Brain Inhibitory Mechanisms Are Involved in the Processing of Sentential Negation, Regardless of Its Content. Evidence From EEG Theta and Beta Rhythms

Aperiodic and periodic components of oscillatory brain activity in relation to cognition and symptoms in pediatric ADHD

Children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder show deficits in processing speed, as well as aberrant neural oscillations, including both periodic (oscillatory) and aperiodic (1/f-like) activity, reflecting the pattern of power across frequencies. Both components were suggested as underlying neural mechanisms of cognitive dysfunctions in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Here, we examined differences in processing speed and resting-state-Electroencephalogram neural oscillations and their associations between 6- and 12-year-old children with (n = 33) and without (n = 33) attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Spectral analyses of the resting-state EEG signal using fast Fourier transform revealed increased power in fronto-central theta and beta oscillations for the attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder group, but no differences in the theta/beta ratio. Using the parameterization method, we found a higher aperiodic exponent, which has been suggested to reflect lower neuronal excitation-inhibition, in the attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder group. While fast Fourier transform-based theta power correlated with clinical symptoms for the attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder group only, the aperiodic exponent was negatively correlated with processing speed across the entire sample. Finally, the aperiodic exponent was correlated with fast Fourier transform-based beta power. These results highlight the different and complementary contribution of periodic and aperiodic components of the neural spectrum as metrics for evaluation of processing speed in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Future studies should further clarify the roles of periodic and aperiodic components in additional cognitive functions and in relation to clinical status.

The role of motor inhibition in implicit negation processing: two Go/No-Go behavioral studies

Several studies demonstrated that explicit forms of negation processing (e.g., "I don't know") recruits motor inhibitory mechanisms. However, whether this is also true for implicit negation, in which the negative meaning is implicated but not explicitly lexicalized in the sentence (e.g., "I ignore"), has never been studied before. Two Go/No-Go studies, which differed only for the time-windows to respond to the Go stimulus, were carried out. In each, participants (N = 86 in experiment 1; N = 87 in experiment 2) respond to coloured circle while reading task-irrelevant affirmative, explicit negative and implicit negative sentences. We aimed to investigate whether: (i) the processing of implicit negations recruits inhibitory mechanisms; (ii) these inhibitory resources are differently modulated by implicit and explicit negations. Results show that implicit negative sentences recruit the inhibitory resources more strongly when compared to explicit ones, probably due to their inferential nature, likely requiring deeper processing of the negative meaning. Implicit and inferential meaning (i.e., pragmatic information) are grounded too in the same mechanisms that integrate action with perception. Such findings provide further evidence to the embodied account of language, showing that even abstract aspects, like implicit negation, are grounded in the sensory-motor system, by means of functional link between language and motor activity.

Negation and social avoidance in language recruits the right inferior frontal gyrus: a tDCS study

Introduction

In the process of comprehension, linguistic negation induces inhibition of negated scenarios. Numerous studies have highlighted the role of the right Inferior Frontal Gyrus (rIFG) - a key component of the inhibitory network - in negation processing. Social avoidance can be linguistically portrayed using attitudinal verbs such as "exclude" vs. "include", which inherently carry negative connotations. Consequently, we hypothesize that the interplay between explicit negation and the implicit negativity of avoidance verbs can be modulated via transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) targeting the rIFG.

Methods

In our study, sixty-four participants read approach/avoidance sentences, which were either affirmative or negative, such as "Anne included (did not include) meat in her diet" vs. "Anne excluded (did not exclude) meat in her diet". This reading task followed a 20-minute tDCS session. The sentences were sequentially displayed, and at 1500 ms post-sentence, a verb was shown - either the one previously mentioned or its semantic alternative counterpart (e.g., included vs. excluded).

Results

Findings revealed that anodal stimulation intensifies the inhibitory impact of negation during sentence comprehension. Under anodal conditions, negative sentences led to extended reading times for the mentioned verbs compared to their affirmative counterparts, suggesting an increased inhibitory effect on the verb. Furthermore, in avoidance sentences, anodal stimulation resulted in reduced reading times for alternative verbs (e.g. "included") in negative sentences compared to alternative verbs (e.g. "excluded") in negated approach sentences.

Discussion

As "avoidance" is semantically equivalent to "non-approach", the inhibitory effect of negation is primarily applied to the implicit negation: NOT EXCLUDED = NOT→NOT (INCLUDED), which consequently activates the representation of the alternative verb making it more available. We further discuss these findings in light of the rIFG's pivotal role in processing attitudinal verbs and linguistic negation. This discussion is framed within the overarching context of the two-step model of negation processing, highlighting its significance in the realm of social communication.

