When syntactic errors go unnoticed: an fMRI study of the effect of semantics on syntax

Autores

  • Sharlene D. Newman Indiana University
  • Ben Pruce Indiana University
  • Thomas Burns, Jr. Indiana University
  • Toshikazu Ikuta Indiana University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5007/2175-8026.2012n63p15

Resumo

 

 

In our day to day conversations there are often times whenwe fail to notice syntactic errors.  but why?  in this study weconducted both a behavioral and an fMri study to address thisquestion. The results showed that participants were more likelyto fail to detect a morphosyntactic violation if the sentenceconstituents were semantically related to each other than if theywere unrelated.  in addition, the related anomalous sentenceselicited stronger activation of the left inferior frontal gyrus. Threeseparate clusters of activation were observed encompassing ba44, ba 45/46 and one at the junction of the inferior frontal andprecentral sulci. While previous work has demonstrated thatsemantics information such as plausibility and world knowledgedoes not have a significant impact on comprehension, it doesaffect anomaly detection. one theory of language processing thatfit the results is “good enough” theory which suggests that we failto generate a complete representation of the input, particularlywhen the input describes plausible and/or familiar events.

Biografia do Autor

Sharlene D. Newman, Indiana University

Sharlene Newman is a cognitive neuroscientist in the department of Psychological and  brain Sciences (PbS) and the programs in Cognitive Science and neuroscience.  her research seeks to explain how cognition emerges from networks of brain regions.  her language research explores the syntax/semantics interface.  This work focuses primarily on the influence of semantics on syntactic analysis with the underlying assumption being that given the intent of language is to transfer information (meaning), semantics has a much larger impact on sentence comprehension processes than many of the syntax-first linguistic theories have suggested.

Ben Pruce, Indiana University

Ben Pruce was a research assistant in the Cognitive neuroimaging lab at  indiana University.  he has a background in Speech and hearing Sciences and experience with fMri data analysis.

Thomas Burns, Jr., Indiana University

Thomas Burns, Jr.  was a research assistant in  the Cognitive neuroimaging lab at  indiana University.  after leaving the lab he earned his master’s degree in criminal justice from  indiana University.

Toshikazu Ikuta, Indiana University

Toshikazu Ikuta was a graduate student in the linguistics department and the neuroscience program at indiana University.  he is currently a research scientist at The Feinstein institute for Medical research.

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Publicado

2012-12-24

Edição

n. 63 (2012): The Neuroscience of Reading

Seção

Artigos

Licença

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.