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Zhang M, Riecke L, Bonte M. Cortical tracking of language structures: Modality-dependent and independent responses. Clin Neurophysiol 2024; 166:56-65. [PMID: 39111244 DOI: 10.1016/j.clinph.2024.07.012] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/15/2023] [Revised: 04/18/2024] [Accepted: 07/20/2024] [Indexed: 09/15/2024]
Abstract
OBJECTIVES The mental parsing of linguistic hierarchy is crucial for language comprehension, and while there is growing interest in the cortical tracking of auditory speech, the neurophysiological substrates for tracking written language are still unclear. METHODS We recorded electroencephalographic (EEG) responses from participants exposed to auditory and visual streams of either random syllables or tri-syllabic real words. Using a frequency-tagging approach, we analyzed the neural representations of physically presented (i.e., syllables) and mentally constructed (i.e., words) linguistic units and compared them between the two sensory modalities. RESULTS We found that tracking syllables is partially modality dependent, with anterior and posterior scalp regions more involved in the tracking of spoken and written syllables, respectively. The cortical tracking of spoken and written words instead was found to involve a shared anterior region to a similar degree, suggesting a modality-independent process for word tracking. CONCLUSION Our study suggests that basic linguistic features are represented in a sensory modality-specific manner, while more abstract ones are modality-unspecific during the online processing of continuous language input. SIGNIFICANCE The current methodology may be utilized in future research to examine the development of reading skills, especially the deficiencies in fluent reading among those with dyslexia.
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Affiliation(s)
- Manli Zhang
- Maastricht Brain Imaging Center, Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht University, Maastricht, Netherlands.
| | - Lars Riecke
- Maastricht Brain Imaging Center, Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht University, Maastricht, Netherlands
| | - Milene Bonte
- Maastricht Brain Imaging Center, Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht University, Maastricht, Netherlands
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2
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Gulati M, Muralikrishnan R, Choudhary KK. An ERP Study on the Processing of Subject-Verb and Object-Verb Gender Agreement in Punjabi. JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLINGUISTIC RESEARCH 2024; 53:59. [PMID: 38967726 DOI: 10.1007/s10936-024-10095-4] [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] [Accepted: 06/12/2024] [Indexed: 07/06/2024]
Abstract
This study was conducted with the aim of exploring the general parsing mechanisms involved in processing different kinds of dependency relations, namely verb agreement with subjects versus objects in Punjabi, an SOV Indo-Aryan language. Event related brain potentials (ERPs) were recorded as twenty-five native Punjabi speakers read transitive sentences. Critical stimuli were either fully acceptable as regards verb agreement, or alternatively violated gender agreement with the subject or object. A linear mixed-models analysis confirmed a P600 effect at the position of the verb for all violations, regardless of whether subject or object agreement was violated. These results thus suggest that an identical mechanism is involved in gender agreement computation in Punjabi regardless of whether the agreement is with the subject or the object argument.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mahima Gulati
- Department of Corporate Skill Development, New Delhi Institute of Management, Delhi, India
| | - R Muralikrishnan
- Department of Neuroscience, Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics, Frankfurt, Germany
| | - Kamal Kumar Choudhary
- Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Ropar, Rupnagar, Punjab, India.
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3
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Kauf C, Kim HS, Lee EJ, Jhingan N, Selena She J, Taliaferro M, Gibson E, Fedorenko E. Linguistic inputs must be syntactically parsable to fully engage the language network. BIORXIV : THE PREPRINT SERVER FOR BIOLOGY 2024:2024.06.21.599332. [PMID: 38948870 PMCID: PMC11212959 DOI: 10.1101/2024.06.21.599332] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 07/02/2024]
Abstract
Human language comprehension is remarkably robust to ill-formed inputs (e.g., word transpositions). This robustness has led some to argue that syntactic parsing is largely an illusion, and that incremental comprehension is more heuristic, shallow, and semantics-based than is often assumed. However, the available data are also consistent with the possibility that humans always perform rule-like symbolic parsing and simply deploy error correction mechanisms to reconstruct ill-formed inputs when needed. We put these hypotheses to a new stringent test by examining brain responses to a) stimuli that should pose a challenge for syntactic reconstruction but allow for complex meanings to be built within local contexts through associative/shallow processing (sentences presented in a backward word order), and b) grammatically well-formed but semantically implausible sentences that should impede semantics-based heuristic processing. Using a novel behavioral syntactic reconstruction paradigm, we demonstrate that backward-presented sentences indeed impede the recovery of grammatical structure during incremental comprehension. Critically, these backward-presented stimuli elicit a relatively low response in the language areas, as measured with fMRI. In contrast, semantically implausible but grammatically well-formed sentences elicit a response in the language areas similar in magnitude to naturalistic (plausible) sentences. In other words, the ability to build syntactic structures during incremental language processing is both necessary and sufficient to fully engage the language network. Taken together, these results provide strongest to date support for a generalized reliance of human language comprehension on syntactic parsing.
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Affiliation(s)
- Carina Kauf
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139 USA
- McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139 USA
| | - Hee So Kim
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139 USA
- McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139 USA
| | - Elizabeth J. Lee
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139 USA
- McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139 USA
| | - Niharika Jhingan
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139 USA
- McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139 USA
| | - Jingyuan Selena She
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139 USA
- McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139 USA
| | - Maya Taliaferro
- Department of Psychology, New York University, New York, NY 10012 USA
| | - Edward Gibson
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139 USA
| | - Evelina Fedorenko
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139 USA
- McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139 USA
- The Program in Speech and Hearing Bioscience and Technology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138 USA
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4
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Morgan AM, Devinsky O, Doyle WK, Dugan P, Friedman D, Flinker A. A low-activity cortical network selectively encodes syntax. BIORXIV : THE PREPRINT SERVER FOR BIOLOGY 2024:2024.06.20.599931. [PMID: 38948730 PMCID: PMC11212956 DOI: 10.1101/2024.06.20.599931] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 07/02/2024]
Abstract
Syntax, the abstract structure of language, is a hallmark of human cognition. Despite its importance, its neural underpinnings remain obscured by inherent limitations of non-invasive brain measures and a near total focus on comprehension paradigms. Here, we address these limitations with high-resolution neurosurgical recordings (electrocorticography) and a controlled sentence production experiment. We uncover three syntactic networks that are broadly distributed across traditional language regions, but with focal concentrations in middle and inferior frontal gyri. In contrast to previous findings from comprehension studies, these networks process syntax mostly to the exclusion of words and meaning, supporting a cognitive architecture with a distinct syntactic system. Most strikingly, our data reveal an unexpected property of syntax: it is encoded independent of neural activity levels. We propose that this "low-activity coding" scheme represents a novel mechanism for encoding information, reserved for higher-order cognition more broadly.
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Affiliation(s)
- Adam M. Morgan
- Neurology Department, NYU Grossman School of Medicine, 550 1st Ave, New York, 10016, NY, USA
| | - Orrin Devinsky
- Neurosurgery Department, NYU Grossman School of Medicine, 550 1st Ave, New York, 10016, NY, USA
| | - Werner K. Doyle
- Neurology Department, NYU Grossman School of Medicine, 550 1st Ave, New York, 10016, NY, USA
| | - Patricia Dugan
- Neurology Department, NYU Grossman School of Medicine, 550 1st Ave, New York, 10016, NY, USA
| | - Daniel Friedman
- Neurology Department, NYU Grossman School of Medicine, 550 1st Ave, New York, 10016, NY, USA
| | - Adeen Flinker
- Neurology Department, NYU Grossman School of Medicine, 550 1st Ave, New York, 10016, NY, USA
- Biomedical Engineering Department, NYU Tandon School of Engineering, 6 MetroTech Center Ave, Brooklyn, 11201, NY, USA
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5
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Matchin W, Almeida D, Hickok G, Sprouse J. Cortical networks responsive to phrase structure and subject island violations. BIORXIV : THE PREPRINT SERVER FOR BIOLOGY 2024:2024.05.05.592579. [PMID: 38746262 PMCID: PMC11092748 DOI: 10.1101/2024.05.05.592579] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/16/2024]
Abstract
In principle, functional neuroimaging provides uniquely informative data in addressing linguistic questions, because it can indicate distinct processes that are not apparent from behavioral data alone. This could involve adjudicating the source of unacceptability via the different patterns of elicited brain responses to different ungrammatical sentence types. However, it is difficult to interpret brain activations to syntactic violations. Such responses could reflect processes that have nothing intrinsically related to linguistic representations, such as domain-general executive function abilities. In order to facilitate the potential use of functional neuroimaging methods to identify the source of different syntactic violations, we conducted an fMRI experiment to identify the brain activation maps associated with two distinct syntactic violation types: phrase structure (created by inverting the order of two adjacent words within a sentence) and subject islands (created by extracting a wh-phrase out of an embedded subject). The comparison of these violations to control sentences surprisingly showed no indication of a generalized violation response, with almost completely divergent activation patterns. Phrase structure violations seemingly activated regions previously implicated in verbal working memory and structural complexity in sentence processing, whereas the subject islands appeared to activate regions previously implicated in conceptual-semantic processing, broadly defined. We review our findings in the context of previous research on syntactic and semantic violations using event-related potentials. We suggest that functional neuroimaging is a potentially fruitful technique in unpacking the distinct sets of cognitive processes elicited by theoretically-relevant syntactic violations, when interpreted with care and paired with appropriate control conditions.
