is construed as a way of coping with increases in the cost of language production. This idea resurfaced in the 1980s, but in general, the field of language research has largely focused on accounts of agrammatism that postulated core deficits in syntactic knowledge. Aims We here revisit the economy of effort hypothesis in light of increasing emphasis in cognitive science on rational and efficient behavior. Main contribution The critical idea is as follows: there is a cost per unit of linguistic output, and this cost is greater for patients with non-fluent aphasia. For a rational agent, this increase leads to shorter messages. Critically, the informative parts of the message should be preserved and the redundant ones (like the function words and inflectional markers) should be omitted. Although economy of effort is unlikely to provide a unifying account of agrammatic output in all patients-the relevant population is too heterogeneous and the empirical landscape too complex for any single-factor explanation-we argue that the idea of agrammatic output as a rational behavior was dismissed prematurely and appears to provide a plausible explanation for a large subset of the reported cases of expressive aphasia. Conclusions The rational account of expressive agrammatism should be evaluated more carefully and systematically. On the basic research side, pursuing this hypothesis may reveal how the human mind and brain optimize communicative efficiency in the presence of production difficulties. And on the applied side, this construal of expressive agrammatism emphasizes the strengths of some patients to flexibly adapt utterances in order to communicate in spite of grammatical difficulties; and focusing on these strengths may be more effective than trying to "fix" their grammar.
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Affiliation(s)
- Evelina Fedorenko
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Brain & Cognitive Sciences Department
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology, McGovern Institute for Brain Research
- Speech and Hearing in Bioscience and Technology program at Harvard University
| | - Rachel Ryskin
- University of California at Merced, Cognitive & Information Sciences Department
| | - Edward Gibson
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Brain & Cognitive Sciences Department
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10
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Pillay SB, Gross WL, Heffernan J, Book DS, Binder JR. Semantic network activation facilitates oral word reading in chronic aphasia. BRAIN AND LANGUAGE 2022; 233:105164. [PMID: 35933744 PMCID: PMC9948519 DOI: 10.1016/j.bandl.2022.105164] [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: 06/25/2021] [Revised: 03/22/2022] [Accepted: 07/24/2022] [Indexed: 06/15/2023]
Abstract
People with aphasia often show partial impairments on a given task. This trial-to-trial variability offers a potential window into understanding how damaged language networks function. We test the hypothesis that successful word reading in participants with phonological system damage reflects semantic system recruitment. Residual semantic and phonological networks were defined with fMRI in 21 stroke participants with phonological damage using semantic- and rhyme-matching tasks. Participants performed an oral word reading task, and activation was compared between correct and incorrect trials within the semantic and phonological networks. The results showed a significant interaction between hemisphere, network activation, and reading success. Activation in the left hemisphere semantic network was higher when participants successfully read words. Residual phonological regions showed no difference in activation between correct and incorrect trials on the word reading task. The results provide evidence that semantic processing supports successful phonological retrieval in participants with phonological impairment.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sara B Pillay
- Department of Neurology and the Center for Imaging Research, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI 53226, United States.
| | - William L Gross
- Department of Neurology and the Center for Imaging Research, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI 53226, United States; Department of Anesthesiology, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI 53226, United States
| | - Joseph Heffernan
- Department of Neurology and the Center for Imaging Research, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI 53226, United States
| | - Diane S Book
- Department of Neurology and the Center for Imaging Research, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI 53226, United States
| | - Jeffrey R Binder
- Department of Neurology and the Center for Imaging Research, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI 53226, United States
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11
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Distinct spatiotemporal patterns of syntactic and semantic processing in human inferior frontal gyrus. Nat Hum Behav 2022; 6:1104-1111. [PMID: 35618778 DOI: 10.1038/s41562-022-01334-6] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/22/2020] [Accepted: 03/09/2022] [Indexed: 11/08/2022]
Abstract
Human languages are based on syntax, a set of rules which allow an infinite number of meaningful sentences to be constructed from a finite set of words. A theory associated with Chomsky and others holds that syntax is a mind-internal, universal structure independent of semantics. This theory, however, has been challenged by studies of the Chinese language showing that syntax is processed under the semantic umbrella, and is secondary and not independent. Here, using intracranial high-density electrocorticography, we find distinct spatiotemporal patterns of neural activity in the left inferior frontal gyrus that are specifically associated with syntactic and semantic processing of Chinese sentences. These results suggest that syntactic processing may occur before semantic processing. Our findings are consistent with the view that the human brain implements syntactic structures in a manner that is independent of semantics.
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12
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Kirsch S, Elser C, Barbieri E, Kümmerer D, Weiller C, Musso M. Syntax Acquisition in Healthy Adults and Post-Stroke Individuals: The Intriguing Role of Grammatical Preference, Statistical Learning, and Education. Brain Sci 2022; 12:616. [PMID: 35625003 PMCID: PMC9139563 DOI: 10.3390/brainsci12050616] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/13/2022] [Revised: 05/03/2022] [Accepted: 05/05/2022] [Indexed: 11/17/2022] Open
Abstract
Previous work has provided contrasting evidence on syntax acquisition. Syntax-internal factors, i.e., instinctive knowledge of the universals of grammar (UG) for finite-state grammar (FSG) and phrase-structure grammar (PSG) but also syntax-external factors such as language competence, working memory (WM) and demographic factors may affect syntax acquisition. This study employed an artificial grammar paradigm to identify which factors predicted syntax acquisition. Thirty-seven healthy individuals and forty-nine left-hemispheric stroke patients (fourteen with aphasia) read syllable sequences adhering to or violating FSG and PSG. They performed preference classifications followed by grammatical classifications (after training). Results showed the best classification accuracy for sequences adhering to UG, with performance predicted by syntactic competence and spatial WM. Classification of ungrammatical sequences improved after training and was predicted by verbal WM. Although accuracy on FSG was better than on PSG, generalization was fully possible only for PSG. Education was the best predictor of syntax acquisition, while aphasia and lesion volume were not predictors. This study shows a clear preference for UG, which is influenced by spatial and linguistic knowledge, but not by the presence of aphasia. Verbal WM supported the identification of rule violations. Moreover, the acquisition of FSG and PSG was related to partially different mechanisms, but both depended on education.
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Affiliation(s)
- Simon Kirsch
- Department of Neurology, University Medical Center Freiburg, Breisacherstrasse 64, 79106 Freiburg, Germany; (S.K.); (C.E.); (D.K.); (C.W.)
- Clinic for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Hauptstraße 8, 79104 Freiburg, Germany
| | - Carolin Elser
- Department of Neurology, University Medical Center Freiburg, Breisacherstrasse 64, 79106 Freiburg, Germany; (S.K.); (C.E.); (D.K.); (C.W.)
| | - Elena Barbieri
- Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Northwestern University, 2240 Campus Drive, Evanston, IL 60208-2952, USA;
| | - Dorothee Kümmerer
- Department of Neurology, University Medical Center Freiburg, Breisacherstrasse 64, 79106 Freiburg, Germany; (S.K.); (C.E.); (D.K.); (C.W.)
- Medizinische Akademie, Schule für Logopädie, Schönauer Str. 4, 79115 Freiburg, Germany
| | - Cornelius Weiller
- Department of Neurology, University Medical Center Freiburg, Breisacherstrasse 64, 79106 Freiburg, Germany; (S.K.); (C.E.); (D.K.); (C.W.)
| | - Mariacristina Musso
- Department of Neurology, University Medical Center Freiburg, Breisacherstrasse 64, 79106 Freiburg, Germany; (S.K.); (C.E.); (D.K.); (C.W.)
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13
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Goldberg AE, Ferreira F. Good-enough language production. Trends Cogn Sci 2022; 26:300-311. [PMID: 35241380 PMCID: PMC8956348 DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2022.01.005] [Citation(s) in RCA: 15] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/22/2021] [Revised: 01/10/2022] [Accepted: 01/18/2022] [Indexed: 11/24/2022]
Abstract
Our ability to comprehend and produce language is one of humans' most impressive skills, but it is not flawless. We must convey and interpret messages via a noisy channel in ever-changing contexts and we sometimes fail to access an optimal combination of words and grammatical constructions. Here, we extend the notion of good-enough (GN) comprehension to GN production, which allows us to unify a wide range of phenomena including overly vague word choices, agreement errors, resumptive pronouns, transfer effects, and children's overextensions and regularizations. We suggest these all involve the accessing and production of a 'GN' option when a more-optimal option is inaccessible. The role of accessibility highlights the need to relate memory encoding and retrieval processes to language comprehension and production.
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Affiliation(s)
- Adele E Goldberg
- Department of Psychology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA.
| | - Fernanda Ferreira
- Department of Psychology, University of California, Davis, Davis, CA 95616, USA.