Negation mitigates rather than inverts the neural representations of adjectives

Combinatoric linguistic operations underpin human language processes, but how meaning is composed and refined in the mind of the reader is not well understood. We address this puzzle by exploiting the ubiquitous function of negation. We track the online effects of negation ("not") and intensifiers ("really") on the representation of scalar adjectives (e.g., "good") in parametrically designed behavioral and neurophysiological (MEG) experiments. The behavioral data show that participants first interpret negated adjectives as affirmative and later modify their interpretation towards, but never exactly as, the opposite meaning. Decoding analyses of neural activity further reveal significant above chance decoding accuracy for negated adjectives within 600 ms from adjective onset, suggesting that negation does not invert the representation of adjectives (i.e., "not bad" represented as "good"); furthermore, decoding accuracy for negated adjectives is found to be significantly lower than that for affirmative adjectives. Overall, these results suggest that negation mitigates rather than inverts the neural representations of adjectives. This putative suppression mechanism of negation is supported by increased synchronization of beta-band neural activity in sensorimotor areas. The analysis of negation provides a steppingstone to understand how the human brain represents changes of meaning over time.

Testing two-step models of negative quantification using a novel machine learning analysis of EEG

The sentences "More than half of the students passed the exam" and "Fewer than half of the students failed the exam" describe the same set of situations, and yet the former results in shorter reaction times in verification tasks. The two-step model explains this result by postulating that negative quantifiers contain hidden negation, which involves an extra processing stage. To test this theory, we applied a novel EEG analysis technique focused on detecting cognitive stages (HsMM-MVPA) to data from a picture-sentence verification task. We estimated the number of processing stages during reading and verification of quantified sentences (e.g. "Fewer than half of the dots are blue") that followed the presentation of pictures containing coloured geometric shapes. We did not find evidence for an extra step during the verification of sentences with fewer than half. We provide an alternative interpretation of our results in line with an expectation-based pragmatic account.

The effect of value on context and target recollection in memory for truth and falsity

Memory for truth and falsity has recently been investigated from the perspective of the dual-recollection theory, showing better context and target recollection for truth than falsity. In this paper, we examine whether these memory effects obtained for true statements are similar to the value effect, whereby true statements are given higher priority in encoding. For this purpose, we implemented value-directed remembering (VDR) into the conjoint-recognition paradigm. In our first experiment, the primary goal was to verify how VDR influences the processes defined by dual-recollection theory. At study, prioritized/important items were linked to higher numerical values (e.g., 10), while unimportant ones had lower values (e.g., 1). At test, the participants' task was to recognize whether a particular sentence was important, unimportant, or new. We found that both context and target recollection were better for important items. In the second experiment, the main goal was to study the combined effects of importance and veracity on memory. In the between-subjects design, participants were monetarily rewarded for memorizing true or false sentences. The results demonstrated differences in the ability to prioritize truth over falsity. Specifically, we found a substantial increase in context recollection for prioritized true information but not for prioritized false information. Moreover, we found higher context recollection for true than false sentences in the true-prioritized condition, but not in the false-prioritized condition. These results indicated that people are able to prioritize true information better than false, and suggested that memory for truth may be a special case of the value effect.

Electrophysiological alterations during action semantic processing in Parkinson's disease

Assessments of action semantics consistently reveal markers of Parkinson's disease (PD). However, neurophysiological signatures of the domain remain under-examined in this population, especially under conditions that allow patients to process stimuli without stringent time constraints. Here we assessed event-related potentials and time-frequency modulations in healthy individuals (HPs) and PD patients during a delayed-response semantic judgment task involving related and unrelated action-picture pairs. Both groups had shorter response times for related than for unrelated trials, but they exhibited discrepant electrophysiological patterns. HPs presented significantly greater N400 amplitudes as well as theta enhancement and mu desynchronization for unrelated relative to related trials. Conversely, N400 and theta modulations were abolished in the patients, who further exhibited a contralateralized cluster in the mu range. None of these patterns were associated with the participants' cognitive status. Our results suggest that PD involves multidimensional neurophysiological disruptions during action-concept processing, even under task conditions that elicit canonical behavioral effects. New constraints thus emerge for translational neurocognitive models of the disease.

