Supramodal Sentence Processing in the Human Brain: Fmri Evidence for the Influence of Syntactic Complexity in More Than 200 Participants

Abstract

This study investigated two questions. One is to which degree sentence processing beyond single words is independent of the input modality (speech vs. reading). The second question is which parts of the network recruited by both modalities is sensitive to syntactic complexity. These questions were investigated by having more than 200 participants read or listen to well-formed sentences or series of unconnected words. A largely left-hemisphere fronto-temporoparietal network was found to be supramodal in nature, i.e. independent of input modality. In addition, the left inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG) and the left posterior middle temporal gyrus (LpMTG) were most clearly associated with left-branching complexity. The left anterior middle temporal gyrus (LaMTG) showed the greatest sensitivity to sentences that differed in right-branching complexity. Moreover, activity in LIFG and LpMTG increased from sentence onset to end, in parallel with an increase of the left-branching complexity. While LIFG, bilateral anterior and posterior MTG and left inferior parietal lobe (LIPL) all contribute to the supramodal unification processes, the results suggest that these regions differ in their respective contributions to syntactic complexity related processing. The consequences of these findings for neurobiological models of language processing are discussed.

Healthy Aging and Sentence Production: Disrupted Lexical Access in the Context of Intact Syntactic Planning

“…An important point to make, however, is that the minimal age group differences we observed in syntactic planning do not necessarily mean that young and older adults were engaging the exact same cognitive networks when performing the task. While young adults may be predominantly relying on activity in the left anterior temporal lobe and the left inferior frontal gyrus to support incremental sentence planning (Snijders et al, 2008;Ohta et al, 2013;Brennan and Pylkkänen, 2017;Uddén et al, 2019), older adults may be recruiting additional areas outside of the core language network to support performance (in the same way as has been observed for other aspects of language processing; Wingfield and Grossman, 2006;Peelle et al, 2010). Further work is therefore needed to fully understand the agerelated changes in the neural networks that underlie incremental sentence planning.…”

Hierarchical Structure in Sequence Processing: How to Measure It and Determine Its Neural Implementation

“…The number of groups that can be formed at each time step can thus be translated to a time course of nested grouping effort that can be matched to the online effort data. Examples of this approach, where the incremental dimension of hierarchical processing (of sentences) emerges, include Nelson et al () using ECoG‐data or Udden et al (), using the BOLD‐response.…”

Toward Robust Functional Neuroimaging Genetics of Cognition

“…Specifics of the paradigms have been reported in detail previously (Lam et al, 2016;Mahowald and Fedorenko, 2016;Schoffelen et al, 2017;Hultén et al, 2019;Uddén et al, 2019). Further specifics of the MOUS cohort are present in a peer reviewed data publication (Schoffelen et al, 2019).…”

“…The functional scans used a TR of 2000 ms in both cases. Further specifics of the acquisition paradigms have been reported in detail previously (Mahowald and Fedorenko, 2016;Uddén et al, 2019).…”