The sound of concepts: The link between auditory and conceptual brain systems

Concepts in long-term memory are important building blocks of human cognition and are the basis for object recognition, language and thought. While it is well accepted that concepts are comprised of features related to sensory object attributes, it is still unclear how these features are represented in the brain. Of central interest is whether concepts are essentially grounded in perception. This would imply a common neuroanatomical substrate for perceptual and conceptual processing. Here we show using functional magnetic resonance imaging and recordings of event-related potentials that acoustic conceptual features rapidly recruit auditory areas even when implicitly presented through visual words. Recognizing words denoting objects for which acoustic features are highly relevant (e.g. "telephone") suffices to ignite cell assemblies in the posterior superior and middle temporal gyrus (pSTG/MTG) that were also activated by listening to real sounds. Activity in pSTG/MTG had an onset of 150 ms and increased parametrically as a function of acoustic feature relevance. Both findings suggest a conceptual origin of this effect rather than post-conceptual strategies such as imagery. The presently demonstrated link between auditory and conceptual brain systems parallels observations in other memory systems suggesting that modality-specificity represents a general organizational principle in cortical memory representation. The understanding of concepts as a partial reinstatement of brain activity during perception stresses the necessity of rich sensory experiences for concept acquisition. The modality-specific nature of concepts could also explain the difficulties in achieving a consensus about overall definitions of abstract concepts such as freedom or justice unless embedded in a concrete, experienced situation

KISSING SLOWS LICKING: AN INVESTIGATION OF BODY PART OVERLAP IN VERB PRIMING

There is growing evidence that speakers mentally simulate the action portrayed by a verb and action simulation is an inherent part of language comprehension. This study examined if processing action words facilitates processing of other somatotopically (bodypart) related action words and if there are differences between normal and verb-impaired aphasic participants. Visual lexical priming of arm/hand and face/mouth verbs revealed that somatotopic relatedness interfered with processing of the ensuing verb in both groups and this interference effect was larger for aphasic participants. This suggests that semantic feature activation is robust and maybe an unlikely source of verb deficits in aphasia

Reading salt activates gustatory brain regions: fMRI evidence for semantic grounding in a novel sensory modality

Because many words are typically used in the context of their referent objects and actions, distributed cortical circuits for these words may bind information about their form with perceptual and motor aspects of their meaning. Previous work has demonstrated such semantic grounding for sensorimotor, visual, auditory and olfactory knowledge linked to words, which is manifest in activation of the corresponding areas of the cortex. Here we explore the brain basis of gustatory semantic links of words whose meaning is primarily related to taste. In a blocked fMRI design, Spanish taste words and control words matched for a range of factors (including valence, arousal, imageability, frequency of use, number of letters and syllables) were presented to 59 right-handed participants in a passive reading task. Whereas all the words activated the left inferior frontal (BA44/45) and the posterior middle and superior temporal gyri (BA21/22), taste-related words produced a significantly stronger activation in these same areas, and also in the anterior insula, frontal operculum, lateral orbitofrontal gyrus and thalamus among others. As these areas comprise primary and secondary gustatory cortices, we conclude that the meaning of taste words is grounded in distributed cortical circuits reaching into areas that process taste sensation

Creativity and the Brain

Neurocognitive approach to higher cognitive functions that bridges the gap between psychological and neural level of description is introduced. Relevant facts about the brain, working memory and representation of symbols in the brain are summarized. Putative brain processes responsible for problem solving, intuition, skill learning and automatization are described. The role of non-dominant brain hemisphere in solving problems requiring insight is conjectured. Two factors seem to be essential for creativity: imagination constrained by experience, and filtering that selects most interesting solutions. Experiments with paired words association are analyzed in details and evidence for stochastic resonance effects is found. Brain activity in the process of invention of novel words is proposed as the simplest way to understand creativity using experimental and computational means. Perspectives on computational models of creativity are discussed

Political Communication as Epistemic Consumption: A Neuroeconomic Perspective

The aim of this paper is to contextualize and unify existing interdisciplinary literature by introducing the concepts of a non-semantic type of communication, namely pragmatic communication. Despite the utility of cognitively deducing the connotative and denotative meaning of the message we also propose that communication without semantics contains a so called expectancy violation utility which causes neurophysiological changes that help the receiver to reduce the uncertainty (or prediction errors) about its environment. Increasing the uncertainty of the environment where the public lives, would create the tendency for the publics to prefer the more surprising messages, that is, more information rich political messages. This uncertainty reduction with uncertainty seeking behavior illustrates the shift from exploitative into explorative behavior of the audience which indirectly impacts the value of the political message, by making the political message obsolete. Keywords: non-semantic type of communication, communication theory, verbal and non-verbal communications, semantic analysis, Barack Obama, etc

Embodied learning: Why at school the mind needs the body

Despite all methodological efforts made in the last three decades, Western instruction grounds on traditional principles. Most educational programs follow theories that are mentalistic, i.e., they separate the mind from the body. At school, learners sit, watch, listen, and write. The aim of this paper is to present embodied learning as an alternative to mentalistic education. Similarly, this paper wants to describe embodied learning from a neuroscientific perspective. After a brief historical overview, I will review studies highlighting the behavioral effectiveness of embodied instruction in second language learning, mathematics and spatial thinking. On this base, I will discuss some of the brain mechanisms driving embodied learning and describe its advantages, clearly pleading in favor of instructional practice that reunites body and mind

