Neural correlate of the construction of sentence meaning
The neural processes that underlie your ability to read and understand this sentence are unknown. Sentence comprehension occurs very rapidly, and can only be understood at a mechanistic level by discovering the precise sequence of underlying computational and neural events. However, we have no conti...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | en_US |
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National Academy of Sciences (U.S.)
2017
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/108663 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3823-514X https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3853-7885 |
| _version_ | 1826189841581211648 |
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| author | Scott, Terri L. Brunner, Peter Coon, William G. Schalk, Gerwin Fedorenko, Evelina G Pritchett, Brianna L Kanwisher, Nancy |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences Scott, Terri L. Brunner, Peter Coon, William G. Schalk, Gerwin Fedorenko, Evelina G Pritchett, Brianna L Kanwisher, Nancy |
| author_sort | Scott, Terri L. |
| collection | MIT |
| description | The neural processes that underlie your ability to read and understand this sentence are unknown. Sentence comprehension occurs very rapidly, and can only be understood at a mechanistic level by discovering the precise sequence of underlying computational and neural events. However, we have no continuous and online neural measure of sentence processing with high spatial and temporal resolution. Here we report just such a measure: intracranial recordings from the surface of the human brain show that neural activity, indexed by γ-power, increases monotonically over the course of a sentence as people read it. This steady increase in activity is absent when people read and remember nonword-lists, despite the higher cognitive demand entailed, ruling out accounts in terms of generic attention, working memory, and cognitive load. Response increases are lower for sentence structure without meaning (“Jabberwocky” sentences) and word meaning without sentence structure (word-lists), showing that this effect is not explained by responses to syntax or word meaning alone. Instead, the full effect is found only for sentences, implicating compositional processes of sentence understanding, a striking and unique feature of human language not shared with animal communication systems. This work opens up new avenues for investigating the sequence of neural events that underlie the construction of linguistic meaning. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T08:24:16Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/108663 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | en_US |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T08:24:16Z |
| publishDate | 2017 |
| publisher | National Academy of Sciences (U.S.) |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1086632022-09-23T12:37:15Z Neural correlate of the construction of sentence meaning Scott, Terri L. Brunner, Peter Coon, William G. Schalk, Gerwin Fedorenko, Evelina G Pritchett, Brianna L Kanwisher, Nancy Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT Fedorenko, Evelina G Pritchett, Brianna L Kanwisher, Nancy The neural processes that underlie your ability to read and understand this sentence are unknown. Sentence comprehension occurs very rapidly, and can only be understood at a mechanistic level by discovering the precise sequence of underlying computational and neural events. However, we have no continuous and online neural measure of sentence processing with high spatial and temporal resolution. Here we report just such a measure: intracranial recordings from the surface of the human brain show that neural activity, indexed by γ-power, increases monotonically over the course of a sentence as people read it. This steady increase in activity is absent when people read and remember nonword-lists, despite the higher cognitive demand entailed, ruling out accounts in terms of generic attention, working memory, and cognitive load. Response increases are lower for sentence structure without meaning (“Jabberwocky” sentences) and word meaning without sentence structure (word-lists), showing that this effect is not explained by responses to syntax or word meaning alone. Instead, the full effect is found only for sentences, implicating compositional processes of sentence understanding, a striking and unique feature of human language not shared with animal communication systems. This work opens up new avenues for investigating the sequence of neural events that underlie the construction of linguistic meaning. United States. National Institutes of Health (EB00856) United States. National Institutes of Health (EB006356) United States. National Institutes of Health (EB018783) United States. Army Research Office (W911NF-08-1-0216) United States. Army Research Office (W911NF-12-1-0109) United States. Army Research Office (W911NF-14-1-0440) Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (U.S.) (HD-057522) 2017-05-04T16:44:33Z 2017-05-04T16:44:33Z 2016-09 2016-02 Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 0027-8424 1091-6490 http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/108663 Fedorenko, Evelina; Scott, Terri L.; Brunner, Peter; Coon, William G.; Pritchett, Brianna; Schalk, Gerwin and Kanwisher, Nancy. “Neural Correlate of the Construction of Sentence Meaning.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 113, no. 41 (September 2016): E6256–E6262. © 2016 National Academy of Sciences https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3823-514X https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3853-7885 en_US http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1612132113 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use. application/pdf National Academy of Sciences (U.S.) PNAS |
| spellingShingle | Scott, Terri L. Brunner, Peter Coon, William G. Schalk, Gerwin Fedorenko, Evelina G Pritchett, Brianna L Kanwisher, Nancy Neural correlate of the construction of sentence meaning |
| title | Neural correlate of the construction of sentence meaning |
| title_full | Neural correlate of the construction of sentence meaning |
| title_fullStr | Neural correlate of the construction of sentence meaning |
| title_full_unstemmed | Neural correlate of the construction of sentence meaning |
| title_short | Neural correlate of the construction of sentence meaning |
| title_sort | neural correlate of the construction of sentence meaning |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/108663 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3823-514X https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3853-7885 |
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