scholarly journals Some Regions within Broca's Area Do Respond More Strongly to Sentences than to Linguistically Degraded Stimuli: A Comment on Rogalsky and Hickok ()

2011 ◽  
Vol 23 (10) ◽  
pp. 2632-2635 ◽  
Author(s):  
Evelina Fedorenko ◽  
Nancy Kanwisher
Keyword(s):  
Random Effects ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Cognitive Neuroscience ◽  
Strong Evidence ◽  
Sentence Comprehension ◽  
Broca’S Area ◽  
Broca's Area ◽  
Review Of The Literature

On the basis of their review of the literature, Rogalsky and Hickok [Rogalsky, C., & Hickok, G. The role of Broca's area in sentence comprehension. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 23, 1664–1680, 2011] conclude that there is currently no strong evidence for the existence of “sentence-specific processing regions within Broca's area” (p. 1664). Their argument is based, in part, on the observation that many previous studies have failed to detect an effect in the left inferior frontal regions for contrasts between sentences and linguistically degraded control conditions (e.g., lists of unconnected words, lists of nonwords, or acoustically degraded sentence stimuli). Our data largely replicate this lack of activation in inferior frontal regions when traditional random-effects group analyses are conducted but crucially show robust activations in the same data for the same contrasts in almost every subject individually. Thus, it is the use of group analyses in studies of language processing, not the idea that sentences robustly activate frontal regions, that needs to be reconsidered. This reconsideration has important methodological and theoretical implications.

scholarly journals Co-localization of Stroop and Syntactic Ambiguity Resolution in Broca's Area: Implications for the Neural Basis of Sentence Processing

2009 ◽  
Vol 21 (12) ◽  
pp. 2434-2444 ◽  
Author(s):  
David January ◽  
John C. Trueswell ◽  
Sharon L. Thompson-Schill
Keyword(s):  
Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Sentence Processing ◽  
Sentence Comprehension ◽  
Syntactic Ambiguity ◽  
Broca’S Area ◽  
Broca's Area ◽  
Neural Basis ◽  
Control Processes

For over a century, a link between left prefrontal cortex and language processing has been accepted, yet the precise characterization of this link remains elusive. Recent advances in both the study of sentence processing and the neuroscientific study of frontal lobe function suggest an intriguing possibility: The demands to resolve competition between incompatible characterizations of a linguistic stimulus may recruit top–down cognitive control processes mediated by prefrontal cortex. We use functional magnetic resonance imaging to test the hypothesis that individuals use shared prefrontal neural circuitry during two very different tasks—color identification under Stroop conflict and sentence comprehension under conditions of syntactic ambiguity—both of which putatively rely on cognitive control processes. We report the first demonstration of within-subject overlap in neural responses to syntactic and nonsyntactic conflict. These findings serve to clarify the role of Broca's area in, and the neural and psychological organization of, the language processing system.

scholarly journals Towards a causal role of Broca's area in language: A TMS-EEG study on syntactic prediction

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matteo Maran ◽  
Ole Numssen ◽  
Gesa Hartwigsen ◽  
Angela D. Friederici ◽  
Emiliano Zaccarella
Keyword(s):  
Language Processing ◽  
Functional Neuroimaging ◽  
Inferior Frontal Gyrus ◽  
Event Related Potential ◽  
Cortical Region ◽  
Broca’S Area ◽  
Broca's Area ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Predictive Mechanisms

Categorical predictions have been proposed as the key mechanism supporting the fast pace of syntactic composition in human language. Accordingly, grammar-based expectations facilitate the analysis of incoming syntactic information - e.g., hearing the determiner 'the' enhances the prediction of a noun - which is then checked against a single or few other word categories. Previous functional neuroimaging studies point towards Broca's area in the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) as one fundamental cortical region involved in categorical prediction during on-line language processing. Causal evidence for this hypothesis is however still missing. In this study, we combined Electroencephalography (EEG) and Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) to test whether Broca's area is functionally relevant in predictive mechanisms for language. Specifically, we transiently perturbed Broca's area during the categorical prediction phase in two-word constructions, while simultaneously measuring the Event-Related Potential (ERP) correlates of syntactic composition. We reasoned that if Broca's area is involved in predictive mechanisms for syntax, disruptive TMS during the processing of the first word (determiner/pronoun) would mitigate the difference in ERP responses for predicted and unpredicted categories when composing basic phrases and sentences. Contrary to our hypothesis, perturbation of Broca's area at the predictive stage did not affect the ERP correlates of basic composition. The correlation strength between the electrical field induced by TMS and the magnitude of the EEG response on the scalp further confirmed this pattern. We discuss the present results in light of an alternative account of the role of Broca's area in syntactic composition, namely the bottom-up integration of words into constituents.

scholarly journals Cognitive control and parsing: Reexamining the role of Broca’s area in sentence comprehension

2005 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 263-281 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jared M. Novick ◽  
John C. Trueswell ◽  
Sharon L. Thompson-Schill
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Sentence Comprehension ◽  
Broca’S Area ◽  
Broca's Area

The Role of Broca's Area in Sentence Comprehension

2011 ◽  
Vol 23 (7) ◽  
pp. 1664-1680 ◽  
Author(s):  
Corianne Rogalsky ◽  
Gregory Hickok
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Sentence Processing ◽  
Sentence Comprehension ◽  
Short Term Memory ◽  
Functional Organization ◽  
Verbal Working Memory ◽  
General Function ◽  
Broca’S Area ◽  
Broca's Area

The role of Broca's area in sentence processing has been debated for the last 30 years. A central and still unresolved issue is whether Broca's area plays a specific role in some aspect of syntactic processing (e.g., syntactic movement, hierarchical structure building) or whether it serves a more general function on which sentence processing relies (e.g., working memory). This review examines the functional organization of Broca's area in regard to its contributions to sentence comprehension, verbal working memory, and other multimodal cognitive processes. We suggest that the data are consistent with the view that at least a portion of the contribution of Broca's area to sentence comprehension can be attributed to its role as a phonological short-term memory resource. Furthermore, our review leads us to conclude that there is no compelling evidence that there are sentence-specific processing regions within Broca's area.