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14
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Matchin W, Basilakos A, Ouden DBD, Stark BC, Hickok G, Fridriksson J. Functional differentiation in the language network revealed by lesion-symptom mapping. Neuroimage 2022; 247:118778. [PMID: 34896587 PMCID: PMC8830186 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2021.118778] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/04/2021] [Revised: 11/17/2021] [Accepted: 12/02/2021] [Indexed: 12/18/2022] Open
Abstract
Theories of language organization in the brain commonly posit that different regions underlie distinct linguistic mechanisms. However, such theories have been criticized on the grounds that many neuroimaging studies of language processing find similar effects across regions. Moreover, condition by region interaction effects, which provide the strongest evidence of functional differentiation between regions, have rarely been offered in support of these theories. Here we address this by using lesion-symptom mapping in three large, partially-overlapping groups of aphasia patients with left hemisphere brain damage due to stroke (N = 121, N = 92, N = 218). We identified multiple measure by region interaction effects, associating damage to the posterior middle temporal gyrus with syntactic comprehension deficits, damage to posterior inferior frontal gyrus with expressive agrammatism, and damage to inferior angular gyrus with semantic category word fluency deficits. Our results are inconsistent with recent hypotheses that regions of the language network are undifferentiated with respect to high-level linguistic processing.
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Affiliation(s)
- William Matchin
- Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of South Carolina, Discovery 1, Room 202D, 915 Greene St., Columbia, SC 29208, United States.
| | - Alexandra Basilakos
- Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of South Carolina, Discovery 1, Room 202D, 915 Greene St., Columbia, SC 29208, United States
| | - Dirk-Bart den Ouden
- Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of South Carolina, Discovery 1, Room 202D, 915 Greene St., Columbia, SC 29208, United States
| | - Brielle C Stark
- Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences, Program in Neuroscience, Indiana University Bloomington, Bloomington, Indiana, United States
| | - Gregory Hickok
- Department of Cognitive Sciences, Department of Language Science, University of California, Irvine, California, United States
| | - Julius Fridriksson
- Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of South Carolina, Discovery 1, Room 202D, 915 Greene St., Columbia, SC 29208, United States
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15
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What is Functional Communication? A Theoretical Framework for Real-World Communication Applied to Aphasia Rehabilitation. Neuropsychol Rev 2022; 32:937-973. [PMID: 35076868 PMCID: PMC9630202 DOI: 10.1007/s11065-021-09531-2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/25/2022]
Abstract
Aphasia is an impairment of language caused by acquired brain damage such as stroke or traumatic brain injury, that affects a person’s ability to communicate effectively. The aim of rehabilitation in aphasia is to improve everyday communication, improving an individual’s ability to function in their day-to-day life. For that reason, a thorough understanding of naturalistic communication and its underlying mechanisms is imperative. The field of aphasiology currently lacks an agreed, comprehensive, theoretically founded definition of communication. Instead, multiple disparate interpretations of functional communication are used. We argue that this makes it nearly impossible to validly and reliably assess a person’s communicative performance, to target this behaviour through therapy, and to measure improvements post-therapy. In this article we propose a structured, theoretical approach to defining the concept of functional communication. We argue for a view of communication as “situated language use”, borrowed from empirical psycholinguistic studies with non-brain damaged adults. This framework defines language use as: (1) interactive, (2) multimodal, and (3) contextual. Existing research on each component of the framework from non-brain damaged adults and people with aphasia is reviewed. The consequences of adopting this approach to assessment and therapy for aphasia rehabilitation are discussed. The aim of this article is to encourage a more systematic, comprehensive approach to the study and treatment of situated language use in aphasia.
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16
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Fromm D, Greenhouse J, Pudil M, Shi Y, MacWhinney B. Enhancing the Classification of Aphasia: A Statistical Analysis Using Connected Speech. APHASIOLOGY 2021; 36:1492-1519. [PMID: 36457942 PMCID: PMC9708051 DOI: 10.1080/02687038.2021.1975636] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/09/2020] [Accepted: 08/30/2021] [Indexed: 05/31/2023]
Abstract
BACKGROUND Large shared databases and automated language analyses allow for the application of new data analysis techniques that can shed new light on the connected speech of people with aphasia (PWA). AIMS To identify coherent clusters of PWA based on language output using unsupervised statistical algorithms and to identify features that are most strongly associated with those clusters. METHODS & PROCEDURES Clustering and classification methods were applied to language production data from 168 PWA. Language samples were from a standard discourse protocol tapping four genres: free speech personal narratives, picture descriptions, Cinderella storytelling, procedural discourse. OUTCOMES & RESULTS Seven distinct clusters of PWA were identified by the K-means algorithm. Using the random forests algorithm, a classification tree was proposed and validated, showing 91% agreement with the cluster assignments. This representative tree used only two variables to divide the data into distinct groups: total words from free speech tasks and total closed class words from the Cinderella storytelling task. CONCLUSION Connected speech data can be used to distinguish PWA into coherent groups, providing insight into traditional aphasia classifications, factors that may guide discourse research and clinical work.
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Affiliation(s)
- Davida Fromm
- Department of Psychology, Carnegie Mellon University
| | - Joel Greenhouse
- Department of Statistics & Data Science, Carnegie Mellon University
| | - Mitchell Pudil
- Department of Statistics & Data Science, Carnegie Mellon University
| | - Yichun Shi
- Department of Statistics & Data Science, Carnegie Mellon University
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17
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Lakretz Y, Hupkes D, Vergallito A, Marelli M, Baroni M, Dehaene S. Mechanisms for handling nested dependencies in neural-network language models and humans. Cognition 2021; 213:104699. [PMID: 33941375 DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2021.104699] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/17/2020] [Revised: 03/17/2021] [Accepted: 03/22/2021] [Indexed: 11/25/2022]
Abstract
Recursive processing in sentence comprehension is considered a hallmark of human linguistic abilities. However, its underlying neural mechanisms remain largely unknown. We studied whether a modern artificial neural network trained with "deep learning" methods mimics a central aspect of human sentence processing, namely the storing of grammatical number and gender information in working memory and its use in long-distance agreement (e.g., capturing the correct number agreement between subject and verb when they are separated by other phrases). Although the network, a recurrent architecture with Long Short-Term Memory units, was solely trained to predict the next word in a large corpus, analysis showed the emergence of a very sparse set of specialized units that successfully handled local and long-distance syntactic agreement for grammatical number. However, the simulations also showed that this mechanism does not support full recursion and fails with some long-range embedded dependencies. We tested the model's predictions in a behavioral experiment where humans detected violations in number agreement in sentences with systematic variations in the singular/plural status of multiple nouns, with or without embedding. Human and model error patterns were remarkably similar, showing that the model echoes various effects observed in human data. However, a key difference was that, with embedded long-range dependencies, humans remained above chance level, while the model's systematic errors brought it below chance. Overall, our study shows that exploring the ways in which modern artificial neural networks process sentences leads to precise and testable hypotheses about human linguistic performance.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yair Lakretz
- Cognitive Neuroimaging Unit, CEA, INSERM, Université Paris-Saclay, NeuroSpin center, 91191 Gif/Yvette, France.
| | | | | | - Marco Marelli
- Department of Psychology and NeuroMi, University of Milano Bicocca, Milano, Italy
| | - Marco Baroni
- Facebook AI Research, Paris, France; Catalan Institute for Research and Advanced Studies, Barcelona 08010, Spain
| | - Stanislas Dehaene
- Cognitive Neuroimaging Unit, CEA, INSERM, Université Paris-Saclay, NeuroSpin center, 91191 Gif/Yvette, France; Collège de France, Université Paris-Sciences-Lettres (PSL), 11 Place Marcelin Berthelot, 75005 Paris, France
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18
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German Language Adaptation of the NAVS (NAVS-G) and of the NAT (NAT-G): Testing Grammar in Aphasia. Brain Sci 2021; 11:brainsci11040474. [PMID: 33918022 PMCID: PMC8069474 DOI: 10.3390/brainsci11040474] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/30/2020] [Revised: 04/02/2021] [Accepted: 04/04/2021] [Indexed: 11/17/2022] Open
Abstract
Grammar provides the framework for understanding and producing language. In aphasia, an acquired language disorder, grammatical deficits are diversified and widespread. However, the few assessments for testing grammar in the German language do not consider current linguistic, psycholinguistic, and functional imaging data, which have been shown to be crucial for effective treatment. This study developed German language versions of the Northwestern Assessment of Verbs and Sentences (NAVS-G) and the Northwestern Anagram Test (NAT-G) to examine comprehension and production of verbs, controlling for the number and optionality of verb arguments, and sentences with increasing syntactic complexity. The NAVS-G and NAT-G were tested in 27 healthy participants, 15 right hemispheric stroke patients without aphasia, and 15 stroke patients with mild to residual aphasia. Participants without aphasia showed near-perfect performance, with the exception of (object) relative sentences, where accuracy was associated with educational level. In each patient with aphasia, deficits in more than one subtest were observed. The within and between population-groups logistic mixed regression analyses identified significant impairments in processing syntactic complexity at the verb and sentence levels. These findings indicate that the NAVS-G and NAT-G have potential for testing grammatical competence in (German) stroke patients.
