English
 
Help Privacy Policy Disclaimer
  Advanced SearchBrowse

Item

ITEM ACTIONSEXPORT
  Perturbation of left posterior prefrontal cortex modulates top-down processing in sentence comprehension

Meyer, L., Elsner, A., Turker, S., Kuhnke, P., & Hartwigsen, G. (2018). Perturbation of left posterior prefrontal cortex modulates top-down processing in sentence comprehension. NeuroImage, 181, 598-604. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2018.07.059.

Item is

Files

show Files

Locators

show

Creators

show
hide
 Creators:
Meyer, Lars1, Author                 
Elsner, Anne1, Author
Turker, Sabrina1, Author           
Kuhnke, Philipp1, Author           
Hartwigsen, Gesa1, Author           
Affiliations:
1Department Neuropsychology, MPI for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Max Planck Society, Leipzig, DE, ou_634551              

Content

show
hide
Free keywords: Broca's area; Prosody; Sentence processing; Syntax; Transcranial magnetic stimulation
 Abstract: Communication is an inferential process. In particular, language comprehension constantly requires top-down efforts, as often multiple interpretations are compatible with a given sentence. To assess top-down processing in the language domain, our experiment employed ambiguous sentences that allow for multiple interpretations (e.g., The client sued the murderer with the corrupt lawyer., where the corrupt lawyer could either belong to The client or the murderer). Interpretation thus depended on whether participants chunk the words of the sentence into short or long syntactic phrases. In principle, bottom-up acoustic information (i.e., the presence or absence of an intonational phrase boundary at the offset of the murderer) indicates one of the two possible interpretations. Yet, acoustic information often indicates interpretations that require words to be chunked into overly long phrases that would overburden working memory. Processing is biased against these demands, reflected in a top-down preference to chunk words into short rather than long phrases. It is often proposed, but also hotly debated, that the ability to chunk words into short phrases is subserved by the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG). Here, we employed focal repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation to perturb the left IFG, which resulted in a further decrease of the aptitude to tolerate long phrases, indicating the inability of the left IFG to assist the chunking of words into phrases. In contrast, the processing of auditory information was not affected. Our findings support a causal top-down role of the left inferior frontal gyrus in the chunking of words into phrases.

Details

show
hide
Language(s): eng - English
 Dates: 2018-07-202018-05-022018-07-242018-07-252018-11-01
 Publication Status: Issued
 Pages: -
 Publishing info: -
 Table of Contents: -
 Rev. Type: Peer
 Identifiers: DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2018.07.059
PMID: 30055371
Other: Epub 2018
 Degree: -

Event

show

Legal Case

show

Project information

show

Source 1

show
hide
Title: NeuroImage
Source Genre: Journal
 Creator(s):
Affiliations:
Publ. Info: Orlando, FL : Academic Press
Pages: - Volume / Issue: 181 Sequence Number: - Start / End Page: 598 - 604 Identifier: ISSN: 1053-8119
CoNE: https://pure.mpg.de/cone/journals/resource/954922650166