An Event-Related fMRI Study of Syntactic and Semantic Violations

Authors: Newman A.J.¹; Pancheva R.²; Ozawa K.³; Neville H.J.¹; Ullman M.T.³

Source: Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, Volume 30, Number 3, May 2001 , pp. 339-364(26)

Publisher: Springer

Abstract:

We used event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging to identify brain regions involved in syntactic and semantic processing. Healthy adult males read well-formed sentences randomly intermixed with sentences which either contained violations of syntactic structure or were semantically implausible. Reading anomalous sentences, as compared to well-formed sentences, yielded distinct patterns of activation for the two violation types. Syntactic violations elicited significantly greater activation than semantic violations primarily in superior frontal cortex. Semantically incongruent sentences elicited greater activation than syntactic violations in the left hippocampal and parahippocampal gyri, the angular gyri bilaterally, the right middle temporal gyrus, and the left inferior frontal sulcus. These results demonstrate that syntactic and semantic processing result in nonidentical patterns of activation, including greater frontal engagement during syntactic processing and larger increases in temporal and temporo-parietal regions during semantic analyses.

Keywords: language; syntax; semantics; fMRI; sentence processing

Language: English

Document Type: Regular paper

Affiliations: 1: Psychology Department and Institute of Neuroscience, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon 97403-1227. email: anewman@braindev.uoregon.edu 2: Department of Neuroscience, Georgetown University, Washington, DC 20007. email: michael@giccs.georgetown.edu. University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California 90089 3: Department of Neuroscience, Georgetown University, Washington, DC 20007. email: michael@giccs.georgetown.edu

Publication date: 2001-05-01

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• In this Subject: Computer Science ,  Neurology & Psychiatry ,  Language & Linguistics
• By this author: Newman A.J. ;  Pancheva R. ;  Ozawa K. ;  Neville H.J. ;  Ullman M.T.

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