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19
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Friston KJ, Parr T, Yufik Y, Sajid N, Price CJ, Holmes E. Generative models, linguistic communication and active inference. Neurosci Biobehav Rev 2020; 118:42-64. [PMID: 32687883 PMCID: PMC7758713 DOI: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2020.07.005] [Citation(s) in RCA: 30] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/25/2020] [Revised: 06/26/2020] [Accepted: 07/08/2020] [Indexed: 11/24/2022]
Abstract
This paper presents a biologically plausible generative model and inference scheme that is capable of simulating communication between synthetic subjects who talk to each other. Building on active inference formulations of dyadic interactions, we simulate linguistic exchange to explore generative models that support dialogues. These models employ high-order interactions among abstract (discrete) states in deep (hierarchical) models. The sequential nature of language processing mandates generative models with a particular factorial structure-necessary to accommodate the rich combinatorics of language. We illustrate linguistic communication by simulating a synthetic subject who can play the 'Twenty Questions' game. In this game, synthetic subjects take the role of the questioner or answerer, using the same generative model. This simulation setup is used to illustrate some key architectural points and demonstrate that many behavioural and neurophysiological correlates of linguistic communication emerge under variational (marginal) message passing, given the right kind of generative model. For example, we show that theta-gamma coupling is an emergent property of belief updating, when listening to another.
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Affiliation(s)
- Karl J Friston
- The Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging, UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology, 12 Queen Square, London, WC1N 3AR, UK.
| | - Thomas Parr
- The Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging, UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology, 12 Queen Square, London, WC1N 3AR, UK.
| | - Yan Yufik
- Virtual Structures Research, Inc., 12204 Saint James Rd, Potomac, MD 20854, USA.
| | - Noor Sajid
- The Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging, UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology, 12 Queen Square, London, WC1N 3AR, UK.
| | - Catherine J Price
- The Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging, UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology, 12 Queen Square, London, WC1N 3AR, UK.
| | - Emma Holmes
- The Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging, UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology, 12 Queen Square, London, WC1N 3AR, UK.
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20
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Blank IA, Fedorenko E. No evidence for differences among language regions in their temporal receptive windows. Neuroimage 2020; 219:116925. [PMID: 32407994 PMCID: PMC9392830 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2020.116925] [Citation(s) in RCA: 36] [Impact Index Per Article: 9.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/23/2019] [Revised: 03/20/2020] [Accepted: 05/06/2020] [Indexed: 10/24/2022] Open
Abstract
The "core language network" consists of left frontal and temporal regions that are selectively engaged in linguistic processing. Whereas functional differences among these regions have long been debated, many accounts propose distinctions in terms of representational grain-size-e.g., words vs. phrases/sentences-or processing time-scale, i.e., operating on local linguistic features vs. larger spans of input. Indeed, the topography of language regions appears to overlap with a cortical hierarchy reported by Lerner et al. (2011) wherein mid-posterior temporal regions are sensitive to low-level features of speech, surrounding areas-to word-level information, and inferior frontal areas-to sentence-level information and beyond. However, the correspondence between the language network and this hierarchy of "temporal receptive windows" (TRWs) is difficult to establish because the precise anatomical locations of language regions vary across individuals. To directly test this correspondence, we first identified language regions in each participant with a well-validated task-based localizer, which confers high functional resolution to the study of TRWs (traditionally based on stereotactic coordinates); then, we characterized regional TRWs with the naturalistic story listening paradigm of Lerner et al. (2011), which augments task-based characterizations of the language network by more closely resembling comprehension "in the wild". We find no region-by-TRW interactions across temporal and inferior frontal regions, which are all sensitive to both word-level and sentence-level information. Therefore, the language network as a whole constitutes a unique stage of information integration within a broader cortical hierarchy.
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Affiliation(s)
- Idan A Blank
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA.
| | - Evelina Fedorenko
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA
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21
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Fedorenko E, Blank IA, Siegelman M, Mineroff Z. Lack of selectivity for syntax relative to word meanings throughout the language network. Cognition 2020; 203:104348. [PMID: 32569894 DOI: 10.1101/477851] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/23/2018] [Revised: 05/14/2020] [Accepted: 05/31/2020] [Indexed: 05/25/2023]
Abstract
To understand what you are reading now, your mind retrieves the meanings of words and constructions from a linguistic knowledge store (lexico-semantic processing) and identifies the relationships among them to construct a complex meaning (syntactic or combinatorial processing). Do these two sets of processes rely on distinct, specialized mechanisms or, rather, share a common pool of resources? Linguistic theorizing, empirical evidence from language acquisition and processing, and computational modeling have jointly painted a picture whereby lexico-semantic and syntactic processing are deeply inter-connected and perhaps not separable. In contrast, many current proposals of the neural architecture of language continue to endorse a view whereby certain brain regions selectively support syntactic/combinatorial processing, although the locus of such "syntactic hub", and its nature, vary across proposals. Here, we searched for selectivity for syntactic over lexico-semantic processing using a powerful individual-subjects fMRI approach across three sentence comprehension paradigms that have been used in prior work to argue for such selectivity: responses to lexico-semantic vs. morpho-syntactic violations (Experiment 1); recovery from neural suppression across pairs of sentences differing in only lexical items vs. only syntactic structure (Experiment 2); and same/different meaning judgments on such sentence pairs (Experiment 3). Across experiments, both lexico-semantic and syntactic conditions elicited robust responses throughout the left fronto-temporal language network. Critically, however, no regions were more strongly engaged by syntactic than lexico-semantic processing, although some regions showed the opposite pattern. Thus, contra many current proposals of the neural architecture of language, syntactic/combinatorial processing is not separable from lexico-semantic processing at the level of brain regions-or even voxel subsets-within the language network, in line with strong integration between these two processes that has been consistently observed in behavioral and computational language research. The results further suggest that the language network may be generally more strongly concerned with meaning than syntactic form, in line with the primary function of language-to share meanings across minds.
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Affiliation(s)
- Evelina Fedorenko
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA; McGovern Institute for Brain Research, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
| | - Idan Asher Blank
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA; Department of Psychology, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA
| | - Matthew Siegelman
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA; Department of Psychology, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, USA
| | - Zachary Mineroff
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA; Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence & Educational Innovation, CMU, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA
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22
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Fedorenko E, Blank IA, Siegelman M, Mineroff Z. Lack of selectivity for syntax relative to word meanings throughout the language network. Cognition 2020; 203:104348. [PMID: 32569894 PMCID: PMC7483589 DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2020.104348] [Citation(s) in RCA: 72] [Impact Index Per Article: 18.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/23/2018] [Revised: 05/14/2020] [Accepted: 05/31/2020] [Indexed: 12/31/2022]
Abstract
To understand what you are reading now, your mind retrieves the meanings of words and constructions from a linguistic knowledge store (lexico-semantic processing) and identifies the relationships among them to construct a complex meaning (syntactic or combinatorial processing). Do these two sets of processes rely on distinct, specialized mechanisms or, rather, share a common pool of resources? Linguistic theorizing, empirical evidence from language acquisition and processing, and computational modeling have jointly painted a picture whereby lexico-semantic and syntactic processing are deeply inter-connected and perhaps not separable. In contrast, many current proposals of the neural architecture of language continue to endorse a view whereby certain brain regions selectively support syntactic/combinatorial processing, although the locus of such "syntactic hub", and its nature, vary across proposals. Here, we searched for selectivity for syntactic over lexico-semantic processing using a powerful individual-subjects fMRI approach across three sentence comprehension paradigms that have been used in prior work to argue for such selectivity: responses to lexico-semantic vs. morpho-syntactic violations (Experiment 1); recovery from neural suppression across pairs of sentences differing in only lexical items vs. only syntactic structure (Experiment 2); and same/different meaning judgments on such sentence pairs (Experiment 3). Across experiments, both lexico-semantic and syntactic conditions elicited robust responses throughout the left fronto-temporal language network. Critically, however, no regions were more strongly engaged by syntactic than lexico-semantic processing, although some regions showed the opposite pattern. Thus, contra many current proposals of the neural architecture of language, syntactic/combinatorial processing is not separable from lexico-semantic processing at the level of brain regions-or even voxel subsets-within the language network, in line with strong integration between these two processes that has been consistently observed in behavioral and computational language research. The results further suggest that the language network may be generally more strongly concerned with meaning than syntactic form, in line with the primary function of language-to share meanings across minds.
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Affiliation(s)
- Evelina Fedorenko
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA; McGovern Institute for Brain Research, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
| | - Idan Asher Blank
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA; Department of Psychology, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA
| | - Matthew Siegelman
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA; Department of Psychology, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, USA
| | - Zachary Mineroff
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA; Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence & Educational Innovation, CMU, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA
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23
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Fyndanis V, Messinis L, Nasios G, Dardiotis E, Martzoukou M, Pitopoulou M, Ntoskou A, Malefaki S. Impaired Verb-Related Morphosyntactic Production in Multiple Sclerosis: Evidence From Greek. Front Psychol 2020; 11:2051. [PMID: 32973621 PMCID: PMC7481395 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.02051] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/16/2020] [Accepted: 07/24/2020] [Indexed: 01/28/2023] Open
Abstract
Background A recent systematic review found that language deficits are not very common in individuals with multiple sclerosis (MS). However, there are significant gaps in our knowledge about language abilities in MS. For instance, morphosyntactic production has not been explored adequately thus far. This study investigated verb-related morphosyntactic production in MS focusing on Greek, a morphologically rich language. Methods A sentence completion task tapping into the production of subject-verb agreement, time reference/tense, and grammatical aspect was administered to 39 Greek-speaking individuals with MS [25 individuals with relapsing-remitting MS (RRMS group) and 14 individuals with secondary progressive MS (SPMS group)]. The task included only regular verbs. Generalized linear mixed-effects models were used to investigate the ability of individuals with MS to produce the above-mentioned morphosyntactic categories. Results Overall, the RRMS and SPMS groups performed significantly worse than their matched control groups. Moreover, all four groups performed significantly worse on grammatical aspect than on subject-verb agreement and time reference. The difference between subject-verb agreement and time reference was not significant in any of the four groups. The overall performances of the RRMS and SPMS groups did not differ significantly. Conclusion Individuals with MS are impaired in verb-related morphosyntactic production. Moreover, the pattern of performance of individuals with MS is identical to that exhibited by neurologically healthy individuals. Thus, the production performance of individuals with MS on verb inflection differs from that of healthy controls quantitatively but not qualitatively.
