The question shapes the answer: The neural correlates of task differences reveal dynamic semantic processing

Hargreaves, Ian S.; White, Michelle; Pexman, Penny M.; Pittman, Dan; Goodyear, Brad

doi:10.1016/j.bandl.2011.10.004

Cited by 16 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…Why, then, does a manipulation of the perceived ease of embodied interaction with a words' referent selectively recruit the SMG? Certainly, the demands of the go/no-go task could limit the contributions of other cortical areas to processing (Hargreaves et al, 2012). However, it is also worth noting that the current sets of stimuli are carefully balanced on numerous lexical and semantic dimensions (Table 1).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The neural correlates of the body-object interaction effect in semantic processing

Hargreaves¹,

Leonard²,

Pexman³

et al. 2012

Front. Hum. Neurosci.

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The semantic richness dimension referred to as body-object interaction (BOI) measures perceptions of the ease with which people can physically interact with words' referents. Previous studies have shown facilitated lexical and semantic processing for words rated high in BOI, e.g., belt, than for words rated low in BOI, e.g., sun. These BOI effects have been taken as evidence that embodied information is relevant to word recognition (Siakaluk et al., 2008a). However, to date there is no evidence linking BOI manipulations to differences in the utilization of perceptual or sensorimotor areas of the brain. The current study used event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine the neural correlates of BOI in a semantic categorization task (SCT). Sixteen healthy adults participated. Results showed that high BOI words were associated with activation in the left inferior parietal lobule (supramarginal gyrus, BA 40), a sensory association area involved in kinesthetic memory. These results provide evidence that the BOI dimension captures the relative availability of sensorimotor information, and that this contributes to semantic processing.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The neural correlates of the body-object interaction effect in semantic processing

Hargreaves¹,

Leonard²,

Pexman³

et al. 2012

Front. Hum. Neurosci.

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“…There are several ways in which we could have experimentally manipulated the variety of contexts in which a given concept appeared. For instance, a concept could be embedded in several different sentence contexts, or it could be probed in various task contexts (e.g., living/non-living or abstract/concrete judgments; for an example, see Hargreaves et al, 2012). However, not all contexts vary in the same ways, and hence some contexts may be more variable than others.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Semantic variability predicts neural variability of object concepts

Musz

Thompson-Schill

2015

Neuropsychologia

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The prevailing approach to the neuroscientific study of concepts is to characterize the neural pattern evoked by a given concept, averaging over any variation that might occur upon multiple retrieval attempts (e.g., across time, tasks, or people). This approach— which diverges substantially from approaches to studying conceptual processing with other methods—treats all variation as noise. Here, our goal is to determine whether variation in neural patterns evoked by semantic retrieval of a given concept is more than just measurement error, and instead reflects variation arising from contextual variability. We measured each concept’s diversity of semantic contexts (“SV”) by analyzing its word frequency and co-occurrence statistics in large text corpora. To measure neural variability, we conducted an fMRI study and sampled neural activity associated with each concept when it appeared in three separate, randomized contexts. We predicted that concepts with low SV would exhibit uniform activation patterns across stimulus presentations, whereas concepts with high SV would exhibit more dynamic representations over time. We observed that a concept’s SV score predicted its corresponding neural variability. This finding supports a flexible, distributed organization of semantic memory, where a concept’s meaning and its neural activity patterns both continuously vary across contexts.

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“…Relatedly, Hargreaves et al (2012) recently used fMRI to compare the neural correlates of two SCT conditions. The two SCTs involved different decision categories: is it an animal?…”

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confidence: 99%

Flexible recruitment of semantic richness: context modulates body-object interaction effects in lexical-semantic processing

Tousignant¹,

Pexman²

2012

Front. Hum. Neurosci.

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Body-object interaction (BOI) is a semantic richness variable that measures the perceived ease with which the human body can physically interact with a word's referent. Lexical and semantic processing is facilitated when words are associated with relatively more bodily experience. To date, BOI effects have only been examined in the context of one semantic categorization task (SCT; is it imageable?). It has been argued that semantic processing is dynamic and can be modulated by context. We examined these influences by testing how task knowledge modulated BOI effects. Participants discriminated between the same sets of entity (high- and low-BOI) and action words in each of four SCTs. Task framing was manipulated: participants were told about one (is it an action? vs. is it an entity?) or both (action or entity? vs. entity or action?) categories of words in the decision task. Facilitatory BOI effects were only observed when participants knew that “entity” was part of the decision category. That BOI information was only useful when participants had expectations that entity words would be presented suggests a strong role for the decision context in lexical-semantic processing, and supports a dynamic view of conceptual knowledge.

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The question shapes the answer: The neural correlates of task differences reveal dynamic semantic processing

Cited by 16 publications

References 37 publications

The neural correlates of the body-object interaction effect in semantic processing

The neural correlates of the body-object interaction effect in semantic processing

Semantic variability predicts neural variability of object concepts

Flexible recruitment of semantic richness: context modulates body-object interaction effects in lexical-semantic processing

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