The relative contributions of frontal and parietal cortex for generalized quantifier comprehension

Abstract

Quantifiers, like “some” or “few,” are frequent in daily language. Linguists posit at least three distinct classes of quantifiers: cardinal quantifiers that rely on numerosity, majority quantifiers that additionally depend on executive resources, and logical quantifiers that rely on perceptual attention. We used BOLD fMRI to investigate the roles of frontal and parietal regions in quantifier comprehension. Participants performed a sentence-picture verification task to determine whether a sentence containing a quantifier accurately describes a picture. A whole-brain analysis identified a network involved in quantifier comprehension: This implicated bilateral inferior parietal, superior parietal and dorsolateral prefrontal cortices, and right inferior frontal cortex. We then performed region-of-interest analyses to assess the relative contribution of each region for each quantifier class. Inferior parietal cortex was equally activated across all quantifier classes, consistent with prior studies implicating the region for quantifier comprehension due in part to its role in the representation of number knowledge. Right superior parietal cortex was up-regulated in comparison to frontal regions for cardinal and logical quantifiers, but parietal and frontal regions were equally activated for majority quantifiers and each frontal region is most highly activated for majority quantifiers. This finding is consistent with the hypothesis that majority quantifiers rely on numerosity mechanisms in parietal cortex and executive mechanisms in frontal cortex. Also, right inferior frontal cortex was up-regulated for logical compared to cardinal quantifiers, which may be related to selection demands associated with logical quantifier comprehension. We conclude that distinct components of a large-scale fronto-parietal network contribute to specific aspects of quantifier comprehension, and that this biologically defined network is consistent with cognitive theories of quantifier meaning.

When numbers are not exact: Ambiguity and prediction in the processing of sentences with bare numerals.

“…These differences in verification procedures might have resulted in differences in attention paid to each displayed category of objects, resulting also in different ERP patterns for those trials that were unambiguous for both groups. The hypothesis that the sustained negativity recorded for numerals in the mismatch conditions reflects engagement of cardinality-related processes is consistent with the results from neuroimaging and patient studies that suggest dissociation between neural processes involved in the comprehension of standard and numerical quantifiers (Morgan et al, 2011; Olm et al, 2014; Shetreet, Chierchia, & Gaab, 2014b; Troiani et al, 2009; Wei et al, 2014).…”

“…Neuroimaging studies and studies on quantifier comprehension in patients with various structural brain degenerations, impairments or dementia, provide further evidence that the comprehension of standard quantifiers (some, all) and numerals (including both bare and modified numerals, such as at least three, more than three) engages partially nonoverlapping processes and brain regions (inter alia Cheng et al, 2013;Morgan et al, 2011;Olm, McMillan, Spotorno, Clark, & Grossman, 2014;Shetreet, Chierchia, & Gaab, 2014a, 2014bTroiani, Peelle, Clark, & Grossman, 2009;Wei, Chen, Yang, Zhang, & Zhou, 2014). Most importantly, as shown by Wei et al (2014), number and numerosity processing involves higher activations in the intraparietal sulcus, whereas the standard quantifier processing was shown to rely more on brain regions related to general semantic processing (left middle temporal gyrus and inferior frontal gyrus; cf.…”

Dissociation of quantifiers and object nouns in speech in focal neurodegenerative disease

“…The anatomic basis for quantifier comprehension in healthy adults appears to depend in part on a frontal-parietal network (McMillan, et al, 2005; McMillan, Coleman, et al, 2013; Olm, et al, 2014; Troiani, et al, 2009). In CBS and bvFTD, difficulty with quantifier comprehension has also been associated with this frontal-parietal network (McMillan, et al, 2006; Morgan, et al, 2011).…”

“…In this part of the study, numerical quantifiers elicited significant bilateral activation of the IPS, right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, and left precentral regions compared to logical quantifiers. In a further fMRI study, we used BOLD fMRI in healthy young adults to investigate the relative contribution of frontal and parietal components to quantifier comprehension (Olm, McMillan, Spotorno, Clark, & Grossman, 2014). Participants performed a sentence-picture verification task similar to that used with patients in another study (Morgan, et al, 2011) to determine whether a sentence containing a quantifier accurately described a real-world naturalistic scene.…”

Questions About Quantifiers: Symbolic and Nonsymbolic Quantity Processing by the Brain

“…They did not find more activity in this brain region for modified numerals than for "some" and "all," which speaks to the parietal areas being at least equally active for "all" and "some" as for modified numerals. 10 In a different study using a similarly structured sentence-picture verification task, Olm et al (2014) compared the neural activity for verifying sentences with the quantifiers "some," "at least half," 11 and modified numerals. All quantifiers were analyzed together as a group, compared with the neural activity for verifying number words (e.g., "three").…”