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Affiliation(s)
- Valantis Fyndanis
- Center for Multilingualism in Society Across the Lifespan (MultiLing), University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway.,Department of Rehabilitation Sciences, Cyprus University of Technology, Limassol, Cyprus
| | - Lambros Messinis
- Neuropsychology Section, Departments of Psychiatry and Neurology, University Hospital of Patras and University of Patras Medical School, Patras, Greece
| | - Grigorios Nasios
- Department of Speech and Language Therapy, School of Health Sciences, University of Ioannina, Ioannina, Greece
| | - Efthimios Dardiotis
- Department of Neurology, University Hospital of Larisa, University of Thessaly, Larisa, Greece
| | - Maria Martzoukou
- Department of Speech and Language Therapy, School of Health Sciences, University of Ioannina, Ioannina, Greece
| | - Maria Pitopoulou
- Department of Speech and Language Therapy, School of Health Sciences, University of Ioannina, Ioannina, Greece
| | - Aikaterini Ntoskou
- Rehabilitation Unit for Patients with Spinal Cord Injury, "Demetrios and Vera Sfikas", Department of Medicine, University of Patras, Patras, Greece
| | - Sonia Malefaki
- Department of Mechanical Engineering and Aeronautics, University of Patras, Patras, Greece
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Sung JE, Choi S, Eom B, Yoo JK, Jeong JH. Syntactic Complexity as a Linguistic Marker to Differentiate Mild Cognitive Impairment From Normal Aging. JOURNAL OF SPEECH, LANGUAGE, AND HEARING RESEARCH : JSLHR 2020; 63:1416-1429. [PMID: 32402217 DOI: 10.1044/2020_jslhr-19-00335] [Citation(s) in RCA: 15] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/11/2023]
Abstract
Purpose In this study, we sought to identify critical linguistic markers that can differentiate sentence processing of individuals with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) from the sentence processing of normal-aging populations by manipulating sentences' linguistic complexity. We investigated whether passive sentences, as linguistically complex structures, can serve as linguistic markers that can contribute to diagnoses that distinguish MCI from normal aging. Method In total, 52 participants, including 26 adults with amnestic MCI and 26 cognitively unimpaired adults, participated in the study. All participants were native speakers of Korean. We administered the two subsets of active and passive conditions using a sentence-picture paradigm with semantically reversible sentences to both groups. Results A mixed-effects model using PROC NLMIXED demonstrated that the MCI group exhibited differentially greater difficulty in processing passive than active sentences compared to the normal-aging group. A logistic regression fitted with the PROC LOGISTIC model identified the sum of the passive sentences, with age and education effects as the best models to distinguish individuals with MCI from the normal-aging group. Conclusion Sentence comprehension deficits emerged in the MCI stage when the syntactic complexity was increased. Furthermore, a passive structure was the best predictor for efficiently distinguishing the MCI group from the normal-aging group. These results are clinically and theoretically important, given that linguistic complexity can serve as a critical behavioral marker in the detection of early symptoms associated with linguistic-cognitive decline.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jee Eun Sung
- Department of Communication Disorders, Ewha Womans University, Seoul, Republic of Korea
| | - Sujin Choi
- Department of Communication Disorders, Ewha Womans University, Seoul, Republic of Korea
| | - Bora Eom
- Department of Communication Disorders, Ewha Womans University, Seoul, Republic of Korea
| | - Jae Keun Yoo
- Department of Statistics, Ewha Womans University, Seoul, Republic of Korea
| | - Jee Hyang Jeong
- Department of Neurology, Ewha Womans University Mokdong Hospital, Ewha Womans University School of Medicine, Seoul, Republic of Korea
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Matchin W, Basilakos A, Stark BC, den Ouden DB, Fridriksson J, Hickok G. Agrammatism and Paragrammatism: A Cortical Double Dissociation Revealed by Lesion-Symptom Mapping. NEUROBIOLOGY OF LANGUAGE (CAMBRIDGE, MASS.) 2020; 1:208-225. [PMID: 34296193 PMCID: PMC8293792 DOI: 10.1162/nol_a_00010] [Citation(s) in RCA: 28] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/15/2020] [Accepted: 03/27/2020] [Indexed: 05/21/2023]
Abstract
The fundamental distinction of grammatical deficits in aphasia, agrammatism and paragrammatism, was made over a century ago. However, the extent to which the agrammatism/paragrammatism distinction exists independently of differences in speech fluency has not clearly been investigated. Despite much research on agrammatism, the lesion correlates of paragrammatism are essentially unknown. Lesion-symptom mapping was used to investigate the degree to which the lesion correlates of agrammatism and paragrammatism overlap or dissociate. Four expert raters assessed videos of 53 right-handed patients with aphasia following chronic left-hemisphere stroke retelling the Cinderella story. Consensus discussion determined each subject's classification with respect to grammatical deficits as Agrammatic, Paragrammatic, Both, or No Grammatical Deficit. Each subject's lesion was manually drawn on a high-resolution MRI and warped to standard space for group analyses. Lesion-symptom mapping analyses were performed in NiiStat including lesion volume as a covariate. Secondary analyses included speech rate (words per minute) as an additional covariate. Region of interest analyses identified a double dissociation between these syndromes: damage to Broca's area was significantly associated with agrammatism, p = 0.001 (but not paragrammatism, p = 0.930), while damage to the left posterior superior and middle temporal gyri was significantly associated with paragrammatism, p < 0.001 (but not agrammatism, p = 0.873). The same results obtained when regressing out the effect of speech rate, and nonoverlapping lesion distributions between the syndromes were confirmed by uncorrected whole brain analyses. Our results support a fundamental distinction between agrammatism and paragrammatism.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Alexandra Basilakos
- Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of South Carolina
| | - Brielle C. Stark
- ISpeech and Hearing Sciences Department and Program in Neuroscience Faculty, Indiana University Bloomington
| | - Dirk-Bart den Ouden
- Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of South Carolina
| | - Julius Fridriksson
- Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of South Carolina
| | - Gregory Hickok
- Department of Cognitive Sciences, Department of Language Sciences, University of California, Irvine
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Shiani A, Joghataei MT, Ashayeri H, Kamali M, Razavi MR, Yadegari F. Comprehension of Complex Sentences in the Persian-Speaking Patients With Aphasia. Basic Clin Neurosci 2019; 10:199-208. [PMID: 31462975 PMCID: PMC6712637 DOI: 10.32598/bcn.9.10.185] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/03/2016] [Revised: 12/25/2016] [Accepted: 04/30/2018] [Indexed: 11/30/2022] Open
Abstract
Introduction: To study sentence comprehension in Persian-speaking Patients with Aphasia considering the factors of complexity. Methods: In this cross-sectional study, the performance of 6 non-fluent aphasic patients were tested and their performance was compared to 15 matched control group. Comprehension of semantically reversible sentences was assessed using a binary sentence-picture matching task. The stimuli were as follows: clefts; subject clefts and object clefts, also relative clauses; subject relatives and object relatives. All of them were types of movement-derived structures and also simple declarative sentences as the control task. Results: The best performance of aphasic patients were seen in the comprehension of subject clefts, although prior to this result we assumed that simple declarative sentences (in which there is no structural factor of complexity) can be understood easily. They showed the highest difficulty in the comprehension of object relatives. Furthermore, the performance of patients in the comprehension of relative clauses was significantly weaker than understanding the clefts. Conclusion: The outcomes of this study suggest that the sentence comprehension deficits of aphasic patients, in contrast to the specific deficit models, may not be related to linguistic disabilities. Moreover, the problems in the comprehension of non-canonical sentences may be related to failure in the allocation of attention. Finally, our results support the claims that neural characterization of the cognitive resources (e.g. working memory) is disrupted in sentence comprehension deficits.
