Presentations

Abstract

A series of results from event-related brain potential recordings and fMRI research will be presented, suggesting that language processing does not obey strict compositionality, and, moreover immediately recruits extralinguistic information. It will also be shown that pragmatic inferences require contributions from TOM networks. This implies that an embodied account of semantics fails (under the somewhat strange assumption that the brain is not part of the body). I will put forward an embrained perspective on language processing.

Abstract

In my presentation I will summarize the results of a number of ERP and fMRI studies on the processing and integration of co-occurring speech and gestures/pantomimes. The ERP results indicate that the time course of integrating language and action (i.e., gesture) is very similar to that of integrating linguistic meaning into a sentence or discourse representation. Moreover, in both cases the Left Inferior Frontal cortex plays a central role in orchestrating the multimodal unification of language and action. This orchestration is partly done by modulating temporal areas that store representations activated by the input. I will discuss the parameters of this modulation.

Abstract

For over 20 years, researchers have investigated syntactic priming of transitives by measuring the frequency of sentence choice. These studies have shown syntactic priming for passives but weaker or absent syntactic priming for actives (e.g. [1],[2]). Until recently very few studies have reported syntactic priming by measuring reaction times of language production and none of these studies included transitive sentences. We previously found syntactic priming of both active and passive Dutch transitives in speech onsets, and interestingly the effect appeared to be stronger for actives than passives [3][4]. In order to explain the discrepancy between our results and other results reported in the literature, we hypothesized that there is a ceiling effect in the frequency of using an active transitive (in general about 94% of produced transitives are actives) but not in the speed of producing one. To confirm this hypothesis we conducted a syntactic priming experiment with a picture description task measuring both reaction times and the frequency of occurrence on the same trials. This way we could exclude the alternative explanation that the discrepancy in results is caused by differences in design or stimuli. The results of this experiment show syntactic priming effects for passives and not for actives in the frequency of occurrence (in line with the literature). However, the reaction times of producing these sentences do show syntactic priming for actives and these effects appear to be even stronger than for passives (in line with our previous data). In conclusion, our results suggest that measuring the frequency of occurrence is not enough to get a complete picture of syntactic priming. Measuring reaction times in addition to the frequency of occurrence could provide us with a more complete picture. References [1] Bock, K., & Loebell, H. (1990). Framing sentences. Cognition, 35, 1-39. [2] Hartsuiker, R. J., & Kolk, H. H. J. (1998). Syntactic persistence in Dutch sentence production. Language and Speech, 41, 143-184. [3] Menenti, L., Segaert, K., & Hagoort, P. (2008). Repetition suppression for syntax and semantics: overt speech in fMRI. Society for Neuroscience, Washington DC. [4] Segaert, K., Menenti, L., & Hagoort, P. (2009) Scanning speech with fMRI: Short and long term priming of syntax and verbs, CUNY conference on human sentence processing, Davis, CA.

Abstract

Syntactic priming has been frequently used to study syntactic processes in language production in monolinguals [1][2] and bilinguals [3]. In a previous study in language comprehension [4] we showed that passive sentences in English (the participant’s L2) can be primed by passive sentences in German (L1) and English (L2). This was manifested in faster reading times for target sentences and repetition suppression effects in left inferior frontal, left precentral and left middle temporal regions of interest in an fMRI study. However, syntactic priming in comprehension is complicated by the influence of verb repetition between prime and target [5][6]. Therefore, we conducted a reading time and fMRI study looking at the influence of verb repetition on syntactic priming. In this study of monolingual comprehension in Dutch we primed passive sentences as well as sentences with crossed-dependency structures. The reading time results revealed a syntactic priming effect for passive sentences, while the effect for crossed-dependency structure sentences interacted with the factor verb repetition. The preliminary fMRI results suggest that the repetition of passive structures leads to reductions in neural activity. The repetition of crossed dependency structures causes repetition enhancement, an increase in the BOLD response, an effect that interacts with the factor verb repetition. In conclusion, the influence of verb repetition on syntactic priming in comprehension is complex and seems to depend on the type of syntactic structure investigated. References [1] Bock K. (1986). Syntactic persistence in language production. Cognitive Psychology, 18(3), 355-387. [2] Pickering M, & Branigan H. (1999). Syntactic priming in language production. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 3(4), 136-141. [3] Schoonbaert S, Hartsuiker RJ, & Pickering MJ. (2007). The representation of lexical and syntactic information in bilinguals: Evidence from syntactic priming. Journal of Memory and Language, 56(2), 153-171. [4] Weber K, & Indefrey P. (in press). Syntactic priming in German-English bilinguals during sentence comprehension. NeuroImage. [5] Arai M, van Gompel R, & Scheepers C. (2007). Priming ditransitive structures in comprehension. Cognitive Psychology, 54, 218-250. [6] Thothathiri M, & Snedeker J. (2008). Give and take: Syntactic priming during spoken language comprehension. Cognition, 108(1), 51-68.