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Affiliation(s)
- William Matchin
- Dept. of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of South Carolina
| | | | - Gregory Hickok
- Dept. of Cognitive Sciences and Dept. of Language Science, University of California, Irvine
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6
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Lopopolo A, Rabovsky M. Tracking Lexical and Semantic Prediction Error Underlying the N400 Using Artificial Neural Network Models of Sentence Processing. NEUROBIOLOGY OF LANGUAGE (CAMBRIDGE, MASS.) 2024; 5:136-166. [PMID: 38645617 PMCID: PMC11025650 DOI: 10.1162/nol_a_00134] [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: 11/14/2022] [Accepted: 12/18/2023] [Indexed: 04/23/2024]
Abstract
Recent research has shown that the internal dynamics of an artificial neural network model of sentence comprehension displayed a similar pattern to the amplitude of the N400 in several conditions known to modulate this event-related potential. These results led Rabovsky et al. (2018) to suggest that the N400 might reflect change in an implicit predictive representation of meaning corresponding to semantic prediction error. This explanation stands as an alternative to the hypothesis that the N400 reflects lexical prediction error as estimated by word surprisal (Frank et al., 2015). In the present study, we directly model the amplitude of the N400 elicited during naturalistic sentence processing by using as predictor the update of the distributed representation of sentence meaning generated by a sentence gestalt model (McClelland et al., 1989) trained on a large-scale text corpus. This enables a quantitative prediction of N400 amplitudes based on a cognitively motivated model, as well as quantitative comparison of this model to alternative models of the N400. Specifically, we compare the update measure from the sentence gestalt model to surprisal estimated by a comparable language model trained on next-word prediction. Our results suggest that both sentence gestalt update and surprisal predict aspects of N400 amplitudes. Thus, we argue that N400 amplitudes might reflect two distinct but probably closely related sub-processes that contribute to the processing of a sentence.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Milena Rabovsky
- Department of Psychology, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany
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7
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Lee M, Noh Y, Kim HS, Kim SY. Processing of Shakespearean functional shift as a semantic anomaly in L2 English: Evidence from an ERP study. Cortex 2024; 172:271-283. [PMID: 38135612 DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2023.11.010] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/02/2023] [Revised: 09/19/2023] [Accepted: 11/14/2023] [Indexed: 12/24/2023]
Abstract
Functional shift, a productive word formation in English, converts the functional status of a word without changing its form. A previous event-related potential study reported that functional shift elicited left anterior negativity (LAN) and P600 effects in first language processing, suggesting that shifted words triggered syntactic processes in native English speakers. Using the same materials and experimental methods, this study investigated the processing of functional shift in English as a second language, asking Korean learners of English to make acceptability judgments of sentences containing a functional shift, a semantic incongruity, a double violation, or no violation. The results revealed that functional shift elicited significant N400 effects, indicating that Korean participants processed functionally shifted words as semantic anomalies. Our finding points to the possibility that the mental representation of functional shift differs in L1 and L2.
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Affiliation(s)
- Miseon Lee
- Department of English Language and Literature, Hanyang University, Seoul, South Korea
| | - Yuree Noh
- Department of English Language and Literature, Hanyang University, Seoul, South Korea
| | - Hyoung Sun Kim
- Department of English Language and Literature, Hanyang University, Seoul, South Korea
| | - Say Young Kim
- Department of English Language and Literature, Hanyang University, Seoul, South Korea; Hanyang Institute for Phonetics and Cognitive Sciences of Language, Hanyang University, Seoul, South Korea.
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8
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Aurnhammer C, Delogu F, Brouwer H, Crocker MW. The P600 as a continuous index of integration effort. Psychophysiology 2023; 60:e14302. [PMID: 37042061 DOI: 10.1111/psyp.14302] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/23/2022] [Revised: 03/01/2023] [Accepted: 03/04/2023] [Indexed: 04/13/2023]
Abstract
The integration of word meaning into an unfolding utterance representation is a core operation of incremental language comprehension. There is considerable debate, however, as to which component of the ERP signal-the N400 or the P600-directly reflects integrative processes, with far reaching consequences for the temporal organization and architecture of the comprehension system. Multi-stream models maintaining the N400 as integration crucially rely on the presence of a semantically attractive plausible alternative interpretation to account for the absence of an N400 effect in response to certain semantic anomalies, as reported in previous studies. The single-stream Retrieval-Integration account posits the P600 as an index of integration, further predicting that its amplitude varies continuously with integrative effort. Here, we directly test these competing hypotheses using a context manipulation design in which a semantically attractive alternative is either available or not, and target word plausibility is varied across three levels. An initial self-paced reading study revealed graded reading times for plausibility, suggesting differential integration effort. A subsequent ERP study showed no N400 differences across conditions, and that P600 amplitude is graded for plausibility. These findings are inconsistent with the interpretation of the N400 as an index of integration, as no N400 effect emerged even in the absence of a semantically attractive alternative. By contrast, the link between plausibility, reading times, and P600 amplitude supports the view that the P600 is a continuous index of integration effort. More generally, our results support a single-stream architecture and eschew the need for multi-stream accounts.
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Affiliation(s)
- Christoph Aurnhammer
- Department of Language Science and Technology, Saarland University, Saarbrücken, Germany
| | - Francesca Delogu
- Department of Language Science and Technology, Saarland University, Saarbrücken, Germany
| | - Harm Brouwer
- Department of Language Science and Technology, Saarland University, Saarbrücken, Germany
- Department of Cognitive Science and Artificial Intelligence, Tilburg University, Tilburg, the Netherlands
| | - Matthew W Crocker
- Department of Language Science and Technology, Saarland University, Saarbrücken, Germany
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9
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Elmer S, Kurthen I, Meyer M, Giroud N. A multidimensional characterization of the neurocognitive architecture underlying age-related temporal speech processing. Neuroimage 2023; 278:120285. [PMID: 37481009 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2023.120285] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/11/2022] [Revised: 07/11/2023] [Accepted: 07/19/2023] [Indexed: 07/24/2023] Open
Abstract
Healthy aging is often associated with speech comprehension difficulties in everyday life situations despite a pure-tone hearing threshold in the normative range. Drawing on this background, we used a multidimensional approach to assess the functional and structural neural correlates underlying age-related temporal speech processing while controlling for pure-tone hearing acuity. Accordingly, we combined structural magnetic resonance imaging and electroencephalography, and collected behavioral data while younger and older adults completed a phonetic categorization and discrimination task with consonant-vowel syllables varying along a voice-onset time continuum. The behavioral results confirmed age-related temporal speech processing singularities which were reflected in a shift of the boundary of the psychometric categorization function, with older adults perceiving more syllable characterized by a short voice-onset time as /ta/ compared to younger adults. Furthermore, despite the absence of any between-group differences in phonetic discrimination abilities, older adults demonstrated longer N100/P200 latencies as well as increased P200 amplitudes while processing the consonant-vowel syllables varying in voice-onset time. Finally, older adults also exhibited a divergent anatomical gray matter infrastructure in bilateral auditory-related and frontal brain regions, as manifested in reduced cortical thickness and surface area. Notably, in the younger adults but not in the older adult cohort, cortical surface area in these two gross anatomical clusters correlated with the categorization of consonant-vowel syllables characterized by a short voice-onset time, suggesting the existence of a critical gray matter threshold that is crucial for consistent mapping of phonetic categories varying along the temporal dimension. Taken together, our results highlight the multifaceted dimensions of age-related temporal speech processing characteristics, and pave the way toward a better understanding of the relationships between hearing, speech and the brain in older age.
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Affiliation(s)
- Stefan Elmer
- Department of Computational Linguistics, Computational Neuroscience of Speech & Hearing, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland; Competence center Language & Medicine, University of Zurich, Switzerland.
| | - Ira Kurthen
- Department of Computational Linguistics, Computational Neuroscience of Speech & Hearing, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
| | - Martin Meyer
- Department of Comparative Language Science, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland; Center for Neuroscience Zurich, University and ETH of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland; Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Language Evolution (ISLE), University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland; Cognitive Psychology Unit, Alpen-Adria University, Klagenfurt, Austria
| | - Nathalie Giroud
- Department of Computational Linguistics, Computational Neuroscience of Speech & Hearing, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland; Center for Neuroscience Zurich, University and ETH of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland; Competence center Language & Medicine, University of Zurich, Switzerland
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10
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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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11
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Ntemou E, Svaldi C, Jonkers R, Picht T, Rofes A. Verb and sentence processing with TMS: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Cortex 2023; 162:38-55. [PMID: 36965338 DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2023.01.005] [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: 10/31/2022] [Revised: 01/19/2023] [Accepted: 01/31/2023] [Indexed: 02/07/2023]
Abstract
Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) has provided relevant evidence regarding the neural correlates of language. The aim of the present study is to summarize and assess previous findings regarding linguistic levels (i.e., semantic and morpho-syntactic) and brain structures utilized during verb and sentence processing. To do that, we systematically reviewed TMS research on verb and sentence processing in healthy speakers, and meta-analyzed TMS-induced effects according to the region of stimulation and experimental manipulation. Findings from 45 articles show that approximately half of the reviewed work focuses on the embodiment of action verbs. The majority of studies (60%) target only one cortical region in relation to a specific linguistic process. Frontal areas are most frequently stimulated in connection to morphosyntactic processes and action verb semantics, and temporoparietal regions in relation to integration of sentential meaning and thematic role assignment. A meta-analysis of 72 effect sizes of the reviewed papers indicates that TMS has a small overall effect size, but effect sizes for anterior compared to posterior regions do not differ for semantic or morphosyntactic contrasts. Our findings stress the need to increase the number of targeted areas, while using the same linguistic contrasts in order to disentangle the contributions of different cortical regions to distinct linguistic processes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Effrosyni Ntemou
- International Doctorate for Experimental Approaches to Language and Brain (IDEALAB), University of Groningen (NL), University of Potsdam (DE), Newcastle University (UK), Macquarie University (AU), the Netherlands; Centre for Language and Cognition Groningen (CLCG), University of Groningen, Groningen, the Netherlands; Department of Neurosurgery, Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany
| | - Cheyenne Svaldi
- International Doctorate for Experimental Approaches to Language and Brain (IDEALAB), University of Groningen (NL), University of Potsdam (DE), Newcastle University (UK), Macquarie University (AU), the Netherlands; Centre for Language and Cognition Groningen (CLCG), University of Groningen, Groningen, the Netherlands
| | - Roel Jonkers
- Centre for Language and Cognition Groningen (CLCG), University of Groningen, Groningen, the Netherlands
| | - Thomas Picht
- Department of Neurosurgery, Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany; Cluster of Excellence: "Matters of Activity. Image Space Material", Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany
| | - Adrià Rofes
- Centre for Language and Cognition Groningen (CLCG), University of Groningen, Groningen, the Netherlands.