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Affiliation(s)
- Amir Shiani
- Department of Radiology, Faculty of Allied Medical Sciences, Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences, Kermanshah, Iran
| | - Mohammad Taghi Joghataei
- Cellular and Molecular Research Center, Department of Anatomy, School of Medicine, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
| | - Hassan Ashayeri
- Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
| | - Mohammad Kamali
- Department of Basic Rehabilitation Sciences, School of Rehabilitation Sciences, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
| | | | - Fariba Yadegari
- Department of Speech Therapy, University of Social Welfare and Rehabilitation Sciences, Tehran, Iran
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Siegelman M, Blank IA, Mineroff Z, Fedorenko E. An Attempt to Conceptually Replicate the Dissociation between Syntax and Semantics during Sentence Comprehension. Neuroscience 2019; 413:219-229. [PMID: 31200104 PMCID: PMC6661197 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroscience.2019.06.003] [Citation(s) in RCA: 19] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/18/2018] [Revised: 05/31/2019] [Accepted: 06/03/2019] [Indexed: 11/24/2022]
Abstract
Is sentence structure processed by the same neural and cognitive resources that are recruited for processing word meanings, or do structure and meaning rely on distinct resources? Linguistic theorizing and much behavioral evidence suggest tight integration between lexico-semantic and syntactic representations and processing. However, most current proposals of the neural architecture of language continue to postulate a distinction between the two. One of the earlier and most cited pieces of neuroimaging evidence in favor of this dissociation comes from a paper by Dapretto and Bookheimer (1999). Using a sentence-meaning judgment task, Dapretto & Bookheimer observed two distinct peaks within the left inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG): one was more active during a lexico-semantic manipulation, and the other during a syntactic manipulation. Although the paper is highly cited, no attempt has been made, to our knowledge, to replicate the original finding. We report an fMRI study that attempts to do so. Using a combination of whole-brain, group-level ROI, and participant-specific functional ROI approaches, we fail to replicate the original dissociation. In particular, whereas parts of LIFG respond reliably more strongly during lexico-semantic than syntactic processing, no part of LIFG (including in the region defined around the peak reported by Dapretto & Bookheimer) shows the opposite pattern. We speculate that the original result was a false positive, possibly driven by a small subset of participants or items that biased a fixed-effects analysis with low power.
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Affiliation(s)
- Matthew Siegelman
- MIT, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences; Columbia University, Department of Psychology
| | - Idan A Blank
- MIT, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences; UCLA, Department of Psychology
| | | | - Evelina Fedorenko
- MIT, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences; MIT, McGovern Institute for Brain Research; MGH, Department of Psychiatry.
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28
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Zimmerman RM, Silkes JP, Kendall DL, Minkina I. The Link Between Verbal Short-Term Memory and Anomia Treatment Gains. AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SPEECH-LANGUAGE PATHOLOGY 2019; 28:1039-1052. [PMID: 31112652 DOI: 10.1044/2019_ajslp-18-0176] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/09/2023]
Abstract
Purpose A significant relationship between verbal short-term memory (STM) and language performance in people with aphasia has been found across studies. However, very few studies have examined the predictive value of verbal STM in treatment outcomes. This study aims to determine if verbal STM can be used as a predictor of treatment success. Method Retrospective data from 25 people with aphasia in a larger randomized controlled trial of phonomotor treatment were analyzed. Digit and word spans from immediately pretreatment were run in multiple linear regression models to determine whether they predict magnitude of change from pre- to posttreatment and follow-up naming accuracy. Pretreatment, immediately posttreatment, and 3 months posttreatment digit and word span scores were compared to determine if they changed following a novel treatment approach. Results Verbal STM, as measured by digit and word spans, did not predict magnitude of change in naming accuracy from pre- to posttreatment nor from pretreatment to 3 months posttreatment. Furthermore, digit and word spans did not change from pre- to posttreatment or from pretreatment to 3 months posttreatment in the overall analysis. A post hoc analysis revealed that only the less impaired group showed significant changes in word span scores from pretreatment to 3 months posttreatment. Discussion The results suggest that digit and word spans do not predict treatment gains. In a less severe subsample of participants, digit and word span scores can change following phonomotor treatment; however, the overall results suggest that span scores may not change significantly. The implications of these findings are discussed within the broader purview of theoretical and empirical associations between aphasic language and verbal STM processing.
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Affiliation(s)
- Reva M Zimmerman
- Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle
| | | | - Diane L Kendall
- Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle
- Rehabilitation Research and Development Service, VA Puget Sound DVA Medical Center, Seattle, WA
- University of Pretoria, South Africa
| | - Irene Minkina
- Communication Sciences and Disorders, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA
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Field-Testing Code-Switching Constraints: A Report on a Strategic Languages Project. LANGUAGES 2019. [DOI: 10.3390/languages4010007] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/11/2022]
Abstract
The present article provides an overview of ongoing field-based research that deploys a variety of interactive experimental procedures in three strategically chosen bilingual contact environments, whose language dyads facilitate a partial separation of morphosyntactic factors in order to test the extent to which proposed grammatical constraints on intra-sentential code-switching are independent of language-specific factors. For purposes of illustration, the possibility of language switches between subject pronouns and verbs is compared for the three bilingual groups. The first scenario includes Ecuadoran Quichua and Media Lengua (entirely Quichua syntax and system morphology, all lexical roots replaced by Spanish items; both are null-subject languages). The second juxtaposes Spanish and the Afro-Colombian creole language Palenquero; the languages share highly cognate lexicons but differ substantially in grammatical structures (including null subjects in Spanish, only overt subjects in Palenquero). Spanish and Portuguese in north-eastern Argentina along the Brazilian border form the third focus: lexically and grammatically highly cognate languages that are nonetheless kept distinct by speakers (both null-subject languages, albeit with different usage patterns). Results from the three communities reveal a residual resistance against pronoun + verb switches irrespective of the subject-verb configuration, thereby motivating the application of similar techniques to other proposed grammatical constraints.
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30
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Murray LL. Sentence Processing in Aphasia: An Examination of Material-Specific and General Cognitive Factors. JOURNAL OF NEUROLINGUISTICS 2018; 48:26-46. [PMID: 30686860 PMCID: PMC6345386 DOI: 10.1016/j.jneuroling.2018.03.007] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/16/2023]
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to characterize further the nature of sentence processing deficits in acquired aphasia. Adults with aphasia and age-and education-matched adults with no brain damage completed a battery of formal cognitive-linguistic tests and an experimental sentence judgment task, which was performed alone and during focused attention and divided attention or dual-task conditions. The specific aims were to determine whether (a) increased extra-linguistic cognitive demands (i.e., focused and divided conditions) differentially affected the sentence judgement performances of the aphasic and control groups, (b) increased extra- linguistic cognitive demands interact with stimulus parameters (i.e., syntactic complexity, number of propositions) known to influence sentence processing, and (c) syntactic- or material specific resource limitations (e.g., sentence judgment in isolation), general cognitive abilities (e.g., short-term and working memory test scores), or both share a significant relationship with dual-task outcomes. Accuracy, grammatical sensitivity, and reaction time findings were consistent with resource models of aphasia and processing accounts of aphasic syntactic limitations, underscoring the theoretical and clinical importance of acknowledging and specifying the strength and nature of interactions between linguistic and extra-linguistic cognitive processes in not only individuals with aphasia, but also other patient and typical aging populations.
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Affiliation(s)
- Laura L Murray
- School of Communication Sciences and Disorders Western University
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31
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Fedorenko E, Williams ZM, Ferreira VS. Remaining Puzzles about Morpheme Production in the Posterior Temporal Lobe. Neuroscience 2018; 392:160-163. [PMID: 30278250 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroscience.2018.09.032] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/03/2018] [Revised: 09/18/2018] [Accepted: 09/22/2018] [Indexed: 11/19/2022]
Abstract
Using data from time-resolved cortical stimulation, intracranial neural recordings, and focal surgical resections, Lee et al. (2018) demonstrate that a small area within left posterior superior temporal gyrus (pSTG) supports the ability to produce functional morphemes but not other basic aspects of language production or comprehension. These findings are intriguing because they raise important questions about the functional architecture of language processing, including critically, the relationship between production and comprehension. Here, we highlight some of the puzzles that remain and that we hope will guide future empirical explorations of the cognitive and neural mechanisms that support our capacity for language.
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Affiliation(s)
- Evelina Fedorenko
- Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States; McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, United States.
| | - Ziv M Williams
- Department of Neurosurgery, Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States; Program in Neuroscience, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States
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32
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Fyndanis V, Themistocleous C. Are there prototypical associations between time frames and aspectual values? Evidence from Greek aphasia and healthy ageing. CLINICAL LINGUISTICS & PHONETICS 2018; 33:191-217. [PMID: 29939796 DOI: 10.1080/02699206.2018.1480657] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/13/2017] [Revised: 05/16/2018] [Accepted: 05/21/2018] [Indexed: 06/08/2023]
Abstract
Time reference, which has been found to be selectively impaired in agrammatic aphasia, is often interwoven with grammatical aspect. A recent study on Russian aphasia found that time reference and aspect interact: Past reference was less impaired when tested within a perfective aspect context (compared to when tested within an imperfective aspect context), and reference to the non-past was less impaired when tested within an imperfective aspect context (compared to when tested within a perfective aspect context). To explain this pattern, the authors argued that there are prototypical associations between time frames and aspectual values. The present study explores the relationship between time reference and aspect focusing on Greek aphasia and healthy ageing and using a sentence completion task that crosses time reference and aspect. The findings do not support prototypical matches between different time frames and aspectual values. Building on relevant studies, we propose that patterns of performance of healthy or language-impaired speakers on constrained tasks tapping different combinations of time frames with aspectual values should reflect the relative frequency of these combinations in a given language. The analysis of the results at the individual level revealed a double dissociation, which indicates that a given time frame-aspectual value combination may be relatively easy to process for some persons with aphasia but demanding for some others.