Multivariate pattern analysis of EEG reveals nuanced impact of negation on sentence processing in the N400 and later time windows

The neurocognitive mechanism underlying negation processing remains controversial. While negation is suggested to modulate the access of word meaning, no such evidence has been observed in the event-related potential (ERP) literature on sentence processing. In the current study, we applied both univariate ERP and multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA) methods to examine the processing of sentence negation. We investigated two types of negative congruent/incongruent sentence pairs with truth-value evaluation (e.g., "A robin is a/not a bird") and without (e.g., "The woman reads a/no book"). In the N400 time window, ERPs consistently showed increased negativity for negative and incongruent conditions. MVPA, on the other hand, revealed nuanced interactions between polarity and congruency. In the later P600 time window, MVPA but not the ERPs revealed an effect of congruency, which may be functionally distinct from the N400 window. We further used cross-decoding to show that the cognitive processes underlying the N400 window for both affirmative and negative sentences are comparable, whereas in the P600 window, only for the truth sentences, negative sentences showed a distinct pattern from their affirmative counterparts. Our results thus speak for a more interactive, but nevertheless serial and biphasic, and potentially construction-specific processing account of negation. We also discuss the advantage of applying MVPA in addition to the classical univariate methods for a better understanding of the neurobiology of negation processing and language comprehension alike.

Mental simulation of the factual and the illusory in negation processing: evidence from anticipatory eye movements on a blank screen

How do comprehenders process negative statements such as The fish is not jumping out of the water? Opinions vary. Some argue for two steps, namely that processing starts off with the representation of the positive/illusory [fish jumping out of the water] and then shifts to the (f)actual. To test this idea, we measured fixations on the factual (fish not jumping) versus the illusory (fish jumping) during auditory processing of negation and affirmation. We tested speakers of English (single-cued negation) and Croatian (double-cued negation) and focused on anticipatory fixations in the absence of pictures to indicate the strength of mental simulations. Our findings contribute to negation processing research in two ways. First, dominant anticipatory fixations on the factual suggest a direct rather than a two-step process. Second, time-sensitive insights from two languages call for a finer-grained account of negation processing with negation-specific support of inferences of the factual over the illusory.

Following Affirmative and Negated Rules

Rules are often stated in a negated manner ("no trespassing") rather than in an affirmative manner ("stay in your lane"). Here, we build on classic research on negation processing and, using a finger-tracking design on a touchscreen, we show that following negated rather than affirmative rules is harder as indicated by multiple performance measures. Moreover, our results indicate that practice has a surprisingly limited effect on negated rules, which are implemented more quickly with training, but this effect comes at the expense of reduced efficiency. Only affirmative rules are thus put into action efficiently, highlighting the importance of tailoring how rules are communicated to the peculiarities of the human mind.

Activation levels of plausible alternatives in conversational negation

Negation is often used to contradict or correct (e.g. There is no dog here.). While rejecting some state of affairs that is presumed to hold for the recipient (e.g. There is a dog here.), the speaker might implicitly suggest a set of plausible alternatives (e.g. There is a wolf instead.). Prior work indicates that alternatives are highly relevant to the comprehension of sentences involving focus: in priming studies, listeners infer plausible alternatives to focused items even when they are not contextually available. So far it is unclear whether negation similarly activates an automatic search for plausible alternatives. The current study was designed to investigate this question, by looking at the activation levels of nouns after negative and affirmative sentences. In a series of priming experiments, subjects were presented with negative and affirmative sentences (e.g. There is an/no apple.), followed by a lexical decision task with targets including plausible alternatives (e.g. pear), as well as semantically related but implausible alternatives (e.g. seed). An interaction of Sentence Polarity and Prime-Target Relation was expected, with negation facilitating responses to plausible alternatives. Results of the first experiment were numerically in line with the hypothesis but the interaction just missed significance level. A post hoc analysis revealed the expected significant interaction. Possible roles of sentential context and goodness of alternatives are discussed. A further experiment confirms that the goodness of alternatives is in fact critical in modulating the effect.