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12
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Humphreys GF, Tibon R. Dual-axes of functional organisation across lateral parietal cortex: the angular gyrus forms part of a multi-modal buffering system. Brain Struct Funct 2023; 228:341-352. [PMID: 35670844 PMCID: PMC9813060 DOI: 10.1007/s00429-022-02510-0] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/28/2021] [Accepted: 05/08/2022] [Indexed: 01/09/2023]
Abstract
Decades of neuropsychological and neuroimaging evidence have implicated the lateral parietal cortex (LPC) in a myriad of cognitive domains, generating numerous influential theoretical models. However, these theories fail to explain why distinct cognitive activities appear to implicate common neural regions. Here we discuss a unifying model in which the angular gyrus forms part of a wider LPC system with a core underlying neurocomputational function; the multi-sensory buffering of spatio-temporally extended representations. We review the principles derived from computational modelling with neuroimaging task data and functional and structural connectivity measures that underpin the unified neurocomputational framework. We propose that although a variety of cognitive activities might draw on shared underlying machinery, variations in task preference across angular gyrus, and wider LPC, arise from graded changes in the underlying structural connectivity of the region to different input/output information sources. More specifically, we propose two primary axes of organisation: a dorsal-ventral axis and an anterior-posterior axis, with variations in task preference arising from underlying connectivity to different core cognitive networks (e.g. the executive, language, visual, or episodic memory networks).
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Affiliation(s)
- Gina F Humphreys
- MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, University of Cambridge, 15 Chaucer Road, Cambridge, CB2 7EF, UK.
| | - Roni Tibon
- MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, University of Cambridge, 15 Chaucer Road, Cambridge, CB2 7EF, UK.
- School of Psychology, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK.
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13
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MacGregor LJ, Gilbert RA, Balewski Z, Mitchell DJ, Erzinçlioğlu SW, Rodd JM, Duncan J, Fedorenko E, Davis MH. Causal Contributions of the Domain-General (Multiple Demand) and the Language-Selective Brain Networks to Perceptual and Semantic Challenges in Speech Comprehension. NEUROBIOLOGY OF LANGUAGE (CAMBRIDGE, MASS.) 2022; 3:665-698. [PMID: 36742011 PMCID: PMC9893226 DOI: 10.1162/nol_a_00081] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/14/2022] [Accepted: 09/07/2022] [Indexed: 06/18/2023]
Abstract
Listening to spoken language engages domain-general multiple demand (MD; frontoparietal) regions of the human brain, in addition to domain-selective (frontotemporal) language regions, particularly when comprehension is challenging. However, there is limited evidence that the MD network makes a functional contribution to core aspects of understanding language. In a behavioural study of volunteers (n = 19) with chronic brain lesions, but without aphasia, we assessed the causal role of these networks in perceiving, comprehending, and adapting to spoken sentences made more challenging by acoustic-degradation or lexico-semantic ambiguity. We measured perception of and adaptation to acoustically degraded (noise-vocoded) sentences with a word report task before and after training. Participants with greater damage to MD but not language regions required more vocoder channels to achieve 50% word report, indicating impaired perception. Perception improved following training, reflecting adaptation to acoustic degradation, but adaptation was unrelated to lesion location or extent. Comprehension of spoken sentences with semantically ambiguous words was measured with a sentence coherence judgement task. Accuracy was high and unaffected by lesion location or extent. Adaptation to semantic ambiguity was measured in a subsequent word association task, which showed that availability of lower-frequency meanings of ambiguous words increased following their comprehension (word-meaning priming). Word-meaning priming was reduced for participants with greater damage to language but not MD regions. Language and MD networks make dissociable contributions to challenging speech comprehension: Using recent experience to update word meaning preferences depends on language-selective regions, whereas the domain-general MD network plays a causal role in reporting words from degraded speech.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lucy J. MacGregor
- MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
| | - Rebecca A. Gilbert
- MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
| | - Zuzanna Balewski
- Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA
| | - Daniel J. Mitchell
- MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
| | | | - Jennifer M. Rodd
- Psychology and Language Sciences, University College London, London, UK
| | - John Duncan
- MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
| | - Evelina Fedorenko
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA
- McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA
- Program in Speech and Hearing Bioscience and Technology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
| | - Matthew H. Davis
- MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
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14
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Toneva M, Mitchell TM, Wehbe L. Combining computational controls with natural text reveals aspects of meaning composition. NATURE COMPUTATIONAL SCIENCE 2022; 2:745-757. [PMID: 36777107 PMCID: PMC9912822 DOI: 10.1038/s43588-022-00354-6] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
Abstract
To study a core component of human intelligence-our ability to combine the meaning of words-neuroscientists have looked to linguistics. However, linguistic theories are insufficient to account for all brain responses reflecting linguistic composition. In contrast, we adopt a data-driven approach to study the composed meaning of words beyond their individual meaning, which we term 'supra-word meaning'. We construct a computational representation for supra-word meaning and study its brain basis through brain recordings from two complementary imaging modalities. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we reveal that hubs that are thought to process lexical meaning also maintain supra-word meaning, suggesting a common substrate for lexical and combinatorial semantics. Surprisingly, we cannot detect supra-word meaning in magnetoencephalography, which suggests that composed meaning might be maintained through a different neural mechanism than the synchronized firing of pyramidal cells. This sensitivity difference has implications for past neuroimaging results and future wearable neurotechnology.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mariya Toneva
- Machine Learning Department, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA.,Neuroscience Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA.,Max Planck Institute for Software Systems, Saarbrücken, Germany
| | - Tom M. Mitchell
- Machine Learning Department, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA.,Neuroscience Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
| | - Leila Wehbe
- Machine Learning Department, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA.,Neuroscience Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA.,Department of Psychology, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA.,Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to Leila Wehbe.
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15
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Terry JM, Thomas ER, Jackson SC, Hirotani M. African American English speaking 2nd graders, verbal-s, and educational achievement: Event related potential and math study findings. PLoS One 2022; 17:e0273926. [PMID: 36264958 PMCID: PMC9584506 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0273926] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/12/2021] [Accepted: 08/17/2022] [Indexed: 12/02/2022] Open
Abstract
A number of influential linguistic analyses hold that African American English (AAE) has no verbal-s, the-s that, for example, turns drink into drinks in more mainstream English varieties.On such accounts, sentences like Mary drinks coffee are ungrammatical in AAE. Previous behavioral studies suggest that in addition to being ungrammatical, AAE speaking children find these sentences cognitively demanding, and that their presence in mathematical reasoning tests can depress scores. Until now, however, no online sentence processing study nor investigation of neurophysiological markers has been done to support these findings. Aimed at addressing this gap in the literature, the auditory ERP experiment described herein revealed two different processes associated with AAE speaking 2nd graders listening to this type of sentence: a morphosyntactic structure building problem, reflected in a bilateral early anterior-central negativity; and an increase in working memory load, indicated by a bilateral late long-lasting anterior-central negativity. Study participants also took an orally administered test of math word problems. Consistent with previous findings, results showed they answered fewer questions correctly when those questions contained verbal-s than when they did not.
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Affiliation(s)
- J. Michael Terry
- Department of Linguistics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States of America
- * E-mail: (JMT); , (MH)
| | - Erik R. Thomas
- Department of English, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina, United States of America
| | - Sandra C. Jackson
- Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, North Carolina Central University, Durham, North Carolina, United States of America
| | - Masako Hirotani
- Department of Linguistics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States of America
- School of Linguistics and Language Studies, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada
- * E-mail: (JMT); , (MH)
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16
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Russo AG, De Martino M, Elia A, Di Salle F, Esposito F. Negative correlation between word-level surprisal and intersubject neural synchronization during narrative listening. Cortex 2022; 155:132-149. [DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2022.07.005] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/21/2021] [Revised: 02/10/2022] [Accepted: 07/06/2022] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
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17
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Wagley N, Booth JR. Neuro-cognitive development of semantic and syntactic bootstrapping in 6- to 7.5-year-old children. Neuroimage 2021; 241:118416. [PMID: 34298084 PMCID: PMC8629629 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2021.118416] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/06/2020] [Revised: 06/15/2021] [Accepted: 07/19/2021] [Indexed: 11/25/2022] Open
Abstract
The present study examined the longitudinal relations of brain and behavior from ages 6-7.5 years old to test the bootstrapping account of language development. Prior work suggests that children's vocabulary development is foundational for acquiring grammar (e.g., semantic bootstrapping) and that children rely on the syntactic context of sentences to learn the meaning of new words (e.g., syntactic bootstrapping). Yet, little is known about the dynamics underlying semantic and syntactic development as children enter elementary school. In a series of preregistered and exploratory analyses, we tested how semantic and syntactic behavioral skills may influence the development of brain regions implicated in these processes, i.e. left posterior middle temporal gyrus (pMTG) and inferior frontal gyrus (pars opercularis, IFGop), respectively. Vice-a-versa, we tested how these brain regions may influence the development of children's semantic and syntactic behavioral skills. We assessed semantic (N = 26) and syntactic (N = 30) processes behaviorally and in the brain when children were ages 5.5-6.5 years old (Time 1) and again at 7-8 years old (Time 2). All brain-behavior analyses controlled for T1 autoregressive effects and phonological memory. Exploratory hierarchical regression analyses suggested bi-directional influences, but with greater support for syntactic bootstrapping. Across the analyses, there was a small to medium effect of change in variance in models where semantics predicted syntax. Conversely, there was medium to large change in variance in models where syntax predicted semantics. In line with prior literature, results suggest a close relationship between lexical and grammatical development in children ages 6-7.5 years old. However, there was more robust evidence for syntactic bootstrapping, suggesting that acquisition of phrase structure in school age children may allow for more effective learning of word meanings. This complements prior behavioral studies and suggests a potential shift in the early reliance on semantics to later reliance on syntax in development.
