Brain structural correlates of complex sentence comprehension in children

Fengler, Anja; Meyer, Lars; Friederici, Angela D.

doi:10.1016/j.dcn.2015.09.004

Cited by 16 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 86 publications

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“…The acquisition and processing of recursive or center-embedded structure is a difficult and complicated cognitive process, as revealed by studies in the field of language and other cognitive disciplines. Developmental studies have revealed that although children grasp basic and simple syntax with surprising speed, they cannot exactly grasp non-adjacent syntax involving a center-embedded structure until the age of 7 years (Schipke et al, 2012 ; Fengler et al, 2015 ; Skeide and Friederici, 2016 ). Studies directly comparing the online processing of center-embedded vs. non-embedded sentences have found that processing of the verbs in matrix clauses marking the complication of long-distance dependency in embedded sentences is more difficult than processing the verb in non-embedded sentences, indicated by slower reaction times (Stromswold et al, 1996 ), lower accuracy rate (Opitz and Friederici, 2007 ) and larger ERPs, such as LAN or P600 (Vos et al, 2001 ; Phillips et al, 2005 ; Li and Zhou, 2010 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Differences in Neurocognitive Mechanisms Underlying the Processing of Center-Embedded and Non–embedded Musical Structures

Xie

Ding

Yun

et al. 2018

Front. Hum. Neurosci.

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In music, chords are organized into hierarchical structures based on recursive or embedded syntax. How the brain extracts recursive grammar is a central question in musical cognition and other cognitive neuroscience, but the precise mechanism remains unclear. By analyzing event related potentials (ERPs) and neural oscillatory activity, the present study investigated neurocognitive mechanisms underlying the processing of center-embedded structure in music by examining the differences in center-embedded and non-embedded structure processing and evaluating how these differences are affected by musical proficiency. Based on Western musical proficiency, the subjects were divided into two groups, non-experts and experts. The results revealed that for non-experts, the processing of center-embedded structure elicited greater early right-anterior negativity (ERAN) and N5 components as well as, reduced alpha and gamma activities than did the non-embedded structure. For experts, no significant difference in the ERP response was observed between the processing of non-embedded and center-embedded structures; however, the processing of center-embedded structure elicited increased beta activity compared to non-embedded structure. These findings indicate that listeners different in proficiency would rely on different cognitive neural mechanisms in music processing with the syntactic complexity increases.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Differences in Neurocognitive Mechanisms Underlying the Processing of Center-Embedded and Non–embedded Musical Structures

Xie

Ding

Yun

et al. 2018

Front. Hum. Neurosci.

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“…In general, gray matter density decreases along development, with higher-order association regions decreasing later than lower-order sensorimotor regions ( Brain Development Cooperative Group, 2012 , Gogtay et al, 2004 ). Specifically, gray matter in those frontal and parietal brain regions that are involved in sentence processing in adults (for a review, see Friederici, 2011 ) only appears to decrease between 7 and 12 years ( Giedd et al, 1999 , Sowell et al, 2003 ), and recent structural imaging data have shown that the structural integrity of these regions correlates with the crucial cognitive abilities underlying complex sentence comprehension ( Fengler et al, 2015 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How the brain attunes to sentence processing: Relating behavior, structure, and function

2016

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Unlike other aspects of language comprehension, the ability to process complex sentences develops rather late in life. Brain maturation as well as verbal working memory (vWM) expansion have been discussed as possible reasons. To determine the factors contributing to this functional development, we assessed three aspects in different age-groups (5–6 years, 7–8 years, and adults): first, functional brain activity during the processing of increasingly complex sentences; second, brain structure in language-related ROIs; and third, the behavioral comprehension performance on complex sentences and the performance on an independent vWM test. At the whole-brain level, brain functional data revealed a qualitatively similar neural network in children and adults including the left pars opercularis (PO), the left inferior parietal lobe together with the posterior superior temporal gyrus (IPL/pSTG), the supplementary motor area, and the cerebellum. While functional activation of the language-related ROIs PO and IPL/pSTG predicted sentence comprehension performance for all age-groups, only adults showed a functional selectivity in these brain regions with increased activation for more complex sentences. The attunement of both the PO and IPL/pSTG toward a functional selectivity for complex sentences is predicted by region-specific gray matter reduction while that of the IPL/pSTG is additionally predicted by vWM span. Thus, both structural brain maturation and vWM expansion provide the basis for the emergence of functional selectivity in language-related brain regions leading to more efficient sentence processing during development.

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“…Ako se osvrnemo na prediktivnu varijablu pamćenja brojeva unatrag, prema Baddeleyevu modelu (Gathercole i Baddeley, 1993) radi se o središnjem izvršitelju, nadređenoj sastavnici radnog pamćenja, koji prebacuje pažnju, potiskuje manje važne informacije sprječavajući njihovo ometanje djelovanja radnog pamćenja i obnavlja njegov sadržaj otpuštajući informacije koje više nisu relevantne. Radno pamćenje najistraživanija je sastavnica izvršnih funkcija te se u velikom broju DOI: 10.21465/2017-SP-201-04 istraživanja pokazala povezanom s obradom rečenica (Fengler, Meyer i Friederici, 2015;Martin i sur., 2007). Većina slučajeva u kojima se pokazalo povezanim, bili su upravo slučajevi sintaktički ili semantički složenih ili dvosmislenih rečenica koje su zahtjevnije za obradu.…”

Section: Raspravaunclassified

Povezanost izvršnih funkcija i jezika u odrasloj dobi

Krilčić¹,

Šimleša²,

Olujić³

et al. 2017

Suvr psihol

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Brojna istraživanja upućuju na povezanost izvršnih funkcija i jezika. Ipak, zbog složenosti izvršnih funkcija, teškoća u njihovu definiranju i ispitivanju, točna priroda te veze još uvijek nije poznata. Većina dosadašnjih istraživanja izvršnih funkcija temelji se na dječjem jezičnom razvoju ili jezičnom razvoju kod specifičnih populacija. S obzirom na to da su i jezik i izvršne funkcije s obzirom na dob osjetljivi konstrukti, za spoznaje o dinamici njihova odnosa nužno je istraživanja proširiti i na odraslu dob. U skladu s time, cilj je ovog istraživanja bio ispitati povezanost pojedinih sastavnica izvršnih funkcija s jezičnim razumijevanjem u odrasloj dobi. Sudionici su bili odrasle osobe (N = 30) u dobi između 21 i 37 godina. Izvršne funkcije prostornog radnog pamćenja, prostornog planiranja, kognitivne fleksibilnosti i kognitivne inhibicije ispitane su CANTAB baterijom testova, a verbalno radno pamćenje ispitano je podljestvicom Pamćenje raspona brojeva WAIS-III testa. Jezične sposobnosti ispitane su Peabody slikovnim testom rječnika (PPVT-III-HR) i Testom razumijevanja gramatike (TROG-2:HR). Rezultati regresijske analize pokazali su doprinos izvršnih funkcija u razumijevanju složenih, ali ne i jednostavnih rečenica, niti riječi. Dobiveni rezultati mogli bi značiti da je potreba za izvršnim funkcijama tijekom jezične obrade u odrasloj dobi ograničena na razumijevanje složenijih sintaktičkih struktura koje predstavljaju veće opterećenje za obradu. Takvi rezultati u skladu su s rezultatima sličnih stranih istraživanja, no za donošenje konačnih zaključaka potrebno je uključiti ispitanike starijih dobnih skupina i varirati veći broj struktura različite razine sintaktičke složenosti. Ključne riječi: izvršne funkcije, jezik, receptivni rječnik, razumijevanje rečenica, odrasla dob

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Brain structural correlates of complex sentence comprehension in children

Cited by 16 publications

References 86 publications

Differences in Neurocognitive Mechanisms Underlying the Processing of Center-Embedded and Non–embedded Musical Structures

Differences in Neurocognitive Mechanisms Underlying the Processing of Center-Embedded and Non–embedded Musical Structures

How the brain attunes to sentence processing: Relating behavior, structure, and function

Povezanost izvršnih funkcija i jezika u odrasloj dobi

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