The Representation of Objects in the Brain, and Its Link with Semantic Memory and Language: a Conceptual Theory with the Support of a Neurocomputational Model

Recognition of objects, their representation and retrieval in memory and the link of this representation with words is a hard cognitive problem, which can be summarized with the term “lexico-semantic memory”. Several recent cognitive theories suggest that the semantic representation of objects is a distributed process, which engages different brain areas in the sensory and motor regions. A further common hypothesis is that each region is organized by conceptual features, that are highly correlated, and neurally contiguous. These theories may be useful to explain the results of clinical tests on patients with lesions of the brain, who exhibit deficits in recognizing objects from words or in evoking words from objects, or to explain the use of appropriate words in bilingual subjects. The study of the cognitive aspects of lexico-semantic memory representation may benefit from the use of mathematical models and computer simulations. Aim of this chapter is to describe a theoretical model of the lexico-semantic system, which can be used by cognitive neuroscientists to summarize conceptual theories into a rigorous quantitative framework, to test the ability of these theories to reproduce real pieces of behavior in healthy and pathological subjects, and to suggest new hypotheses for subsequent testing. The chapter is structured as follows: first the basic assumptions on cognitive aspects of the lexico-semantic memory model are clearly presented; the same aspects are subsequently illustrated via the results of computer simulations using abstract object representations as input to the model. Equations are then reported in an Appendix for readers interested to mathematical issues. The model is based on the following main assumptions: i) an object is represented as a collection of features, topologically ordered according to a similarity principle in different brain areas; ii) the features belonging to the same object are linked together via a Hebbian process during a phase in which objects are presented individually; iii) features are described via neural oscillators in the gamma band. As a consequence, different object representations can be maintained simultaneously in memory, via synchronization of the corresponding features (binding and segmentation problem); iv) words are represented in a lexical area devoted to recognition of words from phonemes; v) words in the lexical area and the features representing objects are linked together via a Hebbian mechanism during a learning phase in which a word is presented together with the corresponding object; vi) the same object representation can be associated to two alternative words (for instance to represent bilinguism). In this case, the two words are connected via inhibitory synapses, to implement a competition among them. vii) the choice of words is further selected by an external inhibitory control system, which suppresses words which do not correspond to the present objective (for instance to choose between alternative languages). Several exempla of model possibilities are presented, with the use of abstract words. These exempla comprehend: the possibility to retrieve objects and words even in case of incomplete or corrupted information on object features; the possibility to establish a semantic link between words with superimposed features; the process of learning a second language (L2) with the support of a language previously known (L1) to represent neurocognitive aspects of bilinguism

Reading approach to improve strength: An explorative study

Many studies and common practice use different load and recovery time combinations to obtain improvements in strength performance. The cross education and speech neurons theory could lead to new strategies in motor skills learning and in fitness improvement. Thus, the aim of this study was to verify if a process similar to cross education and visual phenomenon (reading approach) could improve the strength performance. The study consisted of three matched samples that followed three different protocols (strength training, mental and reading approach) and a control group. After 12 training sessions the improvements in maximal voluntary handgrip were assessed. On average, the improvement in handgrip performance was 3.02, 2.97, 2.07, 1.16 kg for strength, mental, reading and control sample respectively. Significant differences among groups were found while no differences were found before and after the protocol, as well as for the interaction. The post hoc analysis revealed significant differences between the strength sample (after training value) and the control group (before the training). Mental or reading training resulted in almost similar improvements that are close to strength training gains. Indeed, at least for the initial training session, the reading training was broadly similar to well-know protocol and could be used to provide complementary stimulus

Motor Simulation and Ostensive Inferential Communication

The ostensive-inferential model is a model of communication, an alternative to the code model of communication, based on pragmatic competence: it explains human communi-cation in terms of expression and recognition of informative and communicative inten-tions, founding comprehension on the distinction between literal meaning and the speaker's meaning. Through informative intentions we try to make evident the content of a message to a receiver, or to make evident what we want to communicate to him/her: communicative intentions are used to make evident the very fact that we intend to com-municate. One hypothesis is that ostensive-inferential communication is what makes hu-man language possible. Since an extensive literature has highlighted the role of the Theory of Mind in ostensive-inferential communication, this hypothesis fits with the idea that a mechanism for mentalizing underlies human communication. The aim of the pre-sent paper is to stress the role of lower-level mechanisms, specifically of motor simula-tion, in the recognition of informative and communicative intentions, in order to outline an embodied account of ostensive communication. Specifically, the hypothesis is that this process is involved in language acquisition during development, and that it plays a role in the associative learning process involved in language acquisition during childhood. To this aim, in future research it may be useful to test the involvement of motor simulation (specifically, phono-articulatory and semantic) in the recognition of informative and communicative intentions in toddlers. Since some models of language evolution focus on the role of motor simulation, a supplementary goal is to deepen its role in the biological evolution of language, focusing on the specific link between motor simulation and inten-tions in the framework of ostensive-inferential model