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Affiliation(s)
- Neelima Wagley
- Department of Psychology and Human Development, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, USA.
| | - James R Booth
- Department of Psychology and Human Development, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, USA
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18
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Ntemou E, Ohlerth AK, Ille S, Krieg SM, Bastiaanse R, Rofes A. Mapping Verb Retrieval With nTMS: The Role of Transitivity. Front Hum Neurosci 2021; 15:719461. [PMID: 34539364 PMCID: PMC8442843 DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2021.719461] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/02/2021] [Accepted: 07/31/2021] [Indexed: 11/25/2022] Open
Abstract
Navigated Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (nTMS) is used to understand the cortical organization of language in preparation for the surgical removal of a brain tumor. Action naming with finite verbs can be employed for that purpose, providing additional information to object naming. However, little research has focused on the properties of the verbs that are used in action naming tasks, such as their status as transitive (taking an object; e.g., to read) or intransitive (not taking an object; e.g., to wink). Previous neuroimaging data show higher activation for transitive compared to intransitive verbs in posterior perisylvian regions bilaterally. In the present study, we employed nTMS and production of finite verbs to investigate the cortical underpinnings of transitivity. Twenty neurologically healthy native speakers of German participated in the study. They underwent language mapping in both hemispheres with nTMS. The action naming task with finite verbs consisted of transitive (e.g., The man reads the book) and intransitive verbs (e.g., The woman winks) and was controlled for relevant psycholinguistic variables. Errors were classified in four different error categories (i.e., non-linguistic errors, grammatical errors, lexico-semantic errors and, errors at the sound level) and were analyzed quantitatively. We found more nTMS-positive points in the left hemisphere, particularly in the left parietal lobe for the production of transitive compared to intransitive verbs. These positive points most commonly corresponded to lexico-semantic errors. Our findings are in line with previous aphasia and neuroimaging studies, suggesting that a more widespread network is used for the production of verbs with a larger number of arguments (i.e., transitives). The higher number of lexico-semantic errors with transitive compared to intransitive verbs in the left parietal lobe supports previous claims for the role of left posterior areas in the retrieval of argument structure information.
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Affiliation(s)
- Effrosyni Ntemou
- International Doctorate in Experimental Approaches to Language and Brain (IDEALAB, Universities of Groningen, Potsdam, Newcastle, Trento and Macquarie University), Sydney, NSW, Australia.,Centre for Language and Cognition Groningen (CLCG), University of Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands
| | - Ann-Katrin Ohlerth
- International Doctorate in Experimental Approaches to Language and Brain (IDEALAB, Universities of Groningen, Potsdam, Newcastle, Trento and Macquarie University), Sydney, NSW, Australia.,Centre for Language and Cognition Groningen (CLCG), University of Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands
| | - Sebastian Ille
- Department of Neurosurgery, Klinikum Rechts der Isar, School of Medicine, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany
| | - Sandro M Krieg
- Department of Neurosurgery, Klinikum Rechts der Isar, School of Medicine, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany
| | - Roelien Bastiaanse
- Center for Language and Brain, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia
| | - Adrià Rofes
- Centre for Language and Cognition Groningen (CLCG), University of Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands
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19
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Wehbe L, Blank IA, Shain C, Futrell R, Levy R, von der Malsburg T, Smith N, Gibson E, Fedorenko E. Incremental Language Comprehension Difficulty Predicts Activity in the Language Network but Not the Multiple Demand Network. Cereb Cortex 2021. [PMID: 33895807 DOI: 10.1101/2020.04.15.043844] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/11/2023] Open
Abstract
What role do domain-general executive functions play in human language comprehension? To address this question, we examine the relationship between behavioral measures of comprehension and neural activity in the domain-general "multiple demand" (MD) network, which has been linked to constructs like attention, working memory, inhibitory control, and selection, and implicated in diverse goal-directed behaviors. Specifically, functional magnetic resonance imaging data collected during naturalistic story listening are compared with theory-neutral measures of online comprehension difficulty and incremental processing load (reading times and eye-fixation durations). Critically, to ensure that variance in these measures is driven by features of the linguistic stimulus rather than reflecting participant- or trial-level variability, the neuroimaging and behavioral datasets were collected in nonoverlapping samples. We find no behavioral-neural link in functionally localized MD regions; instead, this link is found in the domain-specific, fronto-temporal "core language network," in both left-hemispheric areas and their right hemispheric homotopic areas. These results argue against strong involvement of domain-general executive circuits in language comprehension.
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Affiliation(s)
- Leila Wehbe
- Carnegie Mellon University, Machine Learning Department PA 15213, USA
| | - Idan Asher Blank
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences MA 02139, USA
- University of California Los Angeles, Department of Psychology CA 90095, USA
| | - Cory Shain
- Ohio State University, Department of Linguistics OH 43210, USA
| | - Richard Futrell
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences MA 02139, USA
- University of California Irvine, Department of Linguistics CA 92697, USA
| | - Roger Levy
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences MA 02139, USA
- University of California San Diego, Department of Linguistics CA 92161, USA
| | - Titus von der Malsburg
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences MA 02139, USA
- University of Stuttgart, Institute of Linguistics, 70049 Stuttgart, Germany
| | - Nathaniel Smith
- University of California San Diego, Department of Linguistics CA 92161, USA
| | - Edward Gibson
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences MA 02139, USA
| | - Evelina Fedorenko
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences MA 02139, USA
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology, McGovern Institute for Brain ResearchMA 02139, USA
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20
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Wehbe L, Blank IA, Shain C, Futrell R, Levy R, von der Malsburg T, Smith N, Gibson E, Fedorenko E. Incremental Language Comprehension Difficulty Predicts Activity in the Language Network but Not the Multiple Demand Network. Cereb Cortex 2021; 31:4006-4023. [PMID: 33895807 PMCID: PMC8328211 DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhab065] [Citation(s) in RCA: 34] [Impact Index Per Article: 11.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/15/2020] [Revised: 01/15/2021] [Accepted: 02/21/2021] [Indexed: 12/28/2022] Open
Abstract
What role do domain-general executive functions play in human language comprehension? To address this question, we examine the relationship between behavioral measures of comprehension and neural activity in the domain-general "multiple demand" (MD) network, which has been linked to constructs like attention, working memory, inhibitory control, and selection, and implicated in diverse goal-directed behaviors. Specifically, functional magnetic resonance imaging data collected during naturalistic story listening are compared with theory-neutral measures of online comprehension difficulty and incremental processing load (reading times and eye-fixation durations). Critically, to ensure that variance in these measures is driven by features of the linguistic stimulus rather than reflecting participant- or trial-level variability, the neuroimaging and behavioral datasets were collected in nonoverlapping samples. We find no behavioral-neural link in functionally localized MD regions; instead, this link is found in the domain-specific, fronto-temporal "core language network," in both left-hemispheric areas and their right hemispheric homotopic areas. These results argue against strong involvement of domain-general executive circuits in language comprehension.
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Affiliation(s)
- Leila Wehbe
- Carnegie Mellon University, Machine Learning Department PA 15213, USA
| | - Idan Asher Blank
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences MA 02139, USA
- University of California Los Angeles, Department of Psychology CA 90095, USA
| | - Cory Shain
- Ohio State University, Department of Linguistics OH 43210, USA
| | - Richard Futrell
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences MA 02139, USA
- University of California Irvine, Department of Linguistics CA 92697, USA
| | - Roger Levy
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences MA 02139, USA
- University of California San Diego, Department of Linguistics CA 92161, USA
| | - Titus von der Malsburg
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences MA 02139, USA
- University of Stuttgart, Institute of Linguistics, 70049 Stuttgart, Germany
| | - Nathaniel Smith
- University of California San Diego, Department of Linguistics CA 92161, USA
| | - Edward Gibson
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences MA 02139, USA
| | - Evelina Fedorenko
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences MA 02139, USA
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology, McGovern Institute for Brain ResearchMA 02139, USA
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21
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Ryskin R, Stearns L, Bergen L, Eddy M, Fedorenko E, Gibson E. An ERP index of real-time error correction within a noisy-channel framework of human communication. Neuropsychologia 2021; 158:107855. [PMID: 33865848 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2021.107855] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/14/2020] [Revised: 03/31/2021] [Accepted: 04/06/2021] [Indexed: 10/21/2022]
Abstract
Recent evidence suggests that language processing is well-adapted to noise in the input (e.g., spelling or speech errors, misreading or mishearing) and that comprehenders readily correct the input via rational inference over possible intended sentences given probable noise corruptions. In the current study, we probed the processing of noisy linguistic input, asking whether well-studied ERP components may serve as useful indices of this inferential process. In particular, we examined sentences where semantic violations could be attributed to noise-for example, in "The storyteller could turn any incident into an amusing antidote", where the implausible word "antidote" is orthographically and phonologically close to the intended "anecdote". We found that the processing of such sentences-where the probability that the message was corrupted by noise exceeds the probability that it was produced intentionally and perceived accurately-was associated with a reduced (less negative) N400 effect and an increased P600 effect, compared to semantic violations which are unlikely to be attributed to noise ("The storyteller could turn any incident into an amusing hearse"). Further, the magnitudes of these ERP effects were correlated with the probability that the comprehender retrieved a plausible alternative. This work thus adds to the growing body of literature that suggests that many aspects of language processing are optimized for dealing with noise in the input, and opens the door to electrophysiologic investigations of the computations that support the processing of imperfect input.