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Affiliation(s)
- Valantis Fyndanis
- a MultiLing/Department of Linguistics and Scandinavian Studies , University of Oslo , Oslo , Norway
- b Department of Linguistics , University of Potsdam , Potsdam , Germany
| | - Charalambos Themistocleous
- c Department of Swedish , University of Gothenburg , Gothenburg , Sweden
- d Department of Neurology, School of Medicine , Johns Hopkins University , Baltimore , Maryland , USA
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33
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Fyndanis V, Arcara G, Christidou P, Caplan D. Morphosyntactic Production and Verbal Working Memory: Evidence From Greek Aphasia and Healthy Aging. JOURNAL OF SPEECH, LANGUAGE, AND HEARING RESEARCH : JSLHR 2018; 61:1171-1187. [PMID: 29710332 DOI: 10.1044/2018_jslhr-l-17-0103] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/21/2017] [Accepted: 12/22/2017] [Indexed: 06/08/2023]
Abstract
PURPOSE The present work investigated whether verbal working memory (WM) affects morphosyntactic production in configurations that do not involve or favor similarity-based interference and whether WM interacts with verb-related morphosyntactic categories and/or cue-target distance (locality). It also explored whether the findings related to the questions above lend support to a recent account of agrammatic morphosyntactic production: Interpretable Features' Impairment Hypothesis (Fyndanis, Varlokosta, & Tsapkini, 2012). METHOD A sentence completion task testing production of subject-verb agreement, tense/time reference, and aspect in local and nonlocal conditions and two verbal WM tasks were administered to 8 Greek-speaking persons with agrammatic aphasia (PWA) and 103 healthy participants. RESULTS The 3 morphosyntactic categories dissociated in both groups (agreement > tense > aspect). A significant interaction emerged in both groups between the 3 morphosyntactic categories and WM. There was no main effect of locality in either of the 2 groups. At the individual level, all 8 PWA exhibited dissociations between agreement, tense, and aspect, and effects of locality were contradictory. CONCLUSIONS Results suggest that individuals with WM limitations (both PWA and healthy older speakers) show dissociations between the production of verb-related morphosyntactic categories. WM affects performance shaping the pattern of morphosyntactic production (in Greek: subject-verb agreement > tense > aspect). The absence of an effect of locality suggests that executive capacities tapped by WM tasks are involved in morphosyntactic processing of demanding categories even when the cue is adjacent to the target. Results are consistent with the Interpretable Features' Impairment Hypothesis (Fyndanis et al., 2012). SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.6024428.
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Affiliation(s)
- Valantis Fyndanis
- MultiLing/Department of Linguistics and Scandinavian Studies, University of Oslo, Norway
- Department of Linguistics, University of Potsdam, Germany
| | | | | | - David Caplan
- Neuropsychology Laboratory, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston
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Higgins MC, Penney SB, Robertson EK. The Effects of Phonological Short-Term Memory and Speech Perception on Spoken Sentence Comprehension in Children: Simulating Deficits in an Experimental Design. JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLINGUISTIC RESEARCH 2017; 46:1213-1235. [PMID: 28447226 DOI: 10.1007/s10936-017-9490-2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/07/2023]
Abstract
The roles of phonological short-term memory (pSTM) and speech perception in spoken sentence comprehension were examined in an experimental design. Deficits in pSTM and speech perception were simulated through task demands while typically-developing children (N [Formula: see text] 71) completed a sentence-picture matching task. Children performed the control, simulated pSTM deficit, simulated speech perception deficit, or simulated double deficit condition. On long sentences, the double deficit group had lower scores than the control and speech perception deficit groups, and the pSTM deficit group had lower scores than the control group and marginally lower scores than the speech perception deficit group. The pSTM and speech perception groups performed similarly to groups with real deficits in these areas, who completed the control condition. Overall, scores were lowest on noncanonical long sentences. Results show pSTM has a greater effect than speech perception on sentence comprehension, at least in the tasks employed here.
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Affiliation(s)
- Meaghan C Higgins
- Department of Psychology, Cape Breton University, 1250 Grand Lake Road, Sydney, NS, BIP 6L2, Canada
- Early Intensive Behavioural Intervention Program, Nova Scotia Hearing and Speech Centres, Nova Scotia Department of Health and Wellness, Sydney, NS, Canada
| | - Sarah B Penney
- Department of Psychology, Cape Breton University, 1250 Grand Lake Road, Sydney, NS, BIP 6L2, Canada
- Department of Psychology, University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, NB, Canada
| | - Erin K Robertson
- Department of Psychology, Cape Breton University, 1250 Grand Lake Road, Sydney, NS, BIP 6L2, Canada.
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Dronkers NF, Ivanova MV, Baldo JV. What Do Language Disorders Reveal about Brain-Language Relationships? From Classic Models to Network Approaches. J Int Neuropsychol Soc 2017; 23:741-754. [PMID: 29198286 PMCID: PMC6606454 DOI: 10.1017/s1355617717001126] [Citation(s) in RCA: 19] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/29/2022]
Abstract
Studies of language disorders have shaped our understanding of brain-language relationships over the last two centuries. This article provides a review of this research and how our thinking has changed over the years regarding how the brain processes language. In the 19th century, a series of famous case studies linked distinct speech and language functions to specific portions of the left hemisphere of the brain, regions that later came to be known as Broca's and Wernicke's areas. One hundred years later, the emergence of new brain imaging tools allowed for the visualization of brain injuries in vivo that ushered in a new era of brain-behavior research and greatly expanded our understanding of the neural processes of language. Toward the end of the 20th century, sophisticated neuroimaging approaches allowed for the visualization of both structural and functional brain activity associated with language processing in both healthy individuals and in those with language disturbance. More recently, language is thought to be mediated by a much broader expanse of neural networks that covers a large number of cortical and subcortical regions and their interconnecting fiber pathways. Injury to both grey and white matter has been seen to affect the complexities of language in unique ways that have altered how we think about brain-language relationships. The findings that support this paradigm shift are described here along with the methodologies that helped to discover them, with some final thoughts on future directions, techniques, and treatment interventions for those with communication impairments. (JINS, 2017, 23, 741-754).
