The LATL as locus of composition: MEG evidence from English and Arabic

Westerlund, Masha; Kastner, Itamar; Kaabi, Meera Al; Pylkkänen, Liina

doi:10.1016/j.bandl.2014.12.003

Cited by 71 publications

(95 citation statements)

References 63 publications

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“…The noun-sharing phrases and the noun+composition-sharing phrases were significantly greater than both chance (Appendix Table 3) and the verb-sharing condition (Appendix Table 4), though this was not robust across other voxel selection criteria. Prima facie , this might suggest that left ATL is tuned to information carried on the noun and to shared composition type, consistent with Westerlund et al, 2015. However, the overall pattern of ranked correlations was not robust across voxel sizes in left ATL as it was in the case of left AG: that is, the eats meat ~ with meat was not consistently the highest correlation across voxel groups in left ATL, and there was much greater variability in the ordering and magnitude of correlations in left ATL.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 61%

“…We implemented the “minimal composition paradigm,” where composition is isolated to two-word phrases and contrasted with one-word non-compositional items consisting of an unpronounceable letter string and a real word (Bemis & Pylkkänen, 2011; Westerlund et al, 2015). Each non-compositional item was presented in one of two possible word orders, for a total possible four one-word items.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Linzen, Marantz, & Pylkkanen (2013) found that left ATL is sensitive to verb-argument structure, specifically the subcategorization frames of verbs. Westerlund, Kastner, Kaabi, & Pylkkänen (2015) examined several different instances of both argument- and adjunct-type composition: namely verb-argument ( eats meat ), preposition-argument ( in Italy ) and determiner-argument ( Tarzan’s vine ) composition for function-argument composition and adjective-noun ( black sweater ), adverb-verb ( never jogged ) and adverb-adjective ( very soft ) composition for adjunct-type composition. The authors found that function-argument composition (inclusive of verb phrases, prepositional phrases, and possessives) drove increased activation in left ATL.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Compositionality and the angular gyrus: A multi-voxel similarity analysis of the semantic composition of nouns and verbs

2015

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The cognitive and neural systems that enable conceptual processing must support the ability to combine (and recombine) concepts to form an infinite number of ideas. Two candidate neural systems for conceptual combination—the left anterior temporal lobe (ATL) and the left angular gyrus (AG)—have been characterized as “semantic hubs” due to both functional and anatomical properties; however, these two regions likely support different aspects of composition. Here we consider two hypotheses for the role of AG in conceptual combination, both of which differ from a putative role for the ATL in “feature-based” combinatorics (i.e., meaning derived by combining concepts’ features). Firstly, we examine whether AG is more sensitive to function-argument relations of the sort that arise when a predicate is combined with its arguments. Secondly, we examine the non-mutually exclusive possibility that AG represents information carried on a verb in particular, whether this be information about event composition or about thematic relations denoted uniquely by verbs. We identified voxels that respond differentially to two-word versus one-word stimuli, and we measured the similarity of the patterns in these voxels evoked by (1) pairs of two-word phrases that shared a noun that was an argument, thus sharing function-argument composition (e.g. eats meat and with meat), in comparison with two-word phrases that shared only a noun, not an argument (e.g., eats meat and tasty meat); and (2) stimulus pairs that shared only an event (operationalized here as sharing a verb; e.g. eats meat and eats quickly), in comparison to both of the above. We found that activity patterns in left AG tracked information relating to the presence of an event-denoting verb in a pair of two-word phrases. We also found that the neural similarity in AG voxel patterns between two phrases sharing a verb correlated with subjects’ ratings of how similar the meanings of those two verb phrases were. These findings indicate that AG represents information specific to verbs, perhaps event structure or thematic relations mediated by verbs, as opposed to argument structure in general.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 61%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Compositionality and the angular gyrus: A multi-voxel similarity analysis of the semantic composition of nouns and verbs

2015

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“…Further work using Magnetoencephalography (MEG) has shown that simple two-word phrases lead to increased ATL activation within 200 to 400 ms of word onset in both visual and auditory presentation (Bemis & Pylkkänen, 2011, 2013). This effect generalizes across languages and phrase types (Westerlund et al, 2015). Shetreet et al (2009) report a similar sensitivity to constituent structure type in the anterior temporal lobe: more complex hierarchical structure (phrasal vs. nominal verb complements) increased activation in this region.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 84%

“…Shetreet et al, 2009; Bornkessel et al, 2005; Westerlund et al, 2015), the relationship between detailed linguistic grammars and language comprehension remains controversial. On one view, the abstract hierarchical grammars that have been developed to explain offline judgments and typological patterns should also serve to explain online comprehension (Miller & Chomsky, 1963; Berwick & Weinberg, 1983; Bresnan & Kaplan, 1982; Steedman, 2000; Lewis & Phillips, 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Abstract linguistic structure correlates with temporal activity during naturalistic comprehension

et al. 2016

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Neurolinguistic accounts of sentence comprehension identify a network of relevant brain regions, but do not detail the information flowing through them. We investigate syntactic information. Does brain activity implicate a computation over hierarchical grammars or does it simply reflect linear order, as in a Markov chain? To address this question, we quantify the cognitive states implied by alternative parsing models. We compare processing-complexity predictions from these states against fMRI timecourses from regions that have been implicated in sentence comprehension. We find that hierarchical grammars independently predict timecourses from left anterior and posterior temporal lobe. Markov models are predictive in these regions and across a broader network that includes the inferior frontal gyrus. These results suggest that while linear effects are wide-spread across the language network, certain areas in the left temporal lobe deal with abstract, hierarchical syntactic representations.

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The temporal dynamics of structure and content in sentence comprehension: Evidence from fMRI‐constrained MEG

Matchin

Brodbeck

Hammerly

et al. 2018

Human Brain Mapping

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Humans have a striking capacity to combine words into sentences that express new meanings. Previous research has identified key brain regions involved in this capacity, but little is known about the time course of activity in these regions, as hemodynamic methods such as fMRI provide little insight into temporal dynamics of neural activation. We performed an MEG experiment to elucidate the temporal dynamics of structure and content processing within four brain regions implicated by fMRI data from the same experiment: the temporo‐parietal junction (TPJ), the posterior temporal lobe (PTL), the anterior temporal lobe (ATL), and the anterior inferior frontal gyrus (IFG). The TPJ showed increased activity for both structure and content near the end of the sentence, consistent with a role in incremental interpretation of event semantics. The PTL, a region not often associated with core aspects of syntax, showed a strong early effect of structure, consistent with predictive parsing models, and both structural and semantic context effects on function words. These results provide converging evidence that the PTL plays an important role in lexicalized syntactic processing. The ATL and IFG, regions traditionally associated with syntax, showed minimal effects of sentence structure. The ATL, PTL and IFG all showed effects of semantic content: increased activation for real words relative to nonwords. Our fMRI‐guided MEG investigation therefore helps identify syntactic and semantic aspects of sentence comprehension in the brain in both spatial and temporal dimensions.

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The LATL as locus of composition: MEG evidence from English and Arabic

Cited by 71 publications

References 63 publications

Compositionality and the angular gyrus: A multi-voxel similarity analysis of the semantic composition of nouns and verbs

Compositionality and the angular gyrus: A multi-voxel similarity analysis of the semantic composition of nouns and verbs

Abstract linguistic structure correlates with temporal activity during naturalistic comprehension

The temporal dynamics of structure and content in sentence comprehension: Evidence from fMRI‐constrained MEG

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