Selective Attention to Semantic and Syntactic Features Modulates Sentence Processing Networks in Anterior Temporal Cortex

Rogalsky, Corianne; Hickok, Gregory

doi:10.1093/cercor/bhn126

Cited by 193 publications

(174 citation statements)

References 45 publications

(60 reference statements)

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“…There has also been evidence implicating the left ATL in syntactic processing (Brennan et al, 2010;Dronkers et al, 2004;Friederici et al, 2000aFriederici et al, , 2000bHumphries et al, 2005Humphries et al, , 2006Mazoyer et al, 1993;Noppeney and Price, 2004;Rogalsky and Hickok, 2009;Vandenberghe et al, 2002). For example, Brennan et al (2010) investigated the effects of syntactic node count for each word of Alice in Wonder Land in a passive listening study and observed left ATL but not left IFG activation.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Historically, Broca's area or left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) has been most associated with syntax (Ben-Shachar et al, 2003;Ben-Shachar et al, 2004;Bornkessel-Schlesewsky et al, 2009;Caplan et al, 2008;Caplan et al, 2000;Carramazza and Zurif, 1976;Dapretto and Bookheimer, 1999;Embick et al, 2000;Friederici et al, 2006;Grodzinsky, 2001;Just et al, 1996;Santi and Grodzinsky, 2007;Stromswold et al, 1996). In addition, the left anterior temporal lobe (ATL) has often been linked to computations related to the manipulation of syntactic structure (Brennan et al, 2010;Dronkers et al, 2004;Friederici et al, 2000a;Friederici et al, 2000b;Humphries et al, 2005;Humphries et al, 2006;Mazoyer et al, 1993;Noppeney and Price, 2004;Rogalsky and Hickok, 2009;Tyler et al, 2011;Vandenberghe et al, 2002). Finally, several studies suggest a potential role for left posterior superior temporal sulcus and gyrus (STS/STG) in syntactic processing (Constable et al, 2004;Cooke et al, 2002;Hasson et al, 2006;Tyler et al, 2011).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Language structure in the brain: A fixation-related fMRI study of syntactic surprisal in reading

et al. 2016

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How is syntactic analysis implemented by the human brain during language comprehension? The current study combined methods from computational linguistics, eyetracking, and fMRI to address this question. Subjects read passages of text presented as paragraphs while their eye movements were recorded in an MRI scanner. We parsed the text using a probabilistic context-free grammar to isolate syntactic difficulty. Syntactic difficulty was quantified as syntactic surprisal, which is related to the expectedness of a given word's syntactic category given its preceding context. We compared words with high and low syntactic surprisal values that were equated for length, frequency, and lexical surprisal, and used fixation-related (FIRE) fMRI to measure neural activity associated with syntactic surprisal for each fixated word. We observed greater neural activity for high than low syntactic surprisal in two predicted cortical regions previously identified with syntax: left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and less robustly, left anterior superior temporal lobe (ATL). These results support the hypothesis that left IFG and ATL play a central role in syntactic analysis during language comprehension. More generally, the results suggest a broader cortical network associated with syntactic prediction that includes increased activity in bilateral IFG and insula, as well as fusiform and right lingual gyri.© 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Keywords:Language Syntax Surprisal Reading Eye movements fMRI IntroductionA complete theory of the human brain must include a description of the neural networks responsible for language processing. Comprehension of connected sentences requires the ability to retrieve words from the lexicon and relate those words to each other, as the input is encountered in real time. The system for creating these groupings is known as syntax, and is generally thought of as a set of computations specifying syntactic categories such as noun and verb, and stating how those categories combine into increasingly larger constituents such as noun phrases, verb phrases, and clauses. The constituent structure of a sentence is the frame on which interpretations are built; the same words will have radically different meanings depending on that structure (e.g., the dog bit the man vs. the man bit the dog). Thus, the human ability to understand language is based both on lexical knowledge and syntactic computations.In this study, we focused on understanding how the human brain implements the syntactic component of the human language faculty. Specifically, we were interested in the nature of the cortical systems that compute syntactic representations during online language comprehension. Three regions have traditionally been identified as candidates for syntactic processing (Fedorenko et al., 2012;Friederici and Kotz, 2003;Grodzinsky and Friederici, 2006;Kaan and Swaab, 2002). Historically, Broca's area or left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) has been most associated with syntax (Ben-Shachar et al., 2003;Ben-Shachar et al., 2004;...

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Language structure in the brain: A fixation-related fMRI study of syntactic surprisal in reading

et al. 2016

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“…In particular, although much evidence implicates the LATL in syntactic combinatorial processing, a number of researchers have also suggested that this region plays an important role in semantic combinatorial operations as well. For example, when participants are asked to monitor sentences for semantic anomalies, a subset of the LATL shows increased activity compared with monitoring for syntactic violations (Rogalsky and Hickok, 2009). Also, scrambling the content words of sentences modulates activity in the LATL, although the direction of this effect has varied, with scrambled sentences eliciting both more (Vandenberghe et al, 2002) and less (Humphries et al, 2006) LATL activity compared with normal sentences.…”

Section: Atl and Vmpfc Effects Of Compositionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Simple Composition: A Magnetoencephalography Investigation into the Comprehension of Minimal Linguistic Phrases

2011

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The expressive power of language lies in its ability to construct an infinite array of ideas out of a finite set of pieces. Surprisingly, few neurolinguistic investigations probe the basic processes that constitute the foundation of this ability, choosing instead to focus on relatively complex combinatorial operations. Contrastingly, in the present work, we investigate the neural circuits underlying simple linguistic composition, such as required by the minimal phrase "red boat." Using magnetoencephalography, we examined activity in humans generated at the visual presentation of target nouns, such as "boat," and varied the combinatorial operations induced by its surrounding context. Nouns in minimal compositional contexts ("red boat") were compared with those appearing in matched noncompositional contexts, such as after an unpronounceable consonant string ("xkq boat") or within a list ("cup, boat"). Source analysis did not implicate traditional language areas (inferior frontal gyrus, posterior temporal regions) in such basic composition. Instead, we found increased combinatorial-related activity in the left anterior temporal lobe (LATL) and ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC). These regions have been linked previously to syntactic (LATL) and semantic (vmPFC) combinatorial processing in more complex linguistic contexts. Thus, we suggest that these regions play a role in basic syntactic and semantic composition, respectively. Importantly, the temporal ordering of the effects, in which LATL activity (ϳ225 ms) precedes vmPFC activity (ϳ400 ms), is consistent with many processing models that posit syntactic composition before semantic composition during the construction of linguistic representations.

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“…These regions may process domain-specific semantic features (that were not reproduced in our control conditions) including phonological or complex acoustic features of voice or speech on the one hand (e.g., ref. 34) and complex visual attributes of manual or facial stimuli on the other (e.g., ref. 35).…”

Section: Shared Activations For Perception Of Symbolic Gesture and Spmentioning

confidence: 99%

Symbolic gestures and spoken language are processed by a common neural system

Gannon

Emmorey

et al. 2009

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

232

193

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Symbolic gestures, such as pantomimes that signify actions (e.g., threading a needle) or emblems that facilitate social transactions (e.g., finger to lips indicating ''be quiet''), play an important role in human communication. They are autonomous, can fully take the place of words, and function as complete utterances in their own right. The relationship between these gestures and spoken language remains unclear. We used functional MRI to investigate whether these two forms of communication are processed by the same system in the human brain. Responses to symbolic gestures, to their spoken glosses (expressing the gestures' meaning in English), and to visually and acoustically matched control stimuli were compared in a randomized block design. General Linear Models (GLM) contrasts identified shared and unique activations and functional connectivity analyses delineated regional interactions associated with each condition. Results support a model in which bilateral modality-specific areas in superior and inferior temporal cortices extract salient features from vocalauditory and gestural-visual stimuli respectively. However, both classes of stimuli activate a common, left-lateralized network of inferior frontal and posterior temporal regions in which symbolic gestures and spoken words may be mapped onto common, corresponding conceptual representations. We suggest that these anterior and posterior perisylvian areas, identified since the mid-19th century as the core of the brain's language system, are not in fact committed to language processing, but may function as a modality-independent semiotic system that plays a broader role in human communication, linking meaning with symbols whether these are

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Selective Attention to Semantic and Syntactic Features Modulates Sentence Processing Networks in Anterior Temporal Cortex

Cited by 193 publications

References 45 publications

Language structure in the brain: A fixation-related fMRI study of syntactic surprisal in reading

Language structure in the brain: A fixation-related fMRI study of syntactic surprisal in reading

Simple Composition: A Magnetoencephalography Investigation into the Comprehension of Minimal Linguistic Phrases

Symbolic gestures and spoken language are processed by a common neural system

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