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Affiliation(s)
- Nina F. Dronkers
- VA Northern California Health Care System, Martinez, California
- University of California, Davis, California
- National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia
| | - Maria V. Ivanova
- VA Northern California Health Care System, Martinez, California
- National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia
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Martínez-Ferreiro S, Reyes AF, Bastiaanse R. Overcoming discourse-linking difficulties in aphasia: The case of clitic pronouns. CLINICAL LINGUISTICS & PHONETICS 2017; 31:459-477. [PMID: 28430532 DOI: 10.1080/02699206.2017.1308015] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/07/2023]
Abstract
The present study aims to contribute to the ongoing discussion about the impact of discourse-linking deficits on the performance of individuals with aphasia by providing new data from a set of rarely investigated constructions: sentences in which a clitic pronoun coexists alongside with the full DP it agrees with. To do so, we use data of individuals with non-fluent aphasias who need to overcome the difficulties in direct object (accusative) clitic production. This results in overproduction of non-target clitic right dislocations (RDs) and clitic doubling (CD). Data from 15 individual's native speakers of Spanish and Catalan are discussed. Data complement the results of previous investigations on discourse-linking effects in these languages, allowing the interpretation of results across constructions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Silvia Martínez-Ferreiro
- a Department of Nordic Studies and Linguistics, Faculty of Humanities , University of Copenhagen , Copenhagen , Denmark
| | - Andrés Felipe Reyes
- b European Master's in Clinical Linguistics (EMCL), University of Groningen , Groningen , The Netherlands
- c European Master's in Clinical Linguistics (EMCL) , University of Joensuu , Joensuu , Finland
- d European Master's in Clinical Linguistics (EMCL) , University of Milano-Bicocca , Milan , Italy
- e European Master's in Clinical Linguistics (EMCL) , University of Potsdam , Potsdam , Germany
- f Laboratory of Experimental Psychology, Faculty of Psychology , El Bosque University , Bogotá , Colombia
| | - Roelien Bastiaanse
- g Center for Language and Cognition Groningen (CLCG), University of Groningen , Groningen , The Netherlands
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Reybrouck M, Eerola T. Music and Its Inductive Power: A Psychobiological and Evolutionary Approach to Musical Emotions. Front Psychol 2017; 8:494. [PMID: 28421015 PMCID: PMC5378764 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00494] [Citation(s) in RCA: 22] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/22/2016] [Accepted: 03/16/2017] [Indexed: 01/27/2023] Open
Abstract
The aim of this contribution is to broaden the concept of musical meaning from an abstract and emotionally neutral cognitive representation to an emotion-integrating description that is related to the evolutionary approach to music. Starting from the dispositional machinery for dealing with music as a temporal and sounding phenomenon, musical emotions are considered as adaptive responses to be aroused in human beings as the product of neural structures that are specialized for their processing. A theoretical and empirical background is provided in order to bring together the findings of music and emotion studies and the evolutionary approach to musical meaning. The theoretical grounding elaborates on the transition from referential to affective semantics, the distinction between expression and induction of emotions, and the tension between discrete-digital and analog-continuous processing of the sounds. The empirical background provides evidence from several findings such as infant-directed speech, referential emotive vocalizations and separation calls in lower mammals, the distinction between the acoustic and vehicle mode of sound perception, and the bodily and physiological reactions to the sounds. It is argued, finally, that early affective processing reflects the way emotions make our bodies feel, which in turn reflects on the emotions expressed and decoded. As such there is a dynamic tension between nature and nurture, which is reflected in the nature-nurture-nature cycle of musical sense-making.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mark Reybrouck
- Faculty of Arts, Musicology Research Group, KU Leuven - University of LeuvenLeuven, Belgium
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Ouzia J, Filippi R. Chapter 12. The bilingual advantage in the auditory domain. ACTA ACUST UNITED AC 2016. [DOI: 10.1075/bpa.2.13ouz] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 03/23/2023]
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Blank I, Balewski Z, Mahowald K, Fedorenko E. Syntactic processing is distributed across the language system. Neuroimage 2016; 127:307-323. [PMID: 26666896 PMCID: PMC4755877 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2015.11.069] [Citation(s) in RCA: 92] [Impact Index Per Article: 11.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/29/2014] [Revised: 10/23/2015] [Accepted: 11/28/2015] [Indexed: 11/30/2022] Open
Abstract
Language comprehension recruits an extended set of regions in the human brain. Is syntactic processing localized to a particular region or regions within this system, or is it distributed across the entire ensemble of brain regions that support high-level linguistic processing? Evidence from aphasic patients is more consistent with the latter possibility: damage to many different language regions and to white-matter tracts connecting them has been shown to lead to similar syntactic comprehension deficits. However, brain imaging investigations of syntactic processing continue to focus on particular regions within the language system, often parts of Broca's area and regions in the posterior temporal cortex. We hypothesized that, whereas the entire language system is in fact sensitive to syntactic complexity, the effects in some regions may be difficult to detect because of the overall lower response to language stimuli. Using an individual-subjects approach to localizing the language system, shown in prior work to be more sensitive than traditional group analyses, we indeed find responses to syntactic complexity throughout this system, consistent with the findings from the neuropsychological patient literature. We speculate that such distributed nature of syntactic processing could perhaps imply that syntax is inseparable from other aspects of language comprehension (e.g., lexico-semantic processing), in line with current linguistic and psycholinguistic theories and evidence. Neuroimaging investigations of syntactic processing thus need to expand their scope to include the entire system of high-level language processing regions in order to fully understand how syntax is instantiated in the human brain.
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Affiliation(s)
- Idan Blank
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02139, USA; McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
| | - Zuzanna Balewski
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
| | - Kyle Mahowald
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
| | - Evelina Fedorenko
- Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital, East 13th Street, Charlestown, MA 02129, USA.
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Caplan D, Michaud J, Hufford R, Makris N. Deficit-lesion correlations in syntactic comprehension in aphasia. BRAIN AND LANGUAGE 2016; 152:14-27. [PMID: 26688433 PMCID: PMC4713299 DOI: 10.1016/j.bandl.2015.10.005] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/07/2014] [Revised: 09/09/2015] [Accepted: 10/24/2015] [Indexed: 05/30/2023]
Abstract
The effects of lesions on syntactic comprehension were studied in thirty-one people with aphasia (PWA). Participants were tested for the ability to parse and interpret four types of syntactic structures and elements - passives, object extracted relative clauses, reflexives and pronouns - in three tasks - object manipulation, sentence picture matching with full sentence presentation and sentence picture matching with self-paced listening presentation. Accuracy, end-of-sentence RT and self-paced listening times for each word were measured. MR scans were obtained and analyzed for total lesion volume and for lesion size in 48 cortical areas. Lesion size in several areas of the left hemisphere was related to accuracy in particular sentence types in particular tasks and to self-paced listening times for critical words in particular sentence types. The results support a model of brain organization that includes areas that are specialized for the combination of particular syntactic and interpretive operations and the use of the meanings produced by those operations to accomplish task-related operations.
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Affiliation(s)
- David Caplan
- Neuropsychology Laboratory, Department of Neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital, United States.
| | - Jennifer Michaud
- Neuropsychology Laboratory, Department of Neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital, United States
| | - Rebecca Hufford
- Neuropsychology Laboratory, Department of Neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital, United States
| | - Nikos Makris
- Neuropsychology Laboratory, Department of Neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital, United States
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Neuroimaging Modalities and Brain Technologies in the Context of Organizational Neuroscience. ACTA ACUST UNITED AC 2015. [DOI: 10.1108/s1479-357120150000007003] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 04/08/2023]
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Schumacher R, Cazzoli D, Eggenberger N, Preisig B, Nef T, Nyffeler T, Gutbrod K, Annoni JM, Müri RM. Cue Recognition and Integration - Eye Tracking Evidence of Processing Differences in Sentence Comprehension in Aphasia. PLoS One 2015; 10:e0142853. [PMID: 26562795 PMCID: PMC4642964 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0142853] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/14/2015] [Accepted: 10/26/2015] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
Purpose We aimed at further elucidating whether aphasic patients’ difficulties in understanding non-canonical sentence structures, such as Passive or Object-Verb-Subject sentences, can be attributed to impaired morphosyntactic cue recognition, and to problems in integrating competing interpretations. Methods A sentence-picture matching task with canonical and non-canonical spoken sentences was performed using concurrent eye tracking. Accuracy, reaction time, and eye tracking data (fixations) of 50 healthy subjects and 12 aphasic patients were analysed. Results Patients showed increased error rates and reaction times, as well as delayed fixation preferences for target pictures in non-canonical sentences. Patients’ fixation patterns differed from healthy controls and revealed deficits in recognizing and immediately integrating morphosyntactic cues. Conclusion Our study corroborates the notion that difficulties in understanding syntactically complex sentences are attributable to a processing deficit encompassing delayed and therefore impaired recognition and integration of cues, as well as increased competition between interpretations.
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Affiliation(s)
- Rahel Schumacher
- Perception and Eye Movement Laboratory, Departments of Neurology and Clinical Research, Inselspital, University Hospital Bern, and University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
- Division of Cognitive and Restorative Neurology, Department of Neurology, Inselspital, Bern University Hospital, and University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
| | - Dario Cazzoli
- Gerontechnology and Rehabilitation Group, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
- University Hospital of Old Age Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
| | - Noëmi Eggenberger
- Perception and Eye Movement Laboratory, Departments of Neurology and Clinical Research, Inselspital, University Hospital Bern, and University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
| | - Basil Preisig
- Perception and Eye Movement Laboratory, Departments of Neurology and Clinical Research, Inselspital, University Hospital Bern, and University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
| | - Tobias Nef
- Gerontechnology and Rehabilitation Group, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
- ARTORG Center for Biomedical Engineering Research, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
| | - Thomas Nyffeler
- Perception and Eye Movement Laboratory, Departments of Neurology and Clinical Research, Inselspital, University Hospital Bern, and University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
- Neurology and Neurorehabilitation Center, Luzerner Kantonsspital, Luzern, Switzerland
| | - Klemens Gutbrod
- Division of Cognitive and Restorative Neurology, Department of Neurology, Inselspital, Bern University Hospital, and University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
| | - Jean-Marie Annoni
- Neurology Unit, Laboratory for Cognitive and Neurological Sciences, Department of Medicine, Faculty of Science, University of Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland
| | - René M. Müri
- Perception and Eye Movement Laboratory, Departments of Neurology and Clinical Research, Inselspital, University Hospital Bern, and University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
- Division of Cognitive and Restorative Neurology, Department of Neurology, Inselspital, Bern University Hospital, and University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
- Gerontechnology and Rehabilitation Group, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
- Center for Cognition, Learning and Memory, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
- * E-mail:
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Knilans J, DeDe G. Online Sentence Reading in People With Aphasia: Evidence From Eye Tracking. AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SPEECH-LANGUAGE PATHOLOGY 2015; 24:S961-S973. [PMID: 26383779 PMCID: PMC4698475 DOI: 10.1044/2015_ajslp-14-0140] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/13/2014] [Revised: 02/26/2015] [Accepted: 06/08/2015] [Indexed: 06/05/2023]
Abstract
PURPOSE There is a lot of evidence that people with aphasia have more difficulty understanding structurally complex sentences (e.g., object clefts) than simpler sentences (subject clefts). However, subject clefts also occur more frequently in English than object clefts. Thus, it is possible that both structural complexity and frequency affect how people with aphasia understand these structures. METHOD Nine people with aphasia and 8 age-matched controls participated in the study. The stimuli consisted of 24 object cleft and 24 subject cleft sentences. The task was eye tracking during reading, which permits a more fine-grained analysis of reading performance than measures such as self-paced reading. RESULTS As expected, controls had longer reading times for critical regions in object cleft sentences compared with subject cleft sentences. People with aphasia showed the predicted effects of structural frequency. Effects of structural complexity in people with aphasia did not emerge on their first pass through the sentence but were observed when they were rereading critical regions of complex sentences. CONCLUSIONS People with aphasia are sensitive to both structural complexity and structural frequency when reading. However, people with aphasia may use different reading strategies than controls when confronted with relatively infrequent and complex sentence structures.