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Affiliation(s)
| | | | - Leon Bergen
- University of California, San Diego, United States
| | - Marianna Eddy
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology, United States
| | - Evelina Fedorenko
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology, United States; McGovern Institute for Brain Research, United States
| | - Edward Gibson
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology, United States
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22
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Bilateral age-related atrophy in the planum temporale is associated with vowel discrimination difficulty in healthy older adults. Hear Res 2021; 406:108252. [PMID: 33951578 DOI: 10.1016/j.heares.2021.108252] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/05/2020] [Revised: 04/04/2021] [Accepted: 04/07/2021] [Indexed: 11/24/2022]
Abstract
In this study we investigated the association between age-related brain atrophy and behavioural as well as electrophysiological markers of vowel perception in a sample of healthy younger and older adults with normal pure-tone hearing. Twenty-three older adults and 27 younger controls discriminated a set of vowels with altered second formants embedded in consonant-vowel syllables. Additionally, mismatch negativity (MMN) responses were recorded in a separate oddball paradigm with the same set of stimuli. A structural magnet resonance scan was obtained for each participant to determine cortical architecture of the left and right planum temporale (PT). The PT was chosen for its function as a major processor of auditory cues and speech. Results suggested that older adults performed worse in vowel discrimination despite normal-for-age pure-tone hearing. In the older group, we found evidence that those with greater age-related cortical atrophy (i.e., lower cortical surface area and cortical volume) in the left and right PT also showed weaker vowel discrimination. In comparison, we found a lateralized correlation in the younger group suggesting that those with greater cortical thickness in only the left PT performed weaker in the vowel discrimination task. We did not find any associations between macroanatomical traits of the PT and MMN responses. We conclude that deficient vowel processing is not only caused by pure-tone hearing loss but is also influenced by atrophy-related changes in the ageing auditory-related cortices. Furthermore, our results suggest that auditory processing might become more bilateral across the lifespan.
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23
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Schuster S, Himmelstoss NA, Hutzler F, Richlan F, Kronbichler M, Hawelka S. Cloze enough? Hemodynamic effects of predictive processing during natural reading. Neuroimage 2020; 228:117687. [PMID: 33385553 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2020.117687] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/08/2020] [Revised: 11/25/2020] [Accepted: 12/23/2020] [Indexed: 10/22/2022] Open
Abstract
Evidence accrues that readers form multiple hypotheses about upcoming words. The present study investigated the hemodynamic effects of predictive processing during natural reading by means of combining fMRI and eye movement recordings. In particular, we investigated the neural and behavioral correlates of precision-weighted prediction errors, which are thought to be indicative of subsequent belief updating. Participants silently read sentences in which we manipulated the cloze probability and the semantic congruency of the final word that served as an index for precision and prediction error respectively. With respect to the neural correlates, our findings indicate an enhanced activation within the left inferior frontal and middle temporal gyrus suggesting an effect of precision on prediction update in higher (lexico-)semantic levels. Despite being evident at the neural level, we did not observe any evidence that this mechanism resulted in disproportionate reading times on participants' eye movements. The results speak against discrete predictions, but favor the notion that multiple words are activated in parallel during reading.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sarah Schuster
- Paris-Lodron-University of Salzburg, Department of Psychology, Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience, Hellbrunnerstr. 34, 5020 Salzburg, Austria
| | - Nicole Alexandra Himmelstoss
- Paris-Lodron-University of Salzburg, Department of Psychology, Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience, Hellbrunnerstr. 34, 5020 Salzburg, Austria
| | - Florian Hutzler
- Paris-Lodron-University of Salzburg, Department of Psychology, Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience, Hellbrunnerstr. 34, 5020 Salzburg, Austria.
| | - Fabio Richlan
- Paris-Lodron-University of Salzburg, Department of Psychology, Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience, Hellbrunnerstr. 34, 5020 Salzburg, Austria
| | - Martin Kronbichler
- Paris-Lodron-University of Salzburg, Department of Psychology, Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience, Hellbrunnerstr. 34, 5020 Salzburg, Austria; Neuroscience Institute and Department of Neurology, Christian Doppler Clinic, Paracelsus Private Medical University, Ignaz-Harrer-Str. 79, 5020 Salzburg, Austria
| | - Stefan Hawelka
- Paris-Lodron-University of Salzburg, Department of Psychology, Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience, Hellbrunnerstr. 34, 5020 Salzburg, Austria
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24
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Montefinese M, Pinti P, Ambrosini E, Tachtsidis I, Vinson D. Inferior parietal lobule is sensitive to different semantic similarity relations for concrete and abstract words. Psychophysiology 2020; 58:e13750. [PMID: 33340124 DOI: 10.1111/psyp.13750] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/11/2020] [Revised: 11/24/2020] [Accepted: 11/30/2020] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
Abstract
Similarity measures, the extent to which two concepts have similar meanings, are the key to understand how concepts are represented, with different theoretical perspectives relying on very different sources of data from which similarity can be calculated. While there is some commonality in similarity measures, the extent of their correlation is limited. Previous studies also suggested that the relative performance of different similarity measures may also vary depending on concept concreteness and that the inferior parietal lobule (IPL) may be involved in the integration of conceptual features in a multimodal system for the semantic categorization. Here, we tested for the first time whether theory-based similarity measures predict the pattern of brain activity in the IPL differently for abstract and concrete concepts. English speakers performed a semantic decision task, while we recorded their brain activity in IPL through fNIRS. Using representational similarity analysis, results indicated that the neural representational similarity in IPL conformed to the lexical co-occurrence among concrete concepts (regardless of the hemisphere) and to the affective similarity among abstract concepts in the left hemisphere only, implying that semantic representations of abstract and concrete concepts are characterized along different organizational principles in the IPL. We observed null results for the decoding accuracy. Our study suggests that the use of the representational similarity analysis as a complementary analysis to the decoding accuracy is a promising tool to reveal similarity patterns between theoretical models and brain activity recorded through fNIRS.
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Affiliation(s)
- Maria Montefinese
- Department of Experimental Psychology, University College London, London, United Kingdom.,Department of General Psychology, University of Padova, Padova, Italy
| | - Paola Pinti
- Department of Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering, Malet Place Engineering Building, University College London, London, United Kingdom.,Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, Alexandra House, University College London, London, United Kingdom
| | - Ettore Ambrosini
- Department of General Psychology, University of Padova, Padova, Italy.,Department of Neuroscience, University of Padova, Padova, Italy.,Padova Neuroscience Center, University of Padova, Padova, Italy
| | - Ilias Tachtsidis
- Department of Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering, Malet Place Engineering Building, University College London, London, United Kingdom
| | - David Vinson
- Department of Experimental Psychology, University College London, London, United Kingdom
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25
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Distinct neural substrates of individual differences in components of reading comprehension in adults with or without dyslexia. Neuroimage 2020; 226:117570. [PMID: 33221445 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2020.117570] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/01/2020] [Revised: 11/11/2020] [Accepted: 11/14/2020] [Indexed: 12/26/2022] Open
Abstract
Reading comprehension is a complex task that depends on multiple cognitive and linguistic processes. According to the updated Simple View of Reading framework, in adults, individual variation in reading comprehension can be largely explained by combined variance in three component abilities: (1) decoding accuracy, (2) fluency, and (3) language comprehension. Here we asked whether the neural correlates of the three components are different in adults with dyslexia as compared to typically-reading adults and whether the relative contribution of these correlates to reading comprehension is similar in the two groups. We employed a novel naturalistic fMRI reading task to identify the neural correlates of individual differences in the three components using whole-brain and literature-driven regions-of-interest approaches. Across all participants, as predicted by the Simple View framework, we found distinct patterns of associations with linguistic and domain-general regions for the three components, and that the left-hemispheric neural correlates of language comprehension in the angular and posterior temporal gyri made the largest contributions to explaining out-of-scanner reading comprehension performance. These patterns differed between the two groups. In typical adult readers, better fluency was associated with greater activation of left occipitotemporal regions, better comprehension with lesser activation in prefrontal and posterior parietal regions, and there were no significant associations with decoding. In adults with dyslexia, better fluency was associated with greater activation of bilateral inferior parietal regions, better comprehension was associated with greater activation in some prefrontal clusters and lower in others, and better decoding skills were associated with lesser activation of bilateral prefrontal and posterior parietal regions. Extending the behavioral findings of skill-level differences in the relative contribution of the three components to reading comprehension, the relative contributions of the neural correlates to reading comprehension differed based on dyslexia status. These findings reveal some of the neural correlates of individual differences in the three components and the underlying mechanisms of reading comprehension deficits in adults with dyslexia.
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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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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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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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Humphreys GF, Jackson RL, Lambon Ralph MA. Overarching Principles and Dimensions of the Functional Organization in the Inferior Parietal Cortex. Cereb Cortex 2020; 30:5639-5653. [PMID: 32515783 PMCID: PMC7116231 DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhaa133] [Citation(s) in RCA: 20] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/17/2020] [Revised: 04/24/2020] [Accepted: 04/24/2020] [Indexed: 02/04/2023] Open
Abstract
The parietal cortex (PC) is implicated in a confusing myriad of different cognitive processes/tasks. Consequently, understanding the nature and organization of the core underlying neurocomputations is challenging. According to the Parietal Unified Connectivity-biased Computation model, two properties underpin PC function and organization. Firstly, PC is a multidomain, context-dependent buffer of time- and space-varying input, the function of which, over time, becomes sensitive to the statistical temporal/spatial structure of events. Secondly, over and above this core buffering computation, differences in long-range connectivity will generate graded variations in task engagement across subregions. The current study tested these hypotheses using a group independent component analysis technique with two independent functional magnetic resonance imaging datasets (task and resting state data). Three functional organizational principles were revealed: Factor 1, inferior PC was sensitive to the statistical structure of sequences for all stimulus types (pictures, sentences, numbers); Factor 2, a dorsal–ventral variation in generally task-positive versus task-negative (variable) engagement; and Factor 3, an anterior–posterior dimension in inferior PC reflecting different engagement in verbal versus visual tasks, respectively. Together, the data suggest that the core neurocomputation implemented by PC is common across domains, with graded task engagement across regions reflecting variations in the connectivity of task-specific networks that interact with PC.