Electrophysiological connectivity of logical deduction: Early cortical MEG study

Complex human reasoning involves minimal abilities to extract conclusions implied in the available information. These abilities are considered "deductive" because they exemplify certain abstract relations among propositions or probabilities called deductive arguments. However, the electrophysiological dynamics which supports such complex cognitive processes has not been addressed yet. In this work we consider typically deductive logico-probabilistically valid inferences and aim to verify or refute their electrophysiological functional connectivity differences from invalid inferences with the same content (same relational variables, same stimuli, same relevant and salient features). We recorded the brain electrophysiological activity of 20 participants (age = 20.35 ± 3.23) by means of an MEG system during two consecutive reasoning tasks: a search task (invalid condition) without any specific deductive rules to follow, and a logically valid deductive task (valid condition) with explicit deductive rules as instructions. We calculated the functional connectivity (FC) for each condition and conducted a seed-based analysis in a set of cortical regions of interest. Finally, we used a cluster-based permutation test to compare the differences between logically valid and invalid conditions in terms of FC. As a first novel result we found higher FC for valid condition in beta band between regions of interest and left prefrontal, temporal, parietal, and cingulate structures. FC analysis allows a second novel result which is the definition of a propositional network with operculo-cingular, parietal and medial nodes, specifically including disputed medial deductive "core" areas. The experiment discloses measurable cortical processes which do not depend on content but on truth-functional propositional operators. These experimental novelties may contribute to understand the cortical bases of deductive processes.

Electrical analysis of logical complexity: an exploratory eeg study of logically valid/invalid deducive inference

INTRODUCTION

Logically valid deductive arguments are clear examples of abstract recursive computational procedures on propositions or on probabilities. However, it is not known if the cortical time-consuming inferential processes in which logical arguments are eventually realized in the brain are in fact physically different from other kinds of inferential processes.

METHODS

In order to determine whether an electrical EEG discernible pattern of logical deduction exists or not, a new experimental paradigm is proposed contrasting logically valid and invalid inferences with exactly the same content (same premises and same relational variables) and distinct logical complexity (propositional truth-functional operators). Electroencephalographic signals from 19 subjects (24.2 ± 3.3 years) were acquired in a two-condition paradigm (100 trials for each condition). After the initial general analysis, a trial-by-trial approach in beta-2 band allowed to uncover not only evoked but also phase asynchronous activity between trials.

RESULTS

showed that (i) deductive inferences with the same content evoked the same response pattern in logically valid and invalid conditions, (ii) mean response time in logically valid inferences is 61.54% higher, (iii) logically valid inferences are subjected to an early (400 ms) and a late reprocessing (600 ms) verified by two distinct beta-2 activations (p-value < 0,01, Wilcoxon signed rank test).

CONCLUSION

We found evidence of a subtle but measurable electrical trait of logical validity. Results put forward the hypothesis that some logically valid deductions are recursive or computational cortical events.

Production of Sentential Negation in German and Italian Non-fluent Aphasia

The ability of persons with non-fluent aphasia (PWAs) to produce sentential negation has been investigated in several languages, but only in small samples. Accounts of (morpho)syntactic impairment in PWAs have emphasized various factors, such as whether the negative marker blocks or interferes with verb movement, the position of the Negation Phrase in the syntactic hierarchy or the interpretability of negation. This study investigates the ability of German- and Italian-speaking PWAs to construct negative sentences, as well as the role of verbal working memory (WM) capacity and education in task performance and production of sentential negation. German and Italian differ in the syntactic properties of the negative markers that are relevant here (nicht and non, respectively). A sentence anagram task tapping into the construction of negative and affirmative declarative sentences was administered to 9 German- and 7 Italian-speaking PWAs, and to 14 German- and 11 Italian-speaking age- and education-matched healthy volunteers. We fitted generalized linear mixed-effects models to the datasets. There was no significant difference between negative and affirmative sentences in either group of PWAs. There was a main effect of verbal WM capacity on task performance, but no interaction between verbal WM capacity and production of negative vs. affirmative sentences. Education did not affect task performance. The results are discussed in light of different linguistically-informed accounts of (morpho)syntactic impairment in non-fluent aphasia.

Is motor inhibition involved in the processing of sentential negation? An assessment via the Stop-Signal Task

In the last decades, the embodied approach to cognition and language gained momentum in the scientific debate, leading to evidence in different aspects of language processing. However, while the bodily grounding of concrete concepts seems to be relatively not controversial, abstract aspects, like the negation logical operator, are still today one of the main challenges for this research paradigm. In this framework, the present study has a twofold aim: (1) to assess whether mechanisms for motor inhibition underpin the processing of sentential negation, thus, providing evidence for a bodily grounding of this logic operator, (2) to determine whether the Stop-Signal Task, which has been used to investigate motor inhibition, could represent a good tool to explore this issue. Twenty-three participants were recruited in this experiment. Ten hand-action-related sentences, both in affirmative and negative polarity, were presented on a screen. Participants were instructed to respond as quickly and accurately as possible to the direction of the Go Stimulus (an arrow) and to withhold their response when they heard a sound following the arrow. This paradigm allows estimating the Stop Signal Reaction Time (SSRT), a covert reaction time underlying the inhibitory process. Our results show that the SSRT measured after reading negative sentences are longer than after reading affirmative ones, highlighting the recruitment of inhibitory mechanisms while processing negative sentences. Furthermore, our methodological considerations suggest that the Stop-Signal Task is a good paradigm to assess motor inhibition's role in the processing of sentence negation.

