Yosef Grodzinsky
McGill University
(First talk of two)
Variability in syntactic deficits subsequent to focal brain damage: syntactic and statistical issues
In this talk I will try to outline my personal view on the logic of a deficit-based inquiry, present some recent results (focusing on cross-linguistic differences in the receptive abilities of Broca's aphasic patients), propose a unified account, and reflect on its syntactic and neurological relevance. Finally, I'll talk about special problems that a syntactic research program into language pathologies encounters, putting special emphasis on the quantitative treatment of inter-patient performance variation.
Albert Postma
Psychological laboratory, Helmholtz Institute, Utrecht University, The Netherlands
Spatial Language and the Brain
When listening to a verbal description of the outside world, we may either maintain the original verbal format or instead generate an analog mental image. This presentation will focus on the interactions between language and space, and on the neurocognitive underpinnings of these interactions. Neuropsychological findings concerning the most basic element of spatial language, namely spatial prepositions (i.e. left of, above), have indicated that the left supramarginal gyrus (SMG) might be essential for the understanding of spatial language. Recent neuroimaging findings from our lab concerning the neural correlates of spatial language showed indeed that regions in the parietal lobe (mostly activation in the SMG) were involved with semantic processing of spatial language and not with non-spatial language. Further insights in the processing of spatial descriptions follows from studies with more complex materials. In a recent experiment (Noordzij, Zuidhoek, and Postma, in press) early blind, late blind, and sighted participants listened to a route and a survey description of two environments. Next, they had to execute a recognition/ priming task and a bird flight distance comparison task. Spatial priming and symbolic distance effects were found for all participants. These findings suggest that early and late blind people can form spatial mental models on the basis of route and survey descriptions. Interestingly, only people with active vision prefer a survey description to build up a spatial mental model, whereas people with visual memories only (late blind), similar to people with no visual memories (early blind), prefer a route description to build up a spatial mental model.
Dr Matt Davis
MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, Cambridge University
Sounds with meaning: Neural systems for spoken language comprehension
Understanding spoken language requires a complex series of processing stages to translate heard speech sounds into meaning. In this work, we use behavioural and fMRI studies to explore the anatomical organisation, connectivity and functional specialisation of the temporal lobe and frontal lobe systems that contribute to comprehension. Work presented will include fMRI studies in which responses to different forms of distorted speech are used to segregate early sound-based processes from higher-level, more abstract, linguistic processes (e.g. Davis & Johnsrude, 2003, Journal of Neuroscience). Building on this work, we explore manipulations of the semantic content of sentences (e.g. ambiguity and anomaly) to highlight higher-level processes critical for comprehension (e.g. Rodd, Davis & Johnsrude, 