Electrophysiological estimates of biological and syntactic gender access during pronoun processing.

During comprehension, a personal pronoun (he, she, it) refers to a preceding referent (boy, girl, child). This co-reference could be established, among other ways, by using (i) conceptual/semantic information (biological gender agreement between the pronoun and its referent), (ii) syntactic information (syntactic gender agreement), or (iii) both. This event-related brain potential (ERP) study assesses this interplay of syntactic and semantic information. We focussed on the N400 component, related to semantic integration, and the SPS/P600 component, related to syntactic reanalysis. The study was conducted in German, because its rich syntactic gender system offers a means to dissociate between biological (MALE/FEMALE) and syntactic gender (masculine/ feminine/ neuter), especially in the case of diminutives (das(neuter) Bubchen(MALE) [the little boy]). German subjects read sentences in which a referent (Bubchen(MALE-neutor)/Bub(MALE-masculine) [boy]) was introduced. Later a personal pronoun was presented which either agreed with the referent in terms of syntactic gender, or in terms of biological gender, or both, or violated both agreements. Overall, results showed salient P600 effects for pronouns. This indicates that the establishment of reference involves syntactic reanalysis. Furthermore, we observed N400 effects in sentences with non-diminutives, but not with diminutives. This shows that conceptual/semantic integration is involved during non-diminutive but not during diminutive pronoun processing, or at least it could not be violated. The overall pattern of results supports the claim that for non-diminutives, both syntactic and conceptual information is used to establish co-reference, while for diminutives the process might be purely syntactically driven

A network analysis of audiovisual affective speech perception

In this study we were interested in the neural system supporting the audiovisual integration of emotional expression and emotional prosody. To this end normal participants were exposed to short videos of a computer-animated face voicing emotionally positive or negative words with the appropriate prosody. Facial expression of the face was either neutral or emotionally appropriate. To reveal the neural network involved in affective audio-visual (AV) integration, standard univariate analysis of fMRI data was followed by a Random-Effects Granger Causality Mapping (RFX-GCM). The regions that distinguished emotional from neutral facial expressions in the univariate analysis were taken as seed regions. In trials showing emotional expressions compared to neutral trials univariate analysis showed activation primarily in bilateral amygdala, Fusiform Gyrus, Middle Temporal Gyrus / Superior Temporal Sulcus and Inferior Occipital Gyrus. When employing either the left amygdala or the right amygdala as a seed region in RFX-GCM we found connectivity with the right hemispheric Fusiform Gyrus, with the indication that the Fusiform Gyrus sends information to the Amygdala. These results led to a working model for face perception in general and for audio-visual-affective integration in particular which is an elaborated adaptation of existing models

The involvement of semantic and syntactic processes in pronoun resolution in German and in Dutch

Item does not contain fulltext[Leipzig, MPI of Cognitive Neuroscience] Workshop: Syntax & Beyond, 29 augustus 2003Leipzig, MPI of Cognitive Neuroscience : [s.n.

Juicy fruit and creepy crawlies: An electrophysiological study of the implicit Go/NoGo association task

The Go/NoGo association task (GNAT) has been used in behavioral studies to measure the strength of association between different category groups and two poles of an evaluative dimension. However, reaction time data do not provide information about the neural time course of such associative information. We investigated event-related brain potentials (ERPs) elicited when participants were required to respond (Go) or withhold a response (NoGo) according to task instructions. Task instructions paired words from one of two taxonomic categories (fruit/bugs) with either pole of an evaluative dimension (good/bad). Within a given run, Go responses were assigned to one of the categories and one evaluative dimension. ERPs showed an increased negativity over frontal sites to NoGo as compared to Go responses. Moreover, NoGo minus Go difference waves showed that the N200 effect was delayed in trials within incongruent blocks (e.g., "Press if a bug word or a good word") as compared to trials within congruent blocks (e.g., "Press if a bug word or a bad word"). These results suggest that such associative attitude information is available at a very early stage of processing, less than 250 ms after seeing a fruit or a bug word. This finding is further discussed with respect to alternative explanations of the behavioral effect

Neural basis of linearization in speech production

An initial stage of speech production is conceptual planning, where a speaker determines which information to convey first (the linearization problem). This fMRI study investigated the linearization process during the production of "before" and "after" sentences. In "after" sentences, a series of events is expressed in the order of event occurrence. In "before" sentences, however, the order of event mention is achieved by reversing the chronological order. We suggested that the linearization process may be supported by a neural network connecting the leftmiddle temporal gyrus (MTG) with the medial superior frontal gyrus, left middle frontal gyrus, and left angular gyrus/inferior parietal gyrus. Within this network, regions were more activated and interregional interactions were strongly enhanced for producing "before" than "after" sentences. The left MTG was also functionally connected with the left orbital inferior frontal gyrus, contributing to the retrieval of necessary world knowledge and linguistic knowledge. Connectivity between these two regions was not different between conditions

The role of the antecedent in pronoun resolution

Item does not contain fulltext[Boston] 16th CUNY conference on human sentence processing, 29 maart 2003Boston : [s.n.

Interplay of meaning, syntax and working memory during pronoun resolution investigated by ERPs

Item does not contain fulltext15 p