Multidimensional inhibitory signatures of sentential negation in behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia

BACKGROUND

Processing of linguistic negation has been associated to inhibitory brain mechanisms. However, no study has tapped this link via multimodal measures in patients with core inhibitory alterations, a critical approach to reveal direct neural correlates and potential disease markers.

METHODS

Here we examined oscillatory, neuroanatomical, and functional connectivity signatures of a recently reported Go/No-go negation task in healthy controls and behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) patients, typified by primary and generalized inhibitory disruptions. To test for specificity, we also recruited persons with Alzheimer's disease (AD), a disease involving frequent but nonprimary inhibitory deficits.

RESULTS

In controls, negative sentences in the No-go condition distinctly involved frontocentral delta (2-3 Hz) suppression, a canonical inhibitory marker. In bvFTD patients, this modulation was selectively abolished and significantly correlated with the volume and functional connectivity of regions supporting inhibition (e.g. precentral gyrus, caudate nucleus, and cerebellum). Such canonical delta suppression was preserved in the AD group and associated with widespread anatomo-functional patterns across non-inhibitory regions.

DISCUSSION

These findings suggest that negation hinges on the integrity and interaction of spatiotemporal inhibitory mechanisms. Moreover, our results reveal potential neurocognitive markers of bvFTD, opening a new agenda at the crossing of cognitive neuroscience and behavioral neurology.

Language switching may facilitate the processing of negative responses

It has been proposed that processing sentential negation recruits the neural network of inhibitory control (de Vega et al., 2016; Beltrán et al., 2021). In addition, inhibition mechanisms also play a role in switching languages for bilinguals (Kroll et al., 2015). Since both processes may share inhibitory resources, the current study explored for the first time whether and how language-switching influences the processing of negation. To this end, two groups of Spanish-English bilinguals participated in an encoding-verification memory task. They read short stories involving the same two protagonists (Montse and Jordi), referring to their activities in four different scenarios in Spanish or English. Following each story, the participants received verification questions requiring “yes” or “no” responses depending on whether a given fact was correctly referred to one of the protagonists. Some of the verification questions were in the story’s original language (non-switch condition) and others in the alternate language (switch condition). Results revealed that language-switching facilitated negative responses compared to affirmative responses, exclusively for questions switching from dominant language (L1) to non-dominant language (L2). This effect might reflect that the domain-general mechanisms of inhibitory control are recruited at least partially for both language switch and negation process simultaneously, although this phenomenon is modulated by language dominance.

Utility of Cognitive Neural Features for Predicting Mental Health Behaviors

Cognitive dysfunction underlies common mental health behavioral symptoms including depression, anxiety, inattention, and hyperactivity. In this study of 97 healthy adults, we aimed to classify healthy vs. mild-to-moderate self-reported symptoms of each disorder using cognitive neural markers measured with an electroencephalography (EEG). We analyzed source-reconstructed EEG data for event-related spectral perturbations in the theta, alpha, and beta frequency bands in five tasks, a selective attention and response inhibition task, a visuospatial working memory task, a Flanker interference processing task, and an emotion interference task. From the cortical source activation features, we derived augmented features involving co-activations between any two sources. Logistic regression on the augmented feature set, but not the original feature set, predicted the presence of psychiatric symptoms, particularly for anxiety and inattention with >80% sensitivity and specificity. We also computed current flow closeness and betweenness centralities to identify the “hub” source signal predictors. We found that the Flanker interference processing task was the most useful for assessing the connectivity hubs in general, followed by the inhibitory control go-nogo paradigm. Overall, these interpretable machine learning analyses suggest that EEG biomarkers collected on a rapid suite of cognitive assessments may have utility in classifying diverse self-reported mental health symptoms.

The neural inhibition network is causally involved in the disembodiment effect of linguistic negation

Negation applied to action contexts reduces the activation of the motor system. According to the Reusing Inhibition for Negation (RIN) hypothesis, such "disembodiment" effect occurs because understanding negations engages the reuse of inhibitory control mechanisms. Here, we investigated whether the right inferior frontal gyrus (rIFG) - a key area of the inhibitory control system - contributes to primary motor cortex (M1) processing of negated action-sentences. Using a perturb-and-measure paradigm, we applied off-line low-frequency repetitive TMS (rTMS) over the rIFG, before performing a reading task involving action and attentional sentences presented in both affirmative or negative form. During the reading task, motor excitability was assessed by recording motor-evoked potentials (MEPs) induced by single-pulse TMS (spTMS) over the left M1, at two loci in the sentence: the verb or the object. Results show that after sham stimulation (baseline), motor excitability measured on the verb, was reduced for negative, compared to affirmative action sentences. Crucially, neuromodulation of rIFG suppressed this inhibitory effect of negation, since motor excitability was equaled for negative and affirmative action sentences. As expected, no effect of negation was observed for attentional sentences or when the pulse was delivered over the object. Our study confirms that understanding negative action sentences inhibits M1. This effect took place at an early stage of semantic processing (i.e., while processing the verb in our task), and faded at a later time-point. Critically, by highlighting a causal role of rIFG in this motor inhibition, we provide direct neurophysiological support to the RIN hypothesis.

The Processing of Negation and Polarity: An Overview

Negation is a universal component of human language; polarity sensitivity (i.e., lexical distributional constraints in relation to negation) is arguably so while being pervasive across languages. Negation has long been a field of inquiry in psychological theories and experiments of reasoning, which inspired many follow-up studies of negation and negation-related phenomena in psycholinguistics. In generative theoretical linguistics, negation and polarity sensitivity have been extensively studied, as the related phenomena are situated at the interfaces of syntax, semantics and pragmatics, and are thus extremely revealing about the architecture of grammar. With the now long tradition of research on negation and polarity in psychology and psycholinguistics, and the emerging field of experimental semantics and pragmatics, a multitude of interests and experimental paradigms have emerged which call for re-evaluations and further development and integration. This special issue contains a collection of 16 research articles on the processing of negation and negation-related phenomena including polarity items, questions, conditionals, and irony, using a combination of behavioral (e.g., rating, reading, eye-tracking and sentence completion) and neuroimaging techniques (e.g., EEG). They showcase the processing of negation and polarity with or without context, in various languages and across different populations (adults, typically developing and ADHD children). The integration of multiple theoretical and empirical perspectives in this collection provides new insights, methodological advances and directions for future research.

Negation Processing in Children with ADHD: The Generic Problem of Using Negation in Instructions

Recent studies have suggested that negation comprehension falls back onto inhibitory brain systems that are also crucial for impulse control and other non-linguistic control domains (Beltran et al., 2018, 2019; de Vega et al., 2016; Liu et al., 2020). Against this backdrop, the present pilot study investigated the use of negation within directional instructions (i.e., "not left", "now left", "not right", "now right") in children with ADHD and a control group. The results indicate that children in general have a long response delay following negative compared to affirmative instructions. Additionally, there was a tendency for this effect to be more pronounced in the ADHD group. Together, these results suggest that negation processing might indeed demand inhibitory control processes, which are differently available across different subgroups. Thus, the current study provides evidence that using negation in imperatives or instructions is generally rather critical and should be avoided if possible, but that negation use is probably even more problematic in specific clinical populations. Potential implications of these results will be discussed.

"Looking at" Negation: Faster Processing for Symbolic Rather Than Iconic Representations

Many studies have shown the double processing of negation, suggesting that negation integration into sentence meaning is delayed. This contrasts with some researches that have found that such integration is rather immediate. The present study contributes to this debate. Affirmative and negative compound sentences (e.g., "because he was not hungry, he did not order a salad") were presented orally in a visual world paradigm while four printed words were on the screen: salad, no salad, soup, and no soup. The eye-tracking data showed two different fixation patterns for negative causal assertions, which are linked to differences in the representation and inferential demands. One indicates that negation is integrated immediately, as people look at the explicit negation (e.g., no salad) very early. The other, in which people look at the alternate (e.g., soup) much later, indicates that what is delayed in time is the representation of the alternate. These results support theories that combine iconic and symbolic representations, such as the model theory.

Inhibitory Mechanisms in the Processing of Negations: A Neural Reuse Hypothesis

Negation is known to have inhibitory consequences for the information under its scope. However, how it produces such effects remains poorly understood. Recently, it has been proposed that negation processing might be implemented at the neural level by the recruitment of inhibitory and cognitive control mechanisms. On this line, this manuscript offers the hypothesis that negation reuses general-domain mechanisms that subserve inhibition in other non-linguistic cognitive functions. The first two sections describe the inhibitory effects of negation on conceptual representations and its embodied effects, as well as the theoretical foundations for the reuse hypothesis. The next section describes the neurophysiological evidence that linguistic negation interacts with response inhibition, along with the suggestion that both functions share inhibitory mechanisms. Finally, the manuscript concludes that the functional relation between negation and inhibition observed at the mechanistic level could be easily integrated with predominant cognitive models of negation processing.

In Colore Veritas? Color effects on the speed and accuracy of true/false responses

In addition to their perceptual or aesthetic function, colors often carry conceptual meaning. In quizzes, for instance, true and false answers are typically marked in green and red. In three experiments, we used a Stroop task to investigate automatic green-true associations and red-false associations, respectively. In Experiments 1 and 2, stimuli were true statements (e.g., “tables are furniture”) and false statements (e.g., “bananas are buildings”) that were displayed in different combination of green, red, and gray depending on the experimental condition. In Experiment 3, we used true-related and false-related words shown in green, red, or gray. Participants had to indicate the validity (or semantic meaning) of each statement (or word) as fast and as accurately as possible. We expected that participants would perform best when they had to categorize green stimuli as “true” and red stimuli as “false”. The prediction was only confirmed when green and red stimuli were presented within the same context (i.e., same experimental condition). This finding supports the dimension-specificity hypothesis which states that cross-modal associations (here: associations between color and validity) depend on the context (here: the color-context). Moreover, the observed color-validity effects were stronger when participants had to categorize single words instead of sentences and when they had to provide speeded responses. Taken together, these results suggest that controlled processing counteracts the influence of automatic color associations on true/false responses.

Embodied negation and levels of concreteness: A TMS study on German and Italian language processing

According to the embodied cognition perspective, linguistic negation may block the motor simulations induced by language processing. Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) was applied to the left primary motor cortex (hand area) of monolingual Italian and German healthy participants during a rapid serial visual presentation of sentences from their own language. In these languages, the negative particle is located at the beginning and at the end of the sentence, respectively. The study investigated whether the interruption of the motor simulation processes, accounted for by reduced motor evoked potentials (MEPs), takes place similarly in two languages differing on the position of the negative marker. Different levels of sentence concreteness were also manipulated to investigate if negation exerts generalized effects or if it is affected by the semantic features of the sentence. Our findings indicate that negation acts as a block on motor representations, but independently from the language and words concreteness level.

Mapping cognitive brain functions at scale

A fundamental set of cognitive abilities enable humans to efficiently process goal-relevant information, suppress irrelevant distractions, maintain information in working memory, and act flexibly in different behavioral contexts. Yet, studies of human cognition and their underlying neural mechanisms usually evaluate these cognitive constructs in silos, instead of comprehensively in-tandem within the same individual. Here, we developed a scalable, mobile platform, "BrainE" (short for Brain Engagement), to rapidly assay several essential aspects of cognition simultaneous with wireless electroencephalography (EEG) recordings. Using BrainE, we rapidly assessed five aspects of cognition including (1) selective attention, (2) response inhibition, (3) working memory, (4) flanker interference and (5) emotion interference processing, in 102 healthy young adults. We evaluated stimulus encoding in all tasks using the EEG neural recordings, and isolated the cortical sources of the spectrotemporal EEG dynamics. Additionally, we used BrainE in a two-visit study in 24 young adults to investigate the reliability of the neuro-cognitive data as well as its plasticity to transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). We found that stimulus encoding on multiple cognitive tasks could be rapidly assessed, identifying common as well as distinct task processes in both sensory and cognitive control brain regions. Event related synchronization (ERS) in the theta (3-7 Hz) and alpha (8-12 Hz) frequencies as well as event related desynchronization (ERD) in the beta frequencies (13-30 Hz) were distinctly observed in each task. The observed ERS/ERD effects were overall anticorrelated. The two-visit study confirmed high test-retest reliability for both cognitive and neural data, and neural responses showed specific TMS protocol driven modulation. We also show that the global cognitive neural responses are sensitive to mental health symptom self-reports. This first study with the BrainE platform showcases its utility in studying neuro-cognitive dynamics in a rapid and scalable fashion.

Mutual influence between emotional language and inhibitory control processes. Evidence from an event-related potential study

There is abundant literature demonstrating that processing emotional stimuli modulates inhibitory control processes. However, the reverse effects, namely, how cognitive inhibition influences the processing of emotional stimuli, have been considerably neglected. This ERP study tries to fill this gap by studying the bidirectional interactions between emotional language and inhibitory processes. To this end, participants read emotional sentences, embedded in a cue-based Go-NoGo task. In Experiment 1, the critical emotional adjective preceded the Go-NoGo visual cue. The ERPs showed a significant reduction in the inhibition-related N2 component in NoGo trials when they were preceded by negative adjectives, compared to positive or neutral adjectives, indicating a priming-like effect on inhibitory control. Consistently, the estimated source of this interaction was the dorsomedial PFC, a region associated with inhibitory and control processes. In Experiment 2, the Go-NoGo cue preceded the emotional adjective, and the ERPs showed a sustained, broadly distributed LPP-like positivity for NoGo negative trials, relative to all the other conditions. In this case, the presetting of an inhibition state modulated the processing of negatively charged words. Together, the two experiments suggest a mutual facilitation between inhibitory control and negative valence, supporting thereby recent integrative theories of cognition-emotion interactions.

Negation as conflict: Conflict adaptation following negating vertical spatial words

In this study, we investigated whether the processing of negated directional terms such as "not up" or "not down" poses a conflict for participants and results in similar processing adjustments as non-linguistic conflicts do (Dudschig & Kaup, 2019). In each trial, participants read one of the following four phrases "now up", "not up", "now down" or "not down" and responded with a button press on a response key mounted in the upper versus lower vertical space. Behavioral data indicated that processing negated phrases leads to considerable processing difficulties for participants even after extensive practice. Interestingly, in line with standard conflict adaptation effects reported in the Simon, the Flanker and the Stroop task, negation processing was facilitated when preceded by another high conflict trial (i.e. a negated trial) as compared to a low conflict trial (i.e. an affirmative phrase). In addition, electrophysiological data showed that in negated trials first the to-be-negated information was activated (i.e., up in the case of "not up") and only in a second step, the outcome of the negation process was represented (i.e. down). In line with behavioral data, electrophysiological data was modified by trial sequence, suggesting negation triggering standard conflict adaptation patterns. Taken together, conflict-related processing adjustments can be also observed if the conflict is triggered by linguistic negation of vertical directional words. Implications of these findings are discussed.

Why Language Processing Recruits Modality Specific Brain Regions: It Is Not About Understanding Words, but About Modelling Situations

Whether language comprehension requires the participation of brain structures that evolved for perception and action has been a subject of intense debate. While brain-imaging evidence for the involvement of such modality-specific regions has grown, the fact that lesions to these structures do not necessarily erase word knowledge has invited the conclusion that language-induced activity in these structures might not be essential for word recognition. Why language processing recruits these structures remains unanswered, however. Here, we examine the original findings from a slightly different perspective. We first consider the 'original' function of structures in modality-specific brain regions that are recruited by language activity. We propose that these structures help elaborate 'internal forward models' in motor control (c.f. emulators). Emulators are brain systems that capture the relationship between an action and its sensory consequences. During language processing emulators could thus allow accessing associative memories. We further postulate the existence of a linguistic system that exploits, in a rule-based manner, emulators and other nonlinguistic brain systems, to gain complementary (and redundant) information during language processing. Emulators are therefore just one of several sources of information. We emphasize that whether a given word-form triggers activity in modality-specific brain regions depends on the linguistic context and not on the word-form as such. The role of modality-specific systems in language processing is thus not to help understanding words but to model the verbally depicted situation by supplying memorized context information. We present a model derived from these assumptions and provide predictions and perspectives for future research.

Presetting an inhibitory state modifies the neural processing of negated action sentences. An ERP study

It has been proposed that understanding negated action sentences (You don't cut the bread) uses the neural networks of action inhibition. The evidence comes from studies in which affirmative or negative action language immediately preceded a Go/NoGo task. It was found that negation selectively modulates inhibition-related signatures of NoGo trials, supporting the Reusing Inhibition for Negation (RIN) hypothesis. To further explore this hypothesis, this study tested the reverse effects; namely, how presetting an inhibitory state affects the processing of negated action sentences. To this end, Go/NoGo responses preceded sentence reading and EEG activities were recorded throughout the entire trials. ERP results indicate that the presetting of inhibition by the NoGo cue induced a sustained modulation of waveform for negated action sentences relative to affirmative ones, which began shortly after the negation operator onset and remained beyond the action verb onset. Crucially, the estimated sources of such effect were the right inferior frontal gyrus and the left middle frontal gyrus, both relevant regions in the action inhibition circuitry. These results, complemented by previous findings, support the idea that action inhibition and negated action language share neural mechanisms and influence each other, thus confirming and extending the RIN hypothesis.