Role of Broca’s area in motor sequence programming

Neuroreport ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 22 (18) ◽  
pp. 965-969 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emeline Clerget ◽  
Arnaud Badets ◽  
Julie Duqué ◽  
Etienne Olivier
Keyword(s):  
Broca’S Area ◽  
Broca's Area ◽  
Motor Sequence

scholarly journals From Phonemes to Articulatory Codes: An fMRI Study of the Role of Broca's Area in Speech Production

2009 ◽  
Vol 19 (9) ◽  
pp. 2156-2165 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marina Papoutsi ◽  
Jacco A. de Zwart ◽  
J. Martijn Jansma ◽  
Martin J. Pickering ◽  
James A. Bednar ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Speech Production ◽  
Broca’S Area ◽  
Broca's Area ◽  
Fmri Study

Understanding words in context: The role of Broca's area in word comprehension

2007 ◽  
Vol 1146 ◽  
pp. 101-114 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marina Bedny ◽  
Justin C. Hulbert ◽  
Sharon L. Thompson-Schill
Keyword(s):  
Broca’S Area ◽  
Broca's Area ◽  
Word Comprehension

The Oxford Handbook of Psycholinguistics

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Language Processing ◽  
Language Comprehension ◽  
Language Production ◽  
Text Comprehension ◽  
Sentence Comprehension ◽  
Linguistic Diversity ◽  
First Language ◽  
Grammatical Encoding ◽  
Current State

This handbook reviews the current state of the art in the field of psycholinguistics. Part I deals with language comprehension at the sublexical, lexical, and sentence and discourse levels. It explores concepts of speech representation and the search for universal speech segmentation mechanisms against a background of linguistic diversity and compares first language with second language segmentation. It also discusses visual word recognition, lexico-semantics, the different forms of lexical ambiguity, sentence comprehension, text comprehension, and language in deaf populations. Part II focuses on language production, with chapters covering topics such as word production and related processes based on evidence from aphasia, the major debates surrounding grammatical encoding. Part III considers various aspects of interaction and communication, including the role of gesture in language processing, approaches to the study of perspective-taking, and the interrelationships between language comprehension, emotion, and sociality. Part IV is concerned with language development and evolution, focusing on topics ranging from the development of prosodic phonology, the neurobiology of artificial grammar learning, and developmental dyslexia. The book concludes with Part V, which looks at methodological advances in psycholinguistic research, such as the use of intracranial electrophysiology in the area of language processing.

scholarly journals The neurobiology of agrammatic sentence comprehension: a lesion study

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Corianne Rogalsky ◽  
Arianna N. LaCroix ◽  
Kuan-Hua Chen ◽  
Steven W. Anderson ◽  
Hanna Damasio ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Temporal Lobe ◽  
Sentence Processing ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Sentence Comprehension ◽  
Functional Neuroimaging ◽  
Matching Task ◽  
Broca’S Area ◽  
Broca's Area ◽  
Cognitive Demands ◽  
Lesion Symptom Mapping

AbstractBroca’s area has long been implicated in sentence comprehension. Damage to this region is thought to be the central source of “agrammatic comprehension” in which performance is substantially worse (and near chance) on sentences with noncanonical word orders compared to canonical word order sentences (in English). This claim is supported by functional neuroimaging studies demonstrating greater activation in Broca’s area for noncanonical versus canonical sentences. However, functional neuroimaging studies also have frequently implicated the anterior temporal lobe (ATL) in sentence processing more broadly, and recent lesion-symptom mapping studies have implicated the ATL and mid temporal regions in agrammatic comprehension. The present study investigates these seemingly conflicting findings in 66 left hemisphere patients with chronic focal cerebral damage. Patients completed two sentence comprehension measures, sentence-picture matching and plausibility judgments. Patients with damage including Broca’s area (but excluding the temporal lobe; n=11) on average did not exhibit the expected agrammatic comprehension pattern, e.g. their performance was > 80% on noncanonical sentences in the sentence-picture matching task. Patients with ATL damage (n=18) also did not exhibit an agrammatic comprehension pattern. Across our entire patient sample, the lesions of patients with agrammatic comprehension patterns in either task had maximal overlap in posterior superior temporal and inferior parietal regions. Using voxel-based lesion symptom mapping (VLSM), we find that lower performances on canonical and noncanonical sentences in each task are both associated with damage to a large left superior temporal-inferior parietal network including portions of the ATL, but not Broca’s area. Notably however, response bias in plausibility judgments was significantly associated with damage to inferior frontal cortex, including gray and white matter in Broca’s area, suggesting that the contribution of Broca’s area to sentence comprehension may be related to task-related cognitive demands.

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