Knowing what you need to know in advance: The neural processes underpinning flexible semantic retrieval of thematic and taxonomic relations

Zhang, Meichao; Varga, Dominika; Wang, Xiuyi; Krieger-Redwood, Katya; Gouws, André; Smallwood, Jonathan

doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2020.117405

Cited by 27 publications

(34 citation statements)

References 121 publications

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“…Word2vec has been shown to predict human behaviour better than other approaches such as latent semantic analysis (Pereira et al 2016). Previous research has shown that semantic distance, as measured by word2vec, is negatively correlated with the strength of activation in the semantic control network: weakly-related trials require more controlled retrieval to identify a semantic link (Hoffman 2018;Teige et al 2019), engaging well-defined regions of the semantic control network, including left inferior frontal gyrus (Zhang et al 2021); this allows us to use word2vec scores as a proxy for semantic control demands (Badre et al 2005;Teige et al 2019;Wagner et al 2001).…”

Section: Semantic Taskmentioning

confidence: 99%

A tale of two gradients: differences between the left and right hemispheres predict semantic cognition

et al. 2021

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Decomposition of whole-brain functional connectivity patterns reveals a principal gradient that captures the separation of sensorimotor cortex from heteromodal regions in the default mode network (DMN). Functional homotopy is strongest in sensorimotor areas, and weakest in heteromodal cortices, suggesting there may be differences between the left and right hemispheres (LH/RH) in the principal gradient, especially towards its apex. This study characterised hemispheric differences in the position of large-scale cortical networks along the principal gradient, and their functional significance. We collected resting-state fMRI and semantic, working memory and non-verbal reasoning performance in 175 + healthy volunteers. We then extracted the principal gradient of connectivity for each participant, tested which networks showed significant hemispheric differences on the gradient, and regressed participants’ behavioural efficiency in tasks outside the scanner against interhemispheric gradient differences for each network. LH showed a higher overall principal gradient value, consistent with its role in heteromodal semantic cognition. One frontotemporal control subnetwork was linked to individual differences in semantic cognition: when it was nearer heteromodal DMN on the principal gradient in LH, participants showed more efficient semantic retrieval—and this network also showed a strong hemispheric difference in response to semantic demands but not working memory load in a separate study. In contrast, when a dorsal attention subnetwork was closer to the heteromodal end of the principal gradient in RH, participants showed better visual reasoning. Lateralization of function may reflect differences in connectivity between control and heteromodal regions in LH, and attention and visual regions in RH.

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Section: Semantic Taskmentioning

confidence: 99%

A tale of two gradients: differences between the left and right hemispheres predict semantic cognition

et al. 2021

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“…Converging neuroimaging and neurostimulation studies of healthy participants implicate the left inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG) and posterior middle temporal gyrus (pMTG), often damaged in SA, in controlled semantic retrieval (Badre et al, 2005;Davey et al, 2016;Hallam et al, 2016;Thompson-Schill et al, 1997). This leftlateralised network is thought to constrain the retrieval of both verbal and nonverbal information (Krieger-Redwood et al, 2015) and can bias the interaction of sensory-motor spokes with the hub in accordance with the information required (Chiou et al, 2018;Jefferies et al, 2019;Zhang et al, 2021). Neuroscientific studies show that the semantic control network is partially distinct from both multiple demand cortex, which supports domaingeneral cognitive control (Davey et al, 2016;Diachek et al, 2020;Gao et al, 2021;Jackson, 2021;Noonan et al, 2013), and default mode network regions that underpin more integrative or automatic aspects of conceptual retrieval (e.g., ATL and AG; Humphreys et al, 2015;Lanzoni et al, 2020;Vatansever et al, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impaired emotion perception and categorization in semantic aphasia

2021

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According to a constructionist model of emotion, conceptual knowledge plays a foundational role in emotion perception; reduced availability of relevant conceptual knowledge should therefore impair emotion perception. Conceptual deficits can follow both degradation of semantic knowledge (e.g., semantic 'storage' deficits in semantic dementia) and deregulation of retrieval (e.g., semantic 'access' deficits in semantic aphasia). While emotion recognition deficits are known to accompany degraded conceptual knowledge, less is known about the impact of semantic access deficits. Here, we examined emotion perception and categorization tasks in patients with semantic aphasia, who have difficulty accessing semantic information in a flexible and controlled fashion following left hemisphere stroke. In Study 1, participants were asked to sort faces according to the emotion they portrayedwith numbers, written labels and picture examples each provided as category anchors across tasks.Semantic aphasia patients made more errors and showed a larger benefit from word anchors that reduced the need to internally constrain categorization than comparison participants.They successfully sorted portrayals that differed in valence (positive vs. negative) but had difficulty categorizing different negative emotions. They were unimpaired on a control task that involved sorting faces by identity. In Study 2, participants matched facial emotion portrayals to written labels following vocal emotion prosody cues, miscues, or no cues.Patients presented with overall poorer performance and benefited from cue trials relative to within-valence miscue trials. This same effect was seen in comparison participants, who also showed deleterious effects of within-valence miscue relative to no cue trials. Overall, we found that patients with deregulated semantic retrieval have deficits in emotional perception but that word anchors and cue conditions can facilitate emotion perception by increasing access to relevant emotion concepts and reducing reliance on semantic control. Semantic control may be of particular importance in emotion perception when it is necessary to interpret ambiguous inputs, or when there is interference between conceptually similar emotional states. These findings extend constructionist accounts of emotion to encompass difficulties in controlled semantic retrieval.

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“…In the past literature, conceptual retrieval was usually constrained by control processes to focus on non-dominant aspects of knowledge when these are required by the task or context. For instance, task requirements can gate the recruitment of ‘spoke’ systems (Zhang et al 2021); participants can retrieve specific unimodal features when they have task instructions providing a clear goal for conceptual processing, and/or suppress activation of non-relevant spoke representations (Coutanche and Thompson-Schill 2014; Martin et al 2018). The current study has important theoretical implications because it extends previous observations in which, the task instructions did not change between trials: participants were always judging whether or not the two words were thematically related.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In other circumstances, when retrieval must be focused on non-dominant associations and unusual conceptual combinations, there is greater engagement of the ‘semantic control network’, which includes left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and left posterior middle temporal gyrus (pMTG) (Whitney et al 2010; Hallam et al 2016; Hallam et al 2018; Gonzalez Alam et al 2019; Wang et al 2020). These semantic control processes can shape the interaction between hub and spokes in order to vary our retrieval of concepts to suit the context in which they occur (Davey et al 2016; Lambon Ralph et al 2017; Chiou et al 2018; Chiou and Lambon Ralph 2019; Zhang et al 2021).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Context Free and Context-Dependent Conceptual Representation in the Brain

Gao

Zheng

Gouws

et al. 2021

Preprint

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How concepts are coded in the brain is a core issue in cognitive neuroscience. Studies have focused on how individual concepts are processed, but how conceptual representation changes to suit the context is unclear. We parametrically manipulated the association strength between words, presented in pairs one word at a time using a slow event-related fMRI design. We combined representational similarity analysis and computational linguistics to probe the neurocomputational content of these trials. Individual word meaning was maintained in lateral and medial temporal and medial parietal cortex (areas associated with heteromodal representation) when items were judged to be unrelated, but not when a linking context was retrieved. Context-dependent meaning was represented in left lateral prefrontal and premotor cortex and pre-supplementary motor area (regions associated with semantic control). Moreover, neural representation of context-dependent meaning was affected by the association strength in left lateral prefrontal cortex (LIFG) and anterior temporal lobe (ATL) to different degrees: ATL supported combined meanings more for strong associations; in contrast, LIFG supported combined meanings across trials, even when more control was required. These findings indicate that the semantic store in ATL amplifies long-term semantic associations when these are retrieved but does not directly capture short-term non-dominant associations.

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Knowing what you need to know in advance: The neural processes underpinning flexible semantic retrieval of thematic and taxonomic relations

Cited by 27 publications

References 121 publications

A tale of two gradients: differences between the left and right hemispheres predict semantic cognition

A tale of two gradients: differences between the left and right hemispheres predict semantic cognition

Impaired emotion perception and categorization in semantic aphasia

Context Free and Context-Dependent Conceptual Representation in the Brain

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