Abstract Grammatical Processing of Nouns and Verbs in Broca's Area: Evidence from FMRI

Sahin, Ned T.; Pinker, Steven; Halgren, Eric

doi:10.1016/s0010-9452(08)70394-0

Cited by 112 publications

(121 citation statements)

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“…However, most neuroimaging studies aimed at localizing the central components of language comprehension do recruit areas consistent with the standard thesis. The latter studies include evaluating semantic equivalence of distinct sentences (18), morphological processing (27), detecting semantic roles (28), transforming sentence syntax (29), and comprehending discourse (30,31).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The boundaries of language and thought in deductive inference

Monti

Parsons

Osherson

2009

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

151

182

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Is human thought fully embedded in language, or do some forms of thought operate independently? To directly address this issue, we focus on inference-making, a central feature of human cognition. In a 3T fMRI study we compare logical inferences relying on sentential connectives (e.g., not, or, if . . . then) to linguistic inferences based on syntactic transformation of sentences involving ditransitive verbs (e.g., give, say, take). When contrasted with matched grammaticality judgments, logic inference alone recruited ''core'' regions of deduction [Brodmann area (BA) 10p and 8m], whereas linguistic inference alone recruited perisylvian regions of linguistic competence, among others (BA 21, 22, 37, 39, 44, and 45 and caudate). In addition, the two inferences commonly recruited a set of general ''support'' areas in frontoparietal cortex (BA 6, 7, 8, 40, and 47). The results indicate that logical inference is not embedded in natural language and confirm the relative modularity of linguistic processes.fMRI ͉ logic ͉ reasoning ͉ semantics ͉ syntax T he interplay between language and thought is pivotal to the study of human cognition (1-4). A principal issue is the extent to which thinking is embedded in language (5, 6). Within neuroscience, the matter has been explored in the domain of arithmetic (7), music (8), theory of mind (9), and deductive reasoning (10, 11). In the case of deduction, however, the evidence is highly contradictory. Some studies report that logic inference recruits neural structures traditionally engaged by linguistic processing (10, 12). These findings would suggest that thought is deeply rooted in language, a view consistent with certain psychological and philosophical perspectives on deduction (13,14). Other studies have failed to detect such activity (15, 16), which counts against the hypothesis that reasoning is tributary to language. These competing interpretations, however, are entirely based on indirect secondary observation qualitatively comparing language activations in one study to logic activations in another study across different methods, materials, paradigms, and subjects. In the present study we address this issue directly by comparing, within the same group of participants, inference based on logic connectives to inferences based on the syntax and semantics of ditransitive verbs.Consider, for example, arguments 1a and 2a in Table 1 (each with a single premise). The two arguments are equally valid in the sense that the truth of their respective premises guarantees the truth of their conclusions. But their validity rests on vocabulary from different lexical categories. The validity of argument 1a is based on the sentential connectives ''if . . . then,'' ''or,'' etc., whereas the validity of argument 2a depends on the principal phrasal verb (and similarly for the invalidity of arguments 1b and 2b, respectively). The semantic contrast between the two cases is apparent although difficult to characterize precisely (17). Roughly, connectives do not contribute to the topic of a sentence a...

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The boundaries of language and thought in deductive inference

Monti

Parsons

Osherson

2009

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

151

182

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“…According to the FTDH, (left) frontal areas underlie verb processing, whereas the (left) temporal region is the cerebral counterpart of noun processing. However, of 28 neuroimaging studies, only 14 have reported a frontal area specifically activated by verbs in either simple contrasts or direct comparisons, while 14 have failed to do so and 6 of these 14 studies have even found noun-specific frontal area activation (Martin, Wiggs, Ungerleider, & Haxby, 1996;Chao & Martin, 2000;Tyler et al, 2003;Sahin et al, 2006;Bedny & Thompson-Schill, 2006;Siri et al, 2008). Noun-related activation in the frontal areas was generally obtained with tool nouns (e.g., Martin et al, 1996;Tyler et al, 2003), but this category-specificity was not confirmed in other similar studies; for example, Tyler et al (2003) and Sahin et al (2006) found frontal activation associated with nouns that did not refer to manipulable objects.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, of 28 neuroimaging studies, only 14 have reported a frontal area specifically activated by verbs in either simple contrasts or direct comparisons, while 14 have failed to do so and 6 of these 14 studies have even found noun-specific frontal area activation (Martin, Wiggs, Ungerleider, & Haxby, 1996;Chao & Martin, 2000;Tyler et al, 2003;Sahin et al, 2006;Bedny & Thompson-Schill, 2006;Siri et al, 2008). Noun-related activation in the frontal areas was generally obtained with tool nouns (e.g., Martin et al, 1996;Tyler et al, 2003), but this category-specificity was not confirmed in other similar studies; for example, Tyler et al (2003) and Sahin et al (2006) found frontal activation associated with nouns that did not refer to manipulable objects. Furthermore, the FTDH obviously predicts the emergence of frontal activation associated with verbs and temporal activation associated with nouns in direct comparison analyses; however, of the 15 imaging studies reporting verb-noun direct contrasts, only 5 found verb-related activation in frontal areas (Perani et al, 1999;Shapiro et al, 2005;Shapiro et al, 2006;Tyler et al, 2003;Tyler et al, 2004) and only 2 showed noun-related activation in temporal areas (Shapiro et al, 2005;Shapiro et al, 2006).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…(2002) could be explained by the fact that in the former study subjects were asked to carry out a morphological task, while in the latter they had to name pictures; however, this would indicate that frontal regions are crucial for inflecting verbs, but not for retrieving them, in conflict with some fMRI and PET evidence (e.g., Saccuman et al, 2006;Sahin et al, 2006). Oliveri, Finocchiaro, Shapiro, Gangitano, Caramazza, and Pascual Leone (2004) conducted a further rTMS study, in which the left primary motor cortex was found to play a critical role in the retrieval of action words irrespective of their grammatical class (i.e.…”

Section: Noun and Verb Processing In The Brain As Assessed Through Tmsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A place for nouns and a place for verbs? A critical review of neurocognitive data on grammatical-class effects

et al. 2011

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It is generally held that noun processing is specifically sub-served by temporal areas, while the neural underpinnings of verb processing are located in the frontal lobe. However, this view is now challenged by a significant body of evidence accumulated over the years. Moreover, the results obtained so far on the neural implementation of noun and verb processing appear to be quite inconsistent. The present review briefly describes and critically re-considers the anatomo-correlative, neuroimaging, MEG, TMS and cortical stimulation studies on nouns and verbs with the aim of assessing the consistency of their results, particularly within technique. The paper also addresses the question as to whether the inconsistency of the data could be due to the variety of the tasks used. However, it emerged that neither the different investigation techniques used nor the different cognitive tasks employed fully explain the variability of the data. In the final section we thus suggest that the main reason for the emergence of inconsistent data in this field is that the cerebral circuits underlying noun and verb processing are not spatially segregated, at least for the spatial resolution currently used in most neuroimaging studies.

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“…Indeed, while many aspects of communicative competence have been shown to rely on areas that fall outside of this region (Moro et al, 2001;Rodd et al, 2005;Ullman, 2001), most neuroimaging studies aimed at localizing the central components of language comprehension consistently recruit perisylvian areas. These studies include evaluating semantic equivalence of distinct sentences (Dapretto and Bookheimer, 1999), morphological processing (Sahin et al, 2006), detecting semantic roles (Bornkessel et al, 2005), transforming sentence syntax (Ben-Shachar et al, 2003), and comprehending discourse (Kuperberg et al, 2006;Virtue et al, 2006). (See Willems and Varley, 2010 for a recent review comparing the neural substrate of communicative versus linguistic capabilities.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Logic, language and the brain

Monti

Osherson

2012

Brain Research

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What is the role of language in human cognition? Within the domain of deductive reasoning, the issue has been the focus of numerous investigations without the emergence of a consensus view. Here we consider some of the reasons why neuroimaging studies of deductive reasoning have generated mixed results. We then review recent evidence suggesting that the role of language in deductive reasoning is confined to an initial stage in which verbally presented information is encoded as non-verbal representations. These representations are then manipulated by mental operations that are not based on the neural mechanisms of natural language.

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Abstract Grammatical Processing of Nouns and Verbs in Broca's Area: Evidence from FMRI

Cited by 112 publications

References 119 publications

The boundaries of language and thought in deductive inference

The boundaries of language and thought in deductive inference

A place for nouns and a place for verbs? A critical review of neurocognitive data on grammatical-class effects

Logic, language and the brain

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