Phonological processing during language production: fMRI evidence for a shared production-comprehension network

Studies of phonological processes during language comprehension consistently report activation of the superior portion of Broca’s area. In the domain of language production, however, there is no unequivocal evidence for the contribution of Broca’s area to phonological processing. The present event-related fMRI study investigated the existence of a common neural network for phonological decisions in comprehension and production by using production tasks most comparable to those previously used in comprehension. Subjects performed two decision tasks on the initial phoneme of German picture names (/b/ or not? Vowel or not?). A semantic decision task served as a baseline for both phonological tasks. The contrasts between each phonological task and the semantic task were calculated, and a conjunction analysis was performed. There was significant activation in the superior portion of Broca’s area (Brodmann’s area (BA) 44) in the conjunction analysis, also present in each single contrast. In addition, further left frontal (BA 45/46) and temporal (posterior superior temporal gyrus) areas known to support phonological processing in both production and comprehension were activated. The results suggest the existence of a shared fronto-temporal neural network engaged in the processing of phonological information in both perception and production

Functional organization of the language network in three- and six-year-old children

The organization of the language network undergoes continuous changes during development as children learn to understand sentences. In the present study, functional magnetic resonance imaging and behavioral measures were utilized to investigate functional activation and functional connectivity (FC) in three-year-old (3yo) and six-year-old (6yo) children during sentence comprehension. Transitive German sentences varying the word order (subject-initial and object-initial) with case marking were presented auditorily. We selected children who were capable of processing the subject-initial sentences above chance level accuracy from each age group to ensure that we were tapping real comprehension. Both age groups showed a main effect of word order in the left posterior superior temporal gyrus (pSTG), with greater activation for object-initial compared to subject-initial sentences. However, age differences were observed in the FC between left pSTG and the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG). The 6yo group showed stronger FC between the left pSTG and Brodmann area (BA) 44 of the left IFG compared to the 3yo group. For the 3yo group, in turn, the FC between left pSTG and left BA 45 was stronger than with left BA 44. Our study demonstrates that while task-related activation was comparable, the small behavioral differences between age groups were reflected in the underlying functional organization revealing the ongoing development of the neural language network

történeti dráma 5 felvonásban - irta: Sardou Viktor - francziából forditotta: Paulay Ede és Szerdahelyi Kálmán

Debreczeni Szinház. Kedd, 1881. évi november hó 15-kán. Krecsányi Ignácz igazgatása alatti dráma-, vigjáték-, népszinmű- és operette-szintársulat által, Abonyi Gyula jutalomjátékaul.Debreceni Egyetem Egyetemi és Nemzeti Könyvtá

fMRI evidence for dual routes to the mental lexicon in visual word recognition

Event-related fMRI was used to investigate lexical decisions to words of high and low frequency of occurrence and to pseudowords. The results obtained strongly support dual-route models of visual word processing. By contrasting words with pseudowords, bilateral occipito-temporal brain areas and posterior left middle temporal gyrus (MTG) were identified as contributing to the successful mapping of orthographic percepts onto visual word form representa- tions. Low-frequency words and pseudowords elicited greater activations than high-frequency words in the superior pars opercularis [Brodmann’s area (BA) 44] of the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), in the anterior insula, and in the thalamus and caudate nucleus. As processing of these stimuli during lexical search is known to rely on phonological information, it is concluded that these brain regions are involved in grapheme-to-phoneme conversion. Activation in the pars triangularis (BA 45) of the left IFG was observed only for low-frequency words. It is proposed that this region is involved in processes of lexical selection

The Perception of Stress Pattern in Young Cochlear Implanted Children: An EEG Study

Children with sensorineural hearing loss may (re)gain hearing with a cochlear implant—a device that transforms sounds into electric pulses and bypasses the dysfunctioning inner ear by stimulating the auditory nerve directly with an electrode array. Many implanted children master the acquisition of spoken language successfully, yet we still have little knowledge of the actual input they receive with the implant and specifically which language sensitive cues they hear. This would be important however, both for understanding the flexibility of the auditory system when presented with stimuli after a (life-) long phase of deprivation and for planning therapeutic intervention. In rhythmic languages the general stress pattern conveys important information about word boundaries. Infant language acquisition relies on such cues and can be severely hampered when this information is missing, as seen for dyslexic children and children with specific language impairment. Here we ask whether children with a cochlear implant perceive differences in stress patterns during their language acquisition phase and if they do, whether it is present directly following implant stimulation or if and how much time is needed for the auditory system to adapt to the new sensory modality. We performed a longitudinal ERP study, testing in bimonthly intervals the stress pattern perception of 17 young hearing impaired children (age range: 9–50 months; mean: 22 months) during their first 6 months of implant use. An additional session before the implantation served as control baseline. During a session they passively listened to an oddball paradigm featuring the disyllable “baba,” which was stressed either on the first or second syllable (trochaic vs. iambic stress pattern). A group of age-matched normal hearing children participated as controls. Our results show, that within the first 6 months of implant use the implanted children develop a negative mismatch response for iambic but not for trochaic deviants, thus showing the same result as the normal hearing controls. Even congenitally deaf children show the same developing pattern. We therefore conclude (a) that young implanted children have early access to stress pattern information and (b) that they develop ERP responses similar to those of normal hearing children

The brain generates its own sentence melody: A Gestalt phenomenon in speech perception

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A "nova" literatura feminina alemã através de sucessos

A "nova " literatura alemã escrita por mulheres após a revolta estudantil de 1968 distingue-se por uma serie de sucessos tanto de público leitor quanto de crítica literária. As razões para esses acontecimentos são várias , como a novidade de mulheres escreverem sobre si mesmas ou os temas por elas escolhidos que tratam da sexualidade, homossexualidade feminina, troca de papéis e agressão contra o status quo de um a sociedade patriarcal. Examinaremos nesse artigo dez desses sucessos da "nova” literatura feminina alemã, começando com o romance “ Amo r de classes, de Karin Struck, de 1973, e concluindo com o de Elfried e Jelinek , chamado O desejo, de 1989The "new" German literature written by women has had a lot of success both among the critics and the common reader. This is due to a number of factors such as the novelty of women writing about themsclves or about special themes which deal with sexuality, female homosexuality, changes of social roles and chalenges to the status quo of a patriarchal society. In this articles we shall examine ten successful examples of this "new" feminine German literature beginning with the novel A love of classes by Karin Struck (1973) and ending with a novel by Elfriede Jelinck, Desire (1989

Historical moments of "nerv" and "old" feminist movement in Germany and Brazil - convergences and divergences

Der Aufsatz behandelt einige wichtige geschichtliche Momente des deutschen und brasilianischen Feminismus im 19. und 20. JahrhundertO artigo tem como tema o movimento feminista na Alemanha e no Brasil em alguns momentos históricos importantes dos séculos XIX e X