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Abstract
The prefrontal cortex (PFC), a cortical region that was once thought to be functionally insignificant, is now known to play an essential role in the organization and control of goal-directed thought and behavior. Neuroimaging, neurophysiological, and modeling techniques have led to tremendous advances in our understanding of PFC functions over the last few decades. It should be noted, however, that neurological, neuropathological, and neuropsychological studies have contributed some of the most essential, historical, and often prescient conclusions regarding the functions of this region. Importantly, examination of patients with brain damage allows one to draw conclusions about whether a brain area is necessary for a particular function. Here, we provide a broad overview of PFC functions based on behavioral and neural changes resulting from damage to PFC in both human patients and nonhuman primates.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sara M Szczepanski
- Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.
| | - Robert T Knight
- Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA; Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
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Rossi E, Kroll JF, Dussias PE. Clitic pronouns reveal the time course of processing gender and number in a second language. Neuropsychologia 2014; 62:11-25. [PMID: 25036762 PMCID: PMC4167495 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2014.07.002] [Citation(s) in RCA: 27] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/03/2014] [Revised: 07/03/2014] [Accepted: 07/07/2014] [Indexed: 12/21/2022]
Abstract
This study investigates grammatical gender and number processing marked on clitic pronouns in native Spanish speakers and in late English-Spanish bilinguals using ERPs. Spanish clitic pronouns were chosen as a critical grammatical structure which is absent in English, and which encodes both grammatical gender and number. Number, but not grammatical gender, is present in English, making this structure a prime one to investigate second language processing. Results reveal a P600 effect in native speakers for violations of both gender and number. Late but relatively proficient English-Spanish bilinguals show a P600 effect only for number violations occurring at the clitic pronoun, but not for gender violations. However a post-hoc analysis reveals that a subset of highly proficient late bilinguals does reveal sensitivity to violations of grammatical gender marked on clitic pronouns. Taken together these results suggest that native-like processing is possible for highly proficient late second language learners for grammatical features that are not present in the speakers' native language, even when those features are encoded on a grammatical morpheme which itself is absent in the speakers' native language.
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Affiliation(s)
- Eleonora Rossi
- Department of Psychology, Pennsylvania State University, Moore Building, University Park, PA 16802-3104, USA; Center for Language Science, Pennsylvania State University, USA.
| | - Judith F Kroll
- Department of Psychology, Pennsylvania State University, Moore Building, University Park, PA 16802-3104, USA; Center for Language Science, Pennsylvania State University, USA.
| | - Paola E Dussias
- Center for Language Science, Pennsylvania State University, USA; Department of Spanish, Italian, & Portuguese, Pennsylvania State University, USA.
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Meltzer JA, Wagage S, Ryder J, Solomon B, Braun AR. Adaptive significance of right hemisphere activation in aphasic language comprehension. Neuropsychologia 2013; 51:1248-59. [PMID: 23566891 PMCID: PMC3821997 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2013.03.007] [Citation(s) in RCA: 19] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/06/2012] [Revised: 02/25/2013] [Accepted: 03/19/2013] [Indexed: 10/27/2022]
Abstract
Aphasic patients often exhibit increased right hemisphere activity during language tasks. This may represent takeover of function by regions homologous to the left-hemisphere language networks, maladaptive interference, or adaptation of alternate compensatory strategies. To distinguish between these accounts, we tested language comprehension in 25 aphasic patients using an online sentence-picture matching paradigm while measuring brain activation with MEG. Linguistic conditions included semantically irreversible ("The boy is eating the apple") and reversible ("The boy is pushing the girl") sentences at three levels of syntactic complexity. As expected, patients performed well above chance on irreversible sentences, and at chance on reversible sentences of high complexity. Comprehension of reversible non-complex sentences ranged from nearly perfect to chance, and was highly correlated with offline measures of language comprehension. Lesion analysis revealed that comprehension deficits for reversible sentences were predicted by damage to the left temporal lobe. Although aphasic patients activated homologous areas in the right temporal lobe, such activation was not correlated with comprehension performance. Rather, patients with better comprehension exhibited increased activity in dorsal fronto-parietal regions. Correlations between performance and dorsal network activity occurred bilaterally during perception of sentences, and in the right hemisphere during a post-sentence memory delay. These results suggest that effortful reprocessing of perceived sentences in short-term memory can support improved comprehension in aphasia, and that strategic recruitment of alternative networks, rather than homologous takeover, may account for some findings of right hemisphere language activation in aphasia.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jed A Meltzer
- Rotman Research Institute, Baycrest Centre, 3560 Bathurst Street, Toronto, ON, Canada.
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Leclercq AL, Majerus S, Prigent G, Maillart C. The impact of dual tasking on sentence comprehension in children with specific language impairment. JOURNAL OF SPEECH, LANGUAGE, AND HEARING RESEARCH : JSLHR 2013; 56:265-280. [PMID: 22744135 DOI: 10.1044/1092-4388(2012/10-0290)] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/01/2023]
Abstract
PURPOSE In this study, the authors assessed the hypothesis of a limitation in attentional allocation capacity as underlying poor sentence comprehension in children with specific language impairment (SLI). METHOD Fifteen children with SLI, 15 age-matched controls, and 15 grammar-matched controls participated in the study. Sixty sentences were presented in isolation, and 60 sentences were presented with a concurrent choice reaction time task in which colored stimuli randomly appeared at the center of the computer screen. RESULTS Sentence comprehension was affected by the dual-task condition to a greater extent in children with SLI relative to age controls but not relative to grammatical controls. CONCLUSION This study does not support limitations in attentional allocation capacity as representing a core deficit in SLI. Rather, the data show that these children show attentional allocation capacity comparable to that of younger children having similar language level, suggesting that SLI is characterized by a slowed development of both attentional and language domains.
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DeDe G. Lexical and prosodic effects on syntactic ambiguity resolution in aphasia. JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLINGUISTIC RESEARCH 2012; 41:387-408. [PMID: 22143353 PMCID: PMC3334394 DOI: 10.1007/s10936-011-9191-1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/31/2023]
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to determine whether and when individuals with aphasia and healthy controls use lexical and prosodic information during on-line sentence comprehension. Individuals with aphasia and controls (n = 12 per group) participated in a self-paced listening experiment. The stimuli were early closure sentences, such as "While the parents watched(,) the child sang a song." Both lexical and prosodic cues were manipulated. The cues were biased toward the subject- or object- of the ambiguous noun phrase (the child). Thus, there were two congruous conditions (in which both lexical cues and prosodic cues were consistent) and two incongruous conditions (in which lexical and prosodic cues conflicted). The results showed that the people with aphasia had longer listening times for the ambiguous noun phrase (the child) when the cues were conflicting, rather than consistent. The controls showed effects earlier in the sentence, at the subordinate verb (watched or danced). Both groups showed evidence of reanalysis at the main verb (sang). These effects demonstrate that the aphasic group was sensitive to the lexical and prosodic cues, but used them on a delayed time course relative to the control group.
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Affiliation(s)
- Gayle DeDe
- Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, University of Arizona, 1131 East 2nd Street, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA.
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Thothathiri M, Gagliardi M, Schwartz MF. Subdivision of frontal cortex mechanisms for language production in aphasia. Neuropsychologia 2012; 50:3284-94. [PMID: 23022077 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2012.09.021] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/13/2011] [Revised: 08/20/2012] [Accepted: 09/11/2012] [Indexed: 11/26/2022]
Abstract
Ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC) has long been linked to language production, but the precise mechanisms are still being elucidated. Using neuropsychological case studies, we explored possible sub-specialization within this region for different linguistic and executive functions. Frontal patients with different lesion profiles completed two sequencing tasks, which were hypothesized to engage partially overlapping components. The multi-word priming task tested the sequencing of co-activated representations and the overriding of primed word orders. The sequence reproduction task tested the sequencing of co-activated representations, but did not employ a priming manipulation. We compared patients' performance on the two tasks to that of healthy, age-matched controls. Results are partially consistent with an anterior-posterior gradient of cognitive control within lateral prefrontal cortex (Koechlin & Summerfield, 2007). However, we also found a stimulus-specific pattern, which suggests that sub-specialization might be contingent on type of representation as well as type of control signal. Isolating such components functionally and anatomically might lead to a better understanding of language production deficits in aphasia.
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Mattys SL, Davis MH, Bradlow AR, Scott SK. Speech recognition in adverse conditions: A review. ACTA ACUST UNITED AC 2012. [DOI: 10.1080/01690965.2012.705006] [Citation(s) in RCA: 164] [Impact Index Per Article: 13.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/28/2022]
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