Neuroimaging the semantic system(s)

Postler, Jenny; Bleser, Ria De; Cholewa, Jürgen; Glauche, Volkmar; Hamzei, Farsin; Weiller, Cornelius

doi:10.1080/02687030344000265

Cited by 13 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 63 publications

(65 reference statements)

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“…However, modality-specific activations were also reported in posterior brain regions when action-related conceptual properties were accessed by pictures and in anterior temporal brain regions when more complex conceptual properties were accessed by words (Bright, Moss, & Tyler, 2004; Gates & Yoon, 2005; Postler, De Bleser, Cholewa, Glauche, Hamzei, & Weiller, 2003; Sevostianov, Horwitz, Nechaev, Williams, From, & Braun, 2002; Vandenberghe, Price, Wise, Josephs, & Frackowiak, 1996; Wright et al, 2008; see also Chao, Haxby, & Martin, 1999; Tyler, Stamatakis, Bright, Acres, Abdallah, Rodd, & Moss, 2004). …”

mentioning

confidence: 95%

Functional fixedness in creative thinking tasks depends on stimulus modality.

Chrysikou¹,

Motyka²,

Nigro³

et al. 2016

Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts

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Pictorial examples during creative thinking tasks can lead participants to fixate on these examples and reproduce their elements even when yielding suboptimal creative products. Semantic memory research may illuminate the cognitive processes underlying this effect. Here, we examined whether pictures and words differentially influence access to semantic knowledge for object concepts depending on whether the task is close- or open-ended. Participants viewed either names or pictures of everyday objects, or a combination of the two, and generated common, secondary, or ad hoc uses for them. Stimulus modality effects were assessed quantitatively through reaction times and qualitatively through a novel coding system, which classifies creative output on a continuum from top-down-driven to bottom-up-driven responses. Both analyses revealed differences across tasks. Importantly, for ad hoc uses, participants exposed to pictures generated more top-down-driven responses than those exposed to object names. These findings have implications for accounts of functional fixedness in creative thinking, as well as theories of semantic memory for object concepts.

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mentioning

confidence: 95%

Functional fixedness in creative thinking tasks depends on stimulus modality.

Chrysikou¹,

Motyka²,

Nigro³

et al. 2016

Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts

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“…Among the studies using PET and fMRI, those designs that have compared lexical vs. non-lexical stimuli within the visual modality (pictures vs. written words) predominate, and have examined both basic (Sevostianov et al, 2002; Tyler et al, 2003) and superordinate processing (Vandenberghe et al, 1996; Chao et al, 1999; Moore and Price, 1999; Postler et al, 2003; Bright et al, 2004). Other recent work has utilized both auditory and visual input to compare basic level processing of verbal and non-verbal stimuli (Thierry and Price, 2006; Hocking and Price, 2009).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatial and temporal features of superordinate semantic processing studied with fMRI and EEG

Costanzo

McArdle

Swett

et al. 2013

Front. Hum. Neurosci.

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The relationships between the anatomical representation of semantic knowledge in the human brain and the timing of neurophysiological mechanisms involved in manipulating such information remain unclear. This is the case for superordinate semantic categorization—the extraction of general features shared by broad classes of exemplars (e.g., living vs. non-living semantic categories). We proposed that, because of the abstract nature of this information, input from diverse input modalities (visual or auditory, lexical or non-lexical) should converge and be processed in the same regions of the brain, at similar time scales during superordinate categorization—specifically in a network of heteromodal regions, and late in the course of the categorization process. In order to test this hypothesis, we utilized electroencephalography and event related potentials (EEG/ERP) with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to characterize subjects' responses as they made superordinate categorical decisions (living vs. non-living) about objects presented as visual pictures or auditory words. Our results reveal that, consistent with our hypothesis, during the course of superordinate categorization, information provided by these diverse inputs appears to converge in both time and space: fMRI showed that heteromodal areas of the parietal and temporal cortices are active during categorization of both classes of stimuli. The ERP results suggest that superordinate categorization is reflected as a late positive component (LPC) with a parietal distribution and long latencies for both stimulus types. Within the areas and times in which modality independent responses were identified, some differences between living and non-living categories were observed, with a more widespread spatial extent and longer latency responses for categorization of non-living items.

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“…The fact that many of these semantic adaptation studies found adaptation in the inferior frontal and middle temporal gyri in particular, could be interpreted as support for amodal representations, as it has been suggested that these areas underlie amodal semantic processing (e.g., Postler et al, 2003). Crucially, however, none of these prior adaptation studies attempted to test specific sensorimotor features.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

fMRI-adaptation evidence of overlapping neural representations for objects related in function or manipulation

2010

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Sensorimotor-based theories of semantic memory contend that semantic information about an object is represented in the neural substrate invoked when we perceive or interact with it. We used fMRI adaptation to test this prediction, measuring brain activation as participants read pairs of words. Pairs shared function (flashlight-lantern), shape (marble-grape), both (pencil-pen), were unrelated (saucer-needle), or were identical (drill-drill). We observed adaptation for pairs with both function and shape similarity in left premotor cortex. Further, degree of function similarity was correlated with adaptation in three regions: two in the left temporal lobe (left medial temporal lobe, left middle temporal gyrus), which has been hypothesized to play a role in mutimodal integration, and one in left superior frontal gyrus. We also found that degree of manipulation (i.e., action) and function similarity were both correlated with adaptation in two regions: left premotor cortex and left intraparietal sulcus (involved in guiding actions). Additional considerations suggest that the adaptation in these two regions was driven by manipulation similarity alone; thus, these results imply that manipulation information about objects is encoded in brain regions involved in performing or guiding actions. Unexpectedly, these same two regions showed increased activation (rather than adaptation) for objects similar in shape. Overall, we found evidence (in the form of adaptation) that objects that share semantic features have overlapping representations. Further, the particular regions of overlap provide support for the existence of both sensorimotor and amodal/multimodal representations.

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Neuroimaging the semantic system(s)

Cited by 13 publications

References 63 publications

Functional fixedness in creative thinking tasks depends on stimulus modality.

Functional fixedness in creative thinking tasks depends on stimulus modality.

Spatial and temporal features of superordinate semantic processing studied with fMRI and EEG

fMRI-adaptation evidence of overlapping neural representations for objects related in function or manipulation

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