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Affiliation(s)
- Gina F Humphreys
- MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 7EF, UK
| | - Rebecca L Jackson
- MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 7EF, UK
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Diachek E, Blank I, Siegelman M, Affourtit J, Fedorenko E. The Domain-General Multiple Demand (MD) Network Does Not Support Core Aspects of Language Comprehension: A Large-Scale fMRI Investigation. J Neurosci 2020; 40:4536-4550. [PMID: 32317387 PMCID: PMC7275862 DOI: 10.1523/jneurosci.2036-19.2020] [Citation(s) in RCA: 83] [Impact Index Per Article: 20.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/20/2019] [Revised: 03/02/2020] [Accepted: 04/05/2020] [Indexed: 11/21/2022] Open
Abstract
Aside from the language-selective left-lateralized frontotemporal network, language comprehension sometimes recruits a domain-general bilateral frontoparietal network implicated in executive functions: the multiple demand (MD) network. However, the nature of the MD network's contributions to language comprehension remains debated. To illuminate the role of this network in language processing in humans, we conducted a large-scale fMRI investigation using data from 30 diverse word and sentence comprehension experiments (481 unique participants [female and male], 678 scanning sessions). In line with prior findings, the MD network was active during many language tasks. Moreover, similar to the language-selective network, which is robustly lateralized to the left hemisphere, these responses were stronger in the left-hemisphere MD regions. However, in contrast with the language-selective network, the MD network responded more strongly (1) to lists of unconnected words than to sentences, and (2) in paradigms with an explicit task compared with passive comprehension paradigms. Indeed, many passive comprehension tasks failed to elicit a response above the fixation baseline in the MD network, in contrast to strong responses in the language-selective network. Together, these results argue against a role for the MD network in core aspects of sentence comprehension, such as inhibiting irrelevant meanings or parses, keeping intermediate representations active in working memory, or predicting upcoming words or structures. These results align with recent evidence of relatively poor tracking of the linguistic signal by the MD regions during naturalistic comprehension, and instead suggest that the MD network's engagement during language processing reflects effort associated with extraneous task demands.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Domain-general executive processes, such as working memory and cognitive control, have long been implicated in language comprehension, including in neuroimaging studies that have reported activation in domain-general multiple demand (MD) regions for linguistic manipulations. However, much prior evidence has come from paradigms where language interpretation is accompanied by extraneous tasks. Using a large fMRI dataset (30 experiments/481 participants/678 sessions), we demonstrate that MD regions are engaged during language comprehension in the presence of task demands, but not during passive reading/listening, conditions that strongly activate the frontotemporal language network. These results present a fundamental challenge to proposals whereby linguistic computations, such as inhibiting irrelevant meanings, keeping representations active in working memory, or predicting upcoming elements, draw on domain-general executive resources.
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Affiliation(s)
- Evgeniia Diachek
- Department of Psychology, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee 37203
| | - Idan Blank
- Department of Psychology, University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California 90095
| | - Matthew Siegelman
- Department of Psychology, Columbia University, New York, New York 10027
| | - Josef Affourtit
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139
| | - Evelina Fedorenko
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139
- McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139
- Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, Massachusetts 02129
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Mollica F, Siegelman M, Diachek E, Piantadosi ST, Mineroff Z, Futrell R, Kean H, Qian P, Fedorenko E. Composition is the Core Driver of the Language-selective Network. NEUROBIOLOGY OF LANGUAGE (CAMBRIDGE, MASS.) 2020; 1:104-134. [PMID: 36794007 PMCID: PMC9923699 DOI: 10.1162/nol_a_00005] [Citation(s) in RCA: 39] [Impact Index Per Article: 9.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/09/2019] [Accepted: 12/19/2019] [Indexed: 05/11/2023]
Abstract
The frontotemporal language network responds robustly and selectively to sentences. But the features of linguistic input that drive this response and the computations that these language areas support remain debated. Two key features of sentences are typically confounded in natural linguistic input: words in sentences (a) are semantically and syntactically combinable into phrase- and clause-level meanings, and (b) occur in an order licensed by the language's grammar. Inspired by recent psycholinguistic work establishing that language processing is robust to word order violations, we hypothesized that the core linguistic computation is composition, and, thus, can take place even when the word order violates the grammatical constraints of the language. This hypothesis predicts that a linguistic string should elicit a sentence-level response in the language network provided that the words in that string can enter into dependency relationships as in typical sentences. We tested this prediction across two fMRI experiments (total N = 47) by introducing a varying number of local word swaps into naturalistic sentences, leading to progressively less syntactically well-formed strings. Critically, local dependency relationships were preserved because combinable words remained close to each other. As predicted, word order degradation did not decrease the magnitude of the blood oxygen level-dependent response in the language network, except when combinable words were so far apart that composition among nearby words was highly unlikely. This finding demonstrates that composition is robust to word order violations, and that the language regions respond as strongly as they do to naturalistic linguistic input, providing that composition can take place.
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Affiliation(s)
| | | | | | | | | | | | - Hope Kean
- Brain & Cognitive Sciences Department, MIT
| | - Peng Qian
- Brain & Cognitive Sciences Department, MIT
| | - Evelina Fedorenko
- Brain & Cognitive Sciences Department, MIT
- McGovern Institute for Brain Research, MIT
- Psychiatry Department, Massachusetts General Hospital
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Shain C, Blank IA, van Schijndel M, Schuler W, Fedorenko E. fMRI reveals language-specific predictive coding during naturalistic sentence comprehension. Neuropsychologia 2020; 138:107307. [PMID: 31874149 PMCID: PMC7140726 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2019.107307] [Citation(s) in RCA: 87] [Impact Index Per Article: 21.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/12/2019] [Revised: 12/02/2019] [Accepted: 12/13/2019] [Indexed: 11/19/2022]
Abstract
Much research in cognitive neuroscience supports prediction as a canonical computation of cognition across domains. Is such predictive coding implemented by feedback from higher-order domain-general circuits, or is it locally implemented in domain-specific circuits? What information sources are used to generate these predictions? This study addresses these two questions in the context of language processing. We present fMRI evidence from a naturalistic comprehension paradigm (1) that predictive coding in the brain's response to language is domain-specific, and (2) that these predictions are sensitive both to local word co-occurrence patterns and to hierarchical structure. Using a recently developed continuous-time deconvolutional regression technique that supports data-driven hemodynamic response function discovery from continuous BOLD signal fluctuations in response to naturalistic stimuli, we found effects of prediction measures in the language network but not in the domain-general multiple-demand network, which supports executive control processes and has been previously implicated in language comprehension. Moreover, within the language network, surface-level and structural prediction effects were separable. The predictability effects in the language network were substantial, with the model capturing over 37% of explainable variance on held-out data. These findings indicate that human sentence processing mechanisms generate predictions about upcoming words using cognitive processes that are sensitive to hierarchical structure and specialized for language processing, rather than via feedback from high-level executive control mechanisms.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Idan Asher Blank
- University of California Los Angeles, 90024, USA; Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 02139, USA.
| | | | - William Schuler
- The Ohio State University, 43210, USA; Massachusetts General Hospital, Program in Speech and Hearing Bioscience and Technology, 02115, USA.
| | - Evelina Fedorenko
- Massachusetts General Hospital, Program in Speech and Hearing Bioscience and Technology, 02115, USA.
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Payne BR, Ng S, Shantz K, Federmeier KD. Event-related brain potentials in multilingual language processing: The N's and P's. PSYCHOLOGY OF LEARNING AND MOTIVATION 2020. [DOI: 10.1016/bs.plm.2020.03.003] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/24/2022]
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Is less readable liked better? The case of font readability in poetry appreciation. PLoS One 2019; 14:e0225757. [PMID: 31834884 PMCID: PMC6910705 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0225757] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/05/2019] [Accepted: 11/12/2019] [Indexed: 11/21/2022] Open
Abstract
Previous research shows conflicting findings for the effect of font readability on comprehension and memory for language. It has been found that—perhaps counterintuitively–a hard to read font can be beneficial for language comprehension, especially for difficult language. Here we test how font readability influences the subjective experience of poetry reading. In three experiments we tested the influence of poem difficulty and font readability on the subjective experience of poems. We specifically predicted that font readability would have opposite effects on the subjective experience of easy versus difficult poems. Participants read poems which could be more or less difficult in terms of conceptual or structural aspects, and which were presented in a font that was either easy or more difficult to read. Participants read existing poems and subsequently rated their subjective experience (measured through four dependent variables: overall liking, perceived flow of the poem, perceived topic clarity, and perceived structure). In line with previous literature we observed a Poem Difficulty x Font Readability interaction effect for subjective measures of poetry reading. We found that participants rated easy poems as nicer when presented in an easy to read font, as compared to when presented in a hard to read font. Despite the presence of the interaction effect, we did not observe the predicted opposite effect for more difficult poems. We conclude that font readability can influence reading of easy and more difficult poems differentially, with strongest effects for easy poems.
