Event Knowledge and Verb Knowledge Predict Sensitivity to Different Aspects of Semantic Anomalies in Aphasia

Colvin, Michelle; Warren, Tessa; Dickey, Michael Walsh

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-01563-3_13

Cited by 10 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…Those studies typically report that linguistic impairments arise as a result of left hemisphere damage, whereas nonverbal semantic processing deficits are considered to be caused by either bilateral (Lambon Ralph et al, 2017) or rightlateralized lesions (Gainotti, 2011(Gainotti, , 2015. Our work contributes to this literature by showing that the language-semantics dissociation holds not only for single concepts but also for combinatorial event-level representations (see also Colvin et al, 2019;Dickey & Warren, 2015). Although we only test two individuals with global aphasia, these data provide an important contribution to the field because of the unique nature of the impairment in these individuals: large-scale disruption of multiple linguistic functions and relatively preserved nonverbal cognition.…”

Section: The Language Network Is Not Required For Nonverbal Event Semanticsmentioning

confidence: 54%

The Language Network Is Recruited but Not Required for Nonverbal Event Semantics

Ivanova

Mineroff

Zimmerer

et al. 2021

Neurobiology of Language

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The ability to combine individual concepts of objects, properties, and actions into complex representations of the world is often associated with language. Yet combinatorial event-level representations can also be constructed from nonverbal input, such as visual scenes. Here, we test whether the language network in the human brain is involved in and necessary for semantic processing of events presented nonverbally. In Experiment 1, we scanned participants with fMRI while they performed a semantic plausibility judgment task vs. a difficult perceptual control task on sentences and line drawings that describe/depict simple agent-patient interactions. We found that the language network responded robustly during the semantic task performed on both sentences and pictures (although its response to sentences was stronger). Thus, language regions in healthy adults are engaged during a semantic task performed on pictorial depictions of events. But is this engagement necessary? In Experiment 2, we tested two individuals with global aphasia, who have sustained massive damage to perisylvian language areas and display severe language difficulties, against a group of age-matched control participants. Individuals with aphasia were severely impaired on the task of matching sentences to pictures. However, they performed close to controls in assessing the plausibility of pictorial depictions of agent-patient interactions. Overall, our results indicate that the left fronto-temporal language network is recruited but not necessary for semantic processing of nonverbally presented events.

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Section: The Language Network Is Not Required For Nonverbal Event Semanticsmentioning

confidence: 54%

The Language Network Is Recruited but Not Required for Nonverbal Event Semantics

Ivanova

Mineroff

Zimmerer

et al. 2021

Neurobiology of Language

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“…A number of brain imaging investigations have reported overlapping activations in the lateral frontal and temporal brain areas for the processing of words and object pictures (e.g., Visser et al, 2012; Devereaux et al, 2013; Handjaras et al, 2017), words and actions (Wurm & Caramazza, 2019), or sentences and event pictures (e.g., Ivanova et al, 2021). However, neuropsychological evidence from individuals with aphasia indicates that linguistic and semantic processing are neurally dissociable, such that semantic processing can appear intact in the presence of severe linguistic deficits (e.g., Whitehouse et al, 1978; Chertkow et al, 1997; Saygin et al, 2004; Colvin et al, 2019; Ivanova et al, 2021).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The language network reliably ‘tracks’ naturalistic meaningful non-verbal stimuli

Sueoka¹,

Paunov

Ivanova

et al. 2022

Preprint

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The language network, comprised of brain regions in the left frontal and temporal cortex, responds robustly and reliably during language comprehension but shows little or no response during many non-linguistic cognitive tasks (e.g., Fedorenko & Blank, 2020). However, one domain whose relationship with language remains debated is semantics—our conceptual knowledge of the world. Given that the language network responds strongly to meaningful linguistic stimuli, could some of this response be driven by the presence of rich conceptual representations encoded in linguistic inputs? In this study, we used a naturalistic cognition paradigm to test whether the cognitive and neural resources that are responsible for language processing are also recruited for processing semantically rich non-verbal stimuli. To do so, we measured BOLD responses to a set of ∼5-minute-long video and audio clips that consisted of meaningful event sequences but did not contain any linguistic content. We then used the inter-subject correlation (ISC) approach (Hasson et al., 2004) to examine the extent to which the language network ‘tracks’ these stimuli. Across all the regions of the language network, non-verbal meaningful stimuli elicited reliable ISCs. These ISCs were higher than the ISCs elicited by non-verbal stimuli without semantic content (e.g., a music clip), but substantially lower than the ISCs elicited by linguistic stimuli. Our results complement earlier findings from controlled experiments (e.g., Ivanova et al., 2021) in providing further evidence that the language network responds to meaningful content in non-verbal stimuli.

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“…Like Warren and McConnell, Warren et al (2015) found earlier and more eye movement disruption in the condition with the selectional restriction violation than in the condition with only a world knowledge violation. A self-paced reading replication and extension of Warren et al (2015) testing people with aphasia by Colvin et al (2019) showed a similar time course, in that effects isolated to the selectional restriction condition appeared one word earlier than effects associated with the impossibility in both violation conditions. The findings from these experiments suggest that processing disruption does not simply reflect the unlikelihood or impossibility of a described event; there is an additional and earlier cost when a verb's object does not satisfy its selectional restrictions.…”

Section: Abstractions Influence Language Comprehension Independent Of World Knowledge?mentioning

confidence: 83%

“…On the other hand, work by McRae and colleagues suggests that verb-based selectional restrictions are a combination of linguistic and world knowledge, specifically a verb-linked abstraction across world knowledge (e.g., Ferretti et al, 2001 et al, 2005). The importance of verb knowledge to these abstractions is supported by evidence from Colvin et al (2019), who found that people with aphasia who showed more processing disruption to selectional restriction violations also performed better on an independent standardized test of access to verbs with varying numbers of arguments (the Verb Naming Task from the Northwestern Assessment of Verbs and Sentences; Cho-Reyes & Thompson, 2012). In contrast, processing disruption to selectional restriction violations was not predicted by performance on a world knowledge task in which participants judged whether a pictured event was plausible or not (Dresang et al, 2019).…”

Section: Abstractions Influence Language Comprehension Independent Of World Knowledge?mentioning

confidence: 90%

The use of linguistic and world knowledge in language processing

Warren

Dickey

2021

Language and Linguist. Compass

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There has been considerable investigation of the roles that linguistic and world knowledge play during language comprehension. This investigation is important because its results have ramifications for both basic questions about how the mature intact language comprehension system functions and for applied questions regarding how comprehension systems that are impaired by aphasia might function. In the current paper, we review debates and research related to the representation and use of linguistic and world knowledge in language comprehension and then describe a recent computational model that takes both world and linguistic knowledge into account in predicting language comprehension difficulty. We then review empirical work that attempts to characterize the interactions and potential trade-offs between world and linguistic knowledge during language comprehension, and relate this work to the computational model previously described. We conclude with a brief overview of a few open questions regarding the representation of linguistic and world knowledge. | DEFINING LINGUISTIC KNOWLEDGE AND WORLD KNOWLEDGESimply defined, linguistic knowledge is knowledge of the patterns that characterize linguistic input. World knowledge is knowledge of the patterns that characterize our experiences in the world. At certain levels of analysis, these two kinds of knowledge are quite distinct. For

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Event Knowledge and Verb Knowledge Predict Sensitivity to Different Aspects of Semantic Anomalies in Aphasia

Cited by 10 publications

References 28 publications

The Language Network Is Recruited but Not Required for Nonverbal Event Semantics

The Language Network Is Recruited but Not Required for Nonverbal Event Semantics

The language network reliably ‘tracks’ naturalistic meaningful non-verbal stimuli

The use of linguistic and world knowledge in language processing

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