Functional mechanisms involved in the internal inhibition of taboo words

Severens, Els; Kühn, Simone; Hartsuiker, Robert J.; Braß, Marcel

doi:10.1093/scan/nsr030

Cited by 27 publications

(38 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…Statistical significance is indicated using the color scale at the bottom, and the transverse section level is indicated by the Z coordinates of Talairach space (Talairach and Tournoux, 1988). Feredoes et al, 2006;Hodgson et al, 2007;Eagle et al, 2008;Verbruggen et al, 2010;Severens et al, 2012).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Efficiency of Go/No-Go Task Performance Implemented in the Left Hemisphere

Hirose

Chikazoe

Watanabe

et al. 2012

Journal of Neuroscience

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It is well known that the efficiency of response inhibition differs from person to person, but the neural mechanism that implements the efficiency is less understood. In the present fMRI study, we devised an index to evaluate the efficiency of response inhibition in the go/ no-go task, and investigated the neural correlates of the efficiency of response inhibition. The human subjects who perform the go/no-go task with a shorter reaction time in go trials (Go-RT) and with a higher percentage of correct no-go trials (Nogo-PC) are thought to have the ability to conduct response inhibition more efficiently. To quantify the efficiency, we defined an efficiency index as the difference in the Nogo-PC between each subject and an ordinarily efficient subject, under the same Go-RT. An across-subject correlation analysis revealed that the brain activity in multiple regions in the left frontal and parietal cortex positively correlated with the efficiency index. Moreover, a test of hemispheric asymmetry with regard to the across-subject correlation revealed left-hemispheric dominance. The significant correlation in the left frontal and parietal regions complements the results of previous studies that used the stop-signal reaction time (SSRT), a well known index to evaluate the efficiency of response inhibition used in the stop-signal task. Our results also indicate that, although it is well known that the neural substrates for response inhibition common in a subject group exist dominantly in the right hemisphere, the neural substrates for efficiency exist dominantly in the left hemisphere.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Efficiency of Go/No-Go Task Performance Implemented in the Left Hemisphere

Hirose

Chikazoe

Watanabe

et al. 2012

Journal of Neuroscience

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“…Severens et al (2011) did not observe any effects on lexicalsemantic ERP components (e.g. N400; see Kutas & Hillyard, 1984) and Severens et al (2012) did not SENTENCE PROCESSING OF TABOO WORDS 5 observe relative neural activation differences in language specific brain regions (e.g. left inferior frontal gyrus, left superior temporal gyrus; see Kuperberg, et al, 2000).…”

Section: Taboo Wordsmentioning

confidence: 92%

“…Given the high frequency of profanity, it may seem surprising that profanity has been minimally examined with the language sciences (Jay, 2009); exceptions include language-related disorders (e.g. aphasia, Tourette's Syndrome; see Van Lancker & Cummings, 1999;Code, 2011), second-language processing (Harris, Aycicegi, & Gleason, 2003), and the role of conflict monitoring in speech production (Severens, Janssens, Kühn, Brass, & Hartsuiker, 2011;Severens, Kühn, Hartsuiker, & Brass, 2012).…”

Section: Taboo Wordsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This ERP component is associated with internal conflict and inhibition (Möller, et al, 2007), suggesting that taboo-trials required additional inhibitory resources. Using fMRI methodology, Severens et al (2012) observed that taboo-trials elicited greater activity in the right inferior frontal gyrus, which is also associated with response inhibition (Aron, et al, 2003). Severens and colleagues argue that people utilize their internal monitor to filter imminent speech according to internalized social rules (such as those about taboo language) so as to inhibit socially undesirable behavior.…”

Section: Taboo Wordsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Sentence processing of taboo words: Evidence from eyetracking

Nye¹,

Ferreira²

2017

Preprint

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The reported studies investigate online processing of taboo words (e.g. shit) and their censored equivalents (e.g. s**t), relative to semantically matched non-taboo words (e.g. junk). Participants' eyes were tracked as they read sentences which contained one of the critical words. In Experiment 1, participants also encountered censored-neutral words, known as masked (e.g. j**k), but in Experiment 2, participants only encountered the taboo, censored, and neutral conditions, thus manipulating the perceptual certainty of censored words. Taboo and neutral words required similar processing time across all reading measures; liberal post-hoc analyses replicated the null effect. With regards to the censored words, Experiment 1 revealed that early word-recognition requirements were similar between censored, taboo, and neutral words, with censored words requiring additional processing time in later sentence integration measures. However, the results from Experiment 2 revealed no differences in reading time between conditions, suggesting that the masked words in Experiment 1 motivated participants to doublecheck the censored words due to their orthographic similarity. After reading all of the sentences in Experiment 2, participants' memory of the sentences was tested. Participants were able to differentiate between whether they encountered a neutral or profane word (i.e. either taboo or censor), but participants were unable to identify the specific profane word that they encountered in the reading task. We argue that the results relating to the taboo words further clarifies language's role within the functional architecture of cognition while the results relating to censorship informs how statistical regularities of language are used to process lexical-semantic information.

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“…Reactive inhibition is also observed in social situations where people avoid, for example, uttering a taboo word (Severens, Kuhn, Hartsuiker, & Brass, 2012) in a formal social context. Although no explicit stop signal is presented in such situations, the context might serve as a stop signal for specific behavior (in this case activating the resolve to resist any impulse to curse or swear).…”

Section: Intentional Versus Reactive Inhibitionmentioning

confidence: 99%