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Lau EF, Namyst A. fMRI evidence that left posterior temporal cortex contributes to N400 effects of predictability independent of congruity. BRAIN AND LANGUAGE 2019; 199:104697. [PMID: 31585316 DOI: 10.1016/j.bandl.2019.104697] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/25/2018] [Revised: 09/17/2019] [Accepted: 09/18/2019] [Indexed: 06/10/2023]
Abstract
Previous electrophysiological work argues that predictability and semantic incongruity rapidly impact comprehension, as indicated by modulation of the N400 component between ~300 and 500 ms. An ongoing question is whether effects of predictability in fact reflect pre-activation in long-term memory as opposed to modulating the kind of integration processes triggered by incongruity. Using fMRI, we compared the impact of predictability and incongruity in adjective-noun phrases, in regions identified with lexical and phrasal localizer scans. We found that predictability impacted activity in left posterior middle temporal gyrus (pMTG), while incongruity impacted activity in left precentral gyrus. Together with parallel data from ERP, these data are consistent with the hypothesis that left pMTG activity is a key contributor to N400 effects of predictability and that the relevant mechanism is reduced activation of stored lexical representations. We tentatively suggest that the left precentral region may play a role in reanalysis when incongruity is encountered.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ellen F Lau
- University of Maryland, Department of Linguistics, College Park, MD, United States.
| | - Anna Namyst
- University of Maryland, Department of Linguistics, College Park, MD, United States; NIMH MEG Core Facility, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, United States.
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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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37
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Quiñones I, Molinaro N, Mancini S, Hernández-Cabrera JA, Barber H, Carreiras M. Tracing the interplay between syntactic and lexical features: fMRI evidence from agreement comprehension. Neuroimage 2018; 175:259-271. [DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2018.03.069] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/10/2018] [Revised: 03/27/2018] [Accepted: 03/28/2018] [Indexed: 11/26/2022] Open
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38
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Giroud N, Hirsiger S, Muri R, Kegel A, Dillier N, Meyer M. Neuroanatomical and resting state EEG power correlates of central hearing loss in older adults. Brain Struct Funct 2017; 223:145-163. [DOI: 10.1007/s00429-017-1477-0] [Citation(s) in RCA: 22] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/03/2016] [Accepted: 07/11/2017] [Indexed: 02/02/2023]
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39
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Boylan C, Trueswell JC, Thompson-Schill SL. Relational vs. attributive interpretation of nominal compounds differentially engages angular gyrus and anterior temporal lobe. BRAIN AND LANGUAGE 2017; 169:8-21. [PMID: 28236762 PMCID: PMC5810541 DOI: 10.1016/j.bandl.2017.01.008] [Citation(s) in RCA: 24] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/22/2015] [Revised: 12/22/2016] [Accepted: 01/26/2017] [Indexed: 05/30/2023]
Abstract
The angular gyrus (AG) and anterior temporal lobe (ATL) have been found to respond to a number of tasks involving combinatorial processing. In this study, we investigate the conceptual combination of nominal compounds, and ask whether ATL/AG activity is modulated by the type of combinatorial operation applied to a nominal compound. We compare relational and attributive interpretations of nominal compounds and find that ATL and AG both discriminate these two types, but in distinct ways. While right AG demonstrated greater positive task-responsive activity for relational compounds, there was a greater negative deflection in the BOLD response in left AG for relational compounds. In left ATL, we found an earlier peak in subjects' BOLD response curves for attributive interpretations. In other words, we observed dissociations in both AG and ATL between relational and attributive nominal compounds, with regard to magnitude in the former and to timing in the latter. These findings expand on prior studies that posit roles for both AG and ATL in conceptual processing generally, and in conceptual combination specifically, by indicating possible functional specializations of these two regions within a larger conceptual knowledge network.
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Affiliation(s)
- Christine Boylan
- Department of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, United States.
| | - John C Trueswell
- Department of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, United States
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Anurova I, Immonen P. Native vs. second language discrimination in the modulation of the N400/N400m. Eur J Neurosci 2017; 45:1289-1299. [DOI: 10.1111/ejn.13566] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/21/2016] [Revised: 03/14/2017] [Accepted: 03/20/2017] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Irina Anurova
- Neuroscience Unit; Department of Physiology; Faculty of Medicine; University of Helsinki; Haartmaninkatu 8 P.O. Box 63 00014 Helsinki Finland
- BioMag Laboratory; HUS Medical Imaging Center; University of Helsinki and Helsinki University Hospital; Helsinki Finland
| | - Perttu Immonen
- Neuroscience Unit; Department of Physiology; Faculty of Medicine; University of Helsinki; Haartmaninkatu 8 P.O. Box 63 00014 Helsinki Finland
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41
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Mancini S, Quiñones I, Molinaro N, Hernandez-Cabrera JA, Carreiras M. Disentangling meaning in the brain: Left temporal involvement in agreement processing. Cortex 2017; 86:140-155. [DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2016.11.008] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/21/2015] [Revised: 05/20/2016] [Accepted: 11/08/2016] [Indexed: 10/20/2022]
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42
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Functional significance of the semantic P600: evidence from the event-related brain potential source localization. Neuroreport 2016; 27:548-58. [PMID: 27035731 DOI: 10.1097/wnr.0000000000000583] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/26/2022]
Abstract
Previous event-related potentials studies of sentence comprehension have usually associated syntactic repair/reanalysis processes with the P600 component. However, the functional significance of the P600 was recently questioned on the basis of the observation of P600 effects in response to the processing of semantically anomalous sentences. In the present study, we investigated the functional significance of the 'semantic P600' using a semantic violation paradigm with a focus-on-syntax instruction. Using a source localization analysis, we tested three alternative hypotheses on the function of the P600: (i) a syntactic function, (ii) an executive function, and (iii) a semantic/integrational function. We assumed that distinct neuronal generators should reflect each of these functions. Although the syntactic generators are expected to be mainly located in the left inferior frontal gyrus, the semantic generators should be observed in the left superior temporal gyrus as well as in the right anterior prefrontal cortex (semantic retrieval); moreover, the generator of executive function (conflict monitoring) should be found in the anterior cingulate cortex. Critically, we defined a dipole model using 17 dipoles, 14 of which were placed in the three regions of interest corresponding to our hypotheses, namely, syntactic, executive, and semantic regions. Our data showed that the P600 effect was significant in the anterior cingulate cortex and marginally significant in the right anterior prefrontal cortex. This finding suggests that the P600 might reflect more general mechanisms of conflict monitoring and semantic reinterpretation leading to a retrieval of world knowledge from long-term memory rather purely syntactic processes.
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Abstract
The neural processes that underlie your ability to read and understand this sentence are unknown. Sentence comprehension occurs very rapidly, and can only be understood at a mechanistic level by discovering the precise sequence of underlying computational and neural events. However, we have no continuous and online neural measure of sentence processing with high spatial and temporal resolution. Here we report just such a measure: intracranial recordings from the surface of the human brain show that neural activity, indexed by γ-power, increases monotonically over the course of a sentence as people read it. This steady increase in activity is absent when people read and remember nonword-lists, despite the higher cognitive demand entailed, ruling out accounts in terms of generic attention, working memory, and cognitive load. Response increases are lower for sentence structure without meaning ("Jabberwocky" sentences) and word meaning without sentence structure (word-lists), showing that this effect is not explained by responses to syntax or word meaning alone. Instead, the full effect is found only for sentences, implicating compositional processes of sentence understanding, a striking and unique feature of human language not shared with animal communication systems. This work opens up new avenues for investigating the sequence of neural events that underlie the construction of linguistic meaning.
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44
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Scott TL, Gallée J, Fedorenko E. A new fun and robust version of an fMRI localizer for the frontotemporal language system. Cogn Neurosci 2016; 8:167-176. [PMID: 27386919 DOI: 10.1080/17588928.2016.1201466] [Citation(s) in RCA: 52] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/31/2022]
Abstract
A set of brain regions in the frontal, temporal, and parietal lobes supports high-level linguistic processing. These regions can be reliably identified in individual subjects using fMRI, by contrasting neural responses to meaningful and structured language stimuli vs. stimuli matched for low-level properties but lacking meaning and/or structure. We here present a novel version of a language 'localizer,' which should be suitable for diverse populations including children and/or clinical populations who may have difficulty with reading or cognitively demanding tasks. In particular, we contrast responses to auditorily presented excerpts from engaging interviews or stories, and acoustically degraded versions of these materials. This language localizer is appealing because it uses (a) naturalistic and engaging linguistic materials, (b) auditory presentation,
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Affiliation(s)
- Terri L Scott
- a Boston University , Graduate Program for Neuroscience , Boston , MA , USA
| | - Jeanne Gallée
- b Department of Cognitive and Linguistic Sciences , Wellesley College , Wellesley , MA , USA
| | - Evelina Fedorenko
- c Massachusetts General Hospital , Harvard Medical School, Department of Psychiatry, Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging , Charlestown , MA , USA.,d Massachusetts Institute of Technology , McGovern Institute for Brain Research , Cambridge , MA , USA
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45
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Schuster S, Hawelka S, Hutzler F, Kronbichler M, Richlan F. Words in Context: The Effects of Length, Frequency, and Predictability on Brain Responses During Natural Reading. Cereb Cortex 2016; 26:3889-3904. [PMID: 27365297 PMCID: PMC5028003 DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhw184] [Citation(s) in RCA: 50] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/26/2022] Open
Abstract
Word length, frequency, and predictability count among the most influential variables during reading. Their effects are well-documented in eye movement studies, but pertinent evidence from neuroimaging primarily stem from single-word presentations. We investigated the effects of these variables during reading of whole sentences with simultaneous eye-tracking and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fixation-related fMRI). Increasing word length was associated with increasing activation in occipital areas linked to visual analysis. Additionally, length elicited a U-shaped modulation (i.e., least activation for medium-length words) within a brain stem region presumably linked to eye movement control. These effects, however, were diminished when accounting for multiple fixation cases. Increasing frequency was associated with decreasing activation within left inferior frontal, superior parietal, and occipito-temporal regions. The function of the latter region—hosting the putative visual word form area—was originally considered as limited to sublexical processing. An exploratory analysis revealed that increasing predictability was associated with decreasing activation within middle temporal and inferior frontal regions previously implicated in memory access and unification. The findings are discussed with regard to their correspondence with findings from single-word presentations and with regard to neurocognitive models of visual word recognition, semantic processing, and eye movement control during reading.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sarah Schuster
- Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Salzburg, 5020 Salzburg, Austria.,Department of Psychology, University of Salzburg, 5020 Salzburg, Austria
| | - Stefan Hawelka
- Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Salzburg, 5020 Salzburg, Austria.,Department of Psychology, University of Salzburg, 5020 Salzburg, Austria
| | - Florian Hutzler
- Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Salzburg, 5020 Salzburg, Austria.,Department of Psychology, University of Salzburg, 5020 Salzburg, Austria
| | - Martin Kronbichler
- Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Salzburg, 5020 Salzburg, Austria.,Department of Psychology, University of Salzburg, 5020 Salzburg, Austria.,Neuroscience Institute, Christian-Doppler Klinik, Paracelsus Medical University, 5020 Salzburg, Austria
| | - Fabio Richlan
- Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Salzburg, 5020 Salzburg, Austria.,Department of Psychology, University of Salzburg, 5020 Salzburg, Austria
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46
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Nozari N, Mirman D, Thompson-Schill SL. The ventrolateral prefrontal cortex facilitates processing of sentential context to locate referents. BRAIN AND LANGUAGE 2016; 157-158:1-13. [PMID: 27148817 PMCID: PMC4974818 DOI: 10.1016/j.bandl.2016.04.006] [Citation(s) in RCA: 15] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/23/2015] [Revised: 04/03/2016] [Accepted: 04/10/2016] [Indexed: 05/24/2023]
Abstract
Left ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC) has been implicated in both integration and conflict resolution in sentence comprehension. Most evidence in favor of the integration account comes from processing ambiguous or anomalous sentences, which also poses a demand for conflict resolution. In two eye-tracking experiments we studied the role of VLPFC in integration when demands for conflict resolution were minimal. Two closely-matched groups of individuals with chronic post-stroke aphasia were tested: the Anterior group had damage to left VLPFC, whereas the Posterior group had left temporo-parietal damage. In Experiment 1 a semantic cue (e.g., "She will eat the apple") uniquely marked the target (apple) among three distractors that were incompatible with the verb. In Experiment 2 phonological cues (e.g., "She will see an eagle."/"She will see a bear.") uniquely marked the target among three distractors whose onsets were incompatible with the cue (e.g., all consonants when the target started with a vowel). In both experiments, control conditions had a similar format, but contained no semantic or phonological contextual information useful for target integration (e.g., the verb "see", and the determiner "the"). All individuals in the Anterior group were slower in using both types of contextual information to locate the target than were individuals in the Posterior group. These results suggest a role for VLPFC in integration beyond conflict resolution. We discuss a framework that accommodates both integration and conflict resolution.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nazbanou Nozari
- Department of Neurology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, United States; Department of Cognitive Science, Johns Hopkins University, United States.
| | - Daniel Mirman
- Department of Psychology, Drexel University, United States; Moss Rehabilitation Research Institute, United States
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47
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Carreiras M, Quiñones I, Mancini S, Hernández-Cabrera JA, Barber H. Verbal and nominal agreement: An fMRI study. Neuroimage 2015; 120:88-103. [DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2015.06.075] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/17/2014] [Revised: 01/30/2015] [Accepted: 06/25/2015] [Indexed: 11/29/2022] Open
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48
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Getting a cue before getting a clue: Event-related potentials to inference in visual narrative comprehension. Neuropsychologia 2015; 77:267-78. [PMID: 26320706 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2015.08.026] [Citation(s) in RCA: 27] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/25/2015] [Revised: 08/05/2015] [Accepted: 08/25/2015] [Indexed: 11/21/2022]
Abstract
Inference has long been emphasized in the comprehension of verbal and visual narratives. Here, we measured event-related brain potentials to visual sequences designed to elicit inferential processing. In Impoverished sequences, an expressionless "onlooker" watches an undepicted event (e.g., person throws a ball for a dog, then watches the dog chase it) just prior to a surprising finale (e.g., someone else returns the ball), which should lead to an inference (i.e., the different person retrieved the ball). Implied sequences alter this narrative structure by adding visual cues to the critical panel such as a surprised facial expression to the onlooker implying they saw an unexpected, albeit undepicted, event. In contrast, Expected sequences show a predictable, but then confounded, event (i.e., dog retrieves ball, then different person returns it), and Explicit sequences depict the unexpected event (i.e., different person retrieves then returns ball). At the critical penultimate panel, sequences representing depicted events (Explicit, Expected) elicited a larger posterior positivity (P600) than the relatively passive events of an onlooker (Impoverished, Implied), though Implied sequences were slightly more positive than Impoverished sequences. At the subsequent and final panel, a posterior positivity (P600) was greater to images in Impoverished sequences than those in Explicit and Implied sequences, which did not differ. In addition, both sequence types requiring inference (Implied, Impoverished) elicited a larger frontal negativity than those explicitly depicting events (Expected, Explicit). These results show that neural processing differs for visual narratives omitting events versus those depicting events, and that the presence of subtle visual cues can modulate such effects presumably by altering narrative structure.
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49
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Shimada K, Hirotani M, Yokokawa H, Yoshida H, Makita K, Yamazaki-Murase M, Tanabe HC, Sadato N. Fluency-dependent cortical activation associated with speech production and comprehension in second language learners. Neuroscience 2015; 300:474-92. [PMID: 26026679 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroscience.2015.05.045] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/17/2014] [Revised: 05/20/2015] [Accepted: 05/20/2015] [Indexed: 10/23/2022]
Abstract
This functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study investigated the brain regions underlying language task performance in adult second language (L2) learners. Specifically, we identified brain regions where the level of activation was associated with L2 fluency levels. Thirty Japanese-speaking adults participated in the study. All participants were L2 learners of English and had achieved varying levels of fluency, as determined by a standardized L2 English proficiency test, the Versant English Test (Pearson Education Inc., 2011). When participants performed the oral sentence building task from the production tasks administered, the dorsal part of the left inferior frontal gyrus (dIFG) showed activation patterns that differed depending on the L2 fluency levels: The more fluent the participants were, the more dIFG activation decreased. This decreased activation of the dIFG might reflect the increased automaticity of a syntactic building process. In contrast, when participants performed an oral story comprehension task, the left posterior superior temporal gyrus (pSTG) showed increased activation with higher fluency levels. This suggests that the learners with higher L2 fluency were actively engaged in post-syntactic integration processing supported by the left pSTG. These data imply that L2 fluency predicts neural resource allocation during language comprehension tasks as well as in production tasks. This study sheds light on the neural underpinnings of L2 learning by identifying the brain regions recruited during different language tasks across different modalities (production vs. comprehension).
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Affiliation(s)
- K Shimada
- Division of Cerebral Integration, Department of Cerebral Research, National Institute for Physiological Sciences (NIPS), Aichi, Japan; Department of Physiological Sciences, The Graduate University for Advanced Studies (Sokendai), Aichi, Japan; Research Center for Child Mental Development, University of Fukui, Fukui, Japan; Biomedical Imaging Research Center (BIRC), University of Fukui, Fukui, Japan
| | - M Hirotani
- Division of Cerebral Integration, Department of Cerebral Research, National Institute for Physiological Sciences (NIPS), Aichi, Japan; School of Linguistics and Language Studies, and Institute of Cognitive Science, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada.
| | - H Yokokawa
- School of Languages and Communication, Kobe University, Kobe, Japan
| | - H Yoshida
- Department of English Education, Osaka Kyoiku University, Osaka, Japan
| | - K Makita
- Division of Cerebral Integration, Department of Cerebral Research, National Institute for Physiological Sciences (NIPS), Aichi, Japan; Department of Physiological Sciences, The Graduate University for Advanced Studies (Sokendai), Aichi, Japan
| | - M Yamazaki-Murase
- Division of Cerebral Integration, Department of Cerebral Research, National Institute for Physiological Sciences (NIPS), Aichi, Japan; Research Center for Child Mental Development, University of Fukui, Fukui, Japan
| | - H C Tanabe
- Division of Cerebral Integration, Department of Cerebral Research, National Institute for Physiological Sciences (NIPS), Aichi, Japan; Department of Physiological Sciences, The Graduate University for Advanced Studies (Sokendai), Aichi, Japan; Division of Psychology, Department of Social and Human Environment, Graduate School of Environmental Studies, Nagoya University, Nagoya, Japan
| | - N Sadato
- Division of Cerebral Integration, Department of Cerebral Research, National Institute for Physiological Sciences (NIPS), Aichi, Japan; Department of Physiological Sciences, The Graduate University for Advanced Studies (Sokendai), Aichi, Japan; Biomedical Imaging Research Center (BIRC), University of Fukui, Fukui, Japan
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50
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Distinguishing lexical- versus discourse-level processing using event-related potentials. Mem Cognit 2015; 42:275-91. [PMID: 24122362 DOI: 10.3758/s13421-013-0356-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/08/2022]
Abstract
Two experiments examine the links between neural patterns in EEG (e.g., N400s, P600s) and their corresponding cognitive processes (e.g., lexical access, discourse integration) by varying the lexical and syntactic contexts of co-referential expressions. Experiment 1 examined coreferring expressions when they occurred within the same clause as their antecedents (John/Bill warmly dressed John). Experiment 2 examined between-clause co-referencing with expressions that also varied in lexical frequency (John/Weston went to the store so that John/Weston could buy milk). Evidence of facilitated lexical processing occurred after repeated names, which elicited smaller N400s, as compared with new names. N400s were also attenuated to a greater degree for low-frequency expressions than for high-frequency ones. Repeated names also triggered evidence of postlexical processing, but this emerged as larger P600s for within-clause co-referencing and delayed N400s for between-clause co-referencing. Together, these results suggest that linguistic processes can be distinguished through distinct ERP components or distinct temporal patterns.
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