Neuro-physiological evidence of linguistic empathy processing in the human brain: A functional magnetic resonance imaging study

Yokoyama, Satoru; Yoshimoto, Kei; Miyamoto, Tadao; Kawashima, Ryuta

doi:10.1016/j.jneuroling.2009.07.002

Cited by 5 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…We should note here that the grammatical function of the persons described in the sentences was relevant to perspective-taking. Yokoyama et al ( 2009 ) suggested that it was easier to adopt the perspective of a subject than that of an object. We thus examined the two types of subsidiary verbs as one condition for the grammatical function to avoid confounding the effect of perspective-taking.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Perspective-Taking in Sentence Comprehension: Time and Empathy

Tokimoto

2018

Front. Psychol.

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This study examines the neural substrate of perspective-taking by analyzing the electroencephalographic (EEG) activity elicited by the auditory comprehension of sentences for which the comprehender had to adopt the perspective of the person described in them. Recent studies suggest that the ability of perspective-taking can be an integrative function of temporal and spatial information processing. We thus examined the independence and possible interaction of human perspective shifts and temporal perspective-taking by utilizing Japanese subsidiary verbs for giving, namely -ageru and -kureru. We manipulated human perspective shifts and temporal perspective-taking independently in experimental sentences by syntactically changing the subject and the object between the speaker and a third person, while we manipulated the tense to be past or non-past tense via sentence-final particles ru/ta (non-past/past). The EEG analyses via electrodes indicated the suppression of the β band for human perspective shifts in sentences in non-past tense and the absence of such suppression in sentences in past tense. The analyses for the clusters of independent components indicated β suppression for past tense against non-past tense in sentences without a human perspective shift. This response pattern suggests a close relationship between human perspective shifting and temporal perspective-taking. The β suppression for the human perspective shift in our experiment can be understood as a replication of the previous EEG findings observed for perspective-taking in the presentation of visual images. The preceding findings and our result suggest that the ability or the function of perspective-taking is not specific to the modality. Furthermore, the generator of the β suppression for past tense against non-past tense without human perspective shifting was localized in the precuneus, which is consistent with recent findings indicating that the precuneus is deeply involved in time perception.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Perspective-Taking in Sentence Comprehension: Time and Empathy

Tokimoto

2018

Front. Psychol.

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“…In order to choose the papers we used here, we excluded papers using sentence stimuli whose canonical word order we cannot clearly determine. Then, out of the papers appearing in the search results, we chose 12 papers which included 21 'sentence vs. word list' contrasts in total [10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20] (Table 1). This contrast can be adjusted to exclude the effect of a cross-linguistic difference in the word recognition process by subtracting the word list condition from the sentence comprehension condition in the brain imaging results.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…One of the SVO language studies included was English (n=5) [10][11][12][13][14]. In the SOV language studies, Japanese (n=7) [9,[15][16][17][18][19][20] was included. We categorized the languages by 1) canonical word order (SVO or SOV), 2) experimental task/condition (e.g., sentence vs. word list), and 3) the peaks of the activated regions (e.g., the opercular part of the left inferior frontal gyrus).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Neurotypology of Sentence Comprehension: Cross-Linguistic Difference in Canonical Word Order Affects Brain Responses during Sentence Comprehension

Hashimoto

Yokoyama

Kawashima

2012

TOMIJ

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While a clear variability of canonical word order across languages has been found, such a finding is not reflected in recent neuroimaging studies of language processing. Languages having a canonical word order of Subject-Object-Verb (SOV) in a sentence make up approximately 43% of world languages, while languages having a Subject-Verb-Object (SVO) word order make up approximately 37%. Sufficient attention has not been given to this typological difference in neuroimaging studies. In this article, we review neuroimaging studies of sentence processing to examine whether the typological difference of canonical word order in a sentence is represented in brain activation results or not. As a result of this literature survey, an effect from the difference in canonical word order was found to exist between SVO and SOV languages for brain activation during sentence comprehension. This effect was found mainly in the left inferior and middle frontal gyri, precentral gyrus, supplemental motor area, inferior and middle temporal gyri, temporal pole, hippocampus, and cerebellum. These results imply that a difference in canonical word order causes a different sentence processing pattern, as well as a different load in the working memory process.

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“…Some researchers have reported that the neural basis for the syntactic computation system overlaps that of workload related to working memory (e.g., Just et al, 1996), workload related to task performance (Love et al, 2006), the phonological working memory system (Rogalsky et al, 2009), the cognitive control system for resolving competition etc. (January et al, 2008;Yokoyama et al, 2009b), or other interpretation (e.g., Bornkessel et al, 2005). These overlapped brain regions basically include the left inferior frontal gyrus (Broca's area) and the posterior part of the left superior/middle temporal gyrus (Wernicke's area).…”

Section: Neural Basis Of Sentence Processingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Findings suggest that the inferior frontal and inferior parietal regions are associated with working memory load and/or phonological processing to perform experimental tasks for single word processing. The left inferior frontal region is malso suggested to be associated with intended acts, planning, and/or cognitive control to resolve competition, which have common processes with other cognitive functions (Owen et al, 2005;January et al, 2008;Yokoyama et al, 2009b). Thought to be involved in the semantic processing of words are the orbito-frontal and parietal "retrieval" system, and the temporal "storage" system (i.e., long term memory).…”

Section: Regional Overlap Between Language Comprehension and Memory Smentioning

confidence: 99%

Neuro-physiological evidence of linguistic empathy processing in the human brain: A functional magnetic resonance imaging study

Cited by 5 publications

References 26 publications

Perspective-Taking in Sentence Comprehension: Time and Empathy

Perspective-Taking in Sentence Comprehension: Time and Empathy

Neurotypology of Sentence Comprehension: Cross-Linguistic Difference in Canonical Word Order Affects Brain Responses during Sentence Comprehension

Neuro-Anatomical Overlap Between Language and Memory Functions in the Human Brain

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