Semantic or lexico-syntactic factors: what determines word-class specific activity in the human brain?

Pulvermüller, Friedemann; Mohr, Bettina; Schleichert, Hans

doi:10.1016/s0304-3940(99)00724-7

Cited by 104 publications

(38 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…One may therefore argue that the language-induced effects we found on movement preparation/execution could be explained by this grammatical class confound. However, considering previous studies that showed similar cortical activations over the motor cortex for action-related nouns and verbs (but not for action-related and visually-related nouns; Oliveri et al, 2004;Pulvermüller et al, 1999b), we suggest that our results are more plausibly explained by semantic differences between word categories (action-and non-action-related).…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 42%

Subliminal display of action words interferes with motor planning: A combined EEG and kinematic study

Boulenger

Silber

Roy

et al. 2008

Journal of Physiology-Paris

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Recent evidence has shown that processing action-related language and motor action share common neural representations to a point that the two processes can interfere when performed concurrently. To support the assumption that language-induced motor activity contributes to action word understanding, the present study aimed at ruling out that this activity results from mental imagery of the movements depicted by the words. For this purpose, we examined cross-talk between action word processing and an arm reaching movement, using words that were presented too fast to be consciously perceived (subliminally). Encephalogram (EEG) and movement kinematics were recorded. EEG recordings of the "Readiness Potential" ("RP", indicator of motor preparation) revealed that subliminal displays of action verbs during movement preparation reduced the RP and affected the subsequent reaching movement. The finding that motor processes were modulated by language processes despite the fact that words were not consciously perceived, suggests that cortical structures that serve the preparation and execution of motor actions are indeed part of the (action) language processing network.

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Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 42%

Subliminal display of action words interferes with motor planning: A combined EEG and kinematic study

Boulenger

Silber

Roy

et al. 2008

Journal of Physiology-Paris

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“…Some studies suggest that this effect reflects semantic aspects of the stimuli (e.g., motor vs. visual associations) rather than a distinction between grammatical categories as such (noun vs. verb) (Pulvermuller, 2001;Pulvermuller et al, 1999b), while others have related left frontal areas to specific grammatical features of verbs (for example, verb-specific suffixes or argument complexity) and suggested that left frontal regions (Perani et al, 1999 have specifically pointed to Broca's area) may contain a 'verb-specific' area (Cappa and Perani, 2003;Collina et al, 2001;Perani et al, 1999). However, that this distinction only shows up for the class unambiguous verbs in the present study suggests that this area may be associated with specific information or processing that does not apply to all words used as verbs.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

To mind the mind: An event-related potential study of word class and semantic ambiguity

Lee

Federmeier

2006

Brain Research

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The goal of this study was to jointly examine the effects of word class, word class ambiguity, and semantic ambiguity on the brain response to words in syntactically specified contexts. Four types of words were used: (1) word class ambiguous words with a high degree of semantic ambiguity (e.g., 'duck'); (2) word class ambiguous words with little or no semantic ambiguity (e.g., 'vote'); (3) word class unambiguous nouns (e.g., 'sofa'); and (4) word class unambiguous verbs (e.g., 'eat'). These words were embedded in minimal phrases that explicitly specified their word class: "the" for nouns (and ambiguous words used as nouns) and "to" for verbs (and ambiguous words used as verbs). Our results replicate the basic word class effects found in prior work (Federmeier, K.D., Segal, J.B., Lombrozo, T., Kutas, M., 2000. Brain responses to nouns, verbs and class ambiguous words in context. Brain, 123 (12), 2552-2566), including an enhanced N400 (250-450ms) to nouns compared with verbs and an enhanced frontal positivity (300-700 ms) to unambiguous verbs in relation to unambiguous nouns. A sustained frontal negativity (250-900 ms) that was previously linked to word class ambiguity also appeared in this study but was specific to word class ambiguous items that also had a high level of semantic ambiguity; word class ambiguous items without semantic ambiguity, in contrast, were more positive than class unambiguous words in the early part of this time window (250-500 ms). Thus, this frontal negative effect seems to be driven by the need to resolve the semantic ambiguity that is sometimes associated with different grammatical uses of a word class ambiguous homograph rather than by the class ambiguity per se.

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“…Finally, in evoked potential studies it was reported that there is selective activation of the frontal lobes for action words (Preissl, Pulvermueller et al, 1995). This difference is related to the semantic content of words rather than to grammatical differences, since no difference was observed between action verbs and nouns with a strong action association (Pulvermueller, Mohr & Schliechert, 1999).…”

Section: Language Processing In Natural and Artificial Neural Networkmentioning

confidence: 98%

The processing of verbs and nouns in neural networks: Insights from synthetic brain imaging

Cangelosi

Parisi

2004

Brain and Language

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The paper presents a computational model of language in which linguistic abilities evolve in organisms that interact with an environment. Each individual's behavior is controlled by a neural network and we study the consequences in the network's internal functional organization of learning to process different classes of words. Agents are selected for reproduction according to their ability to manipulate objects and to understand nouns (objects' names) and verbs (manipulation tasks). The weights of the agents' neural networks are evolved using a genetic algorithm. Synthetic brain imaging techniques are then used to examine the functional organization of the neural networks. Results show that nouns produce more integrated neural activity in the sensory processing hidden layer, while verbs produce more integrated synaptic activity in the layer where sensory information is integrated with proprioceptive input. Such findings are qualitatively compared with human brain imaging data that indicate that nouns activate more the posterior areas of the brain related to sensory and associative processing while verbs activate more the anterior motor areas.

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Semantic or lexico-syntactic factors: what determines word-class specific activity in the human brain?

Cited by 104 publications

References 15 publications

Subliminal display of action words interferes with motor planning: A combined EEG and kinematic study

Subliminal display of action words interferes with motor planning: A combined EEG and kinematic study

To mind the mind: An event-related potential study of word class and semantic ambiguity

The processing of verbs and nouns in neural networks: Insights from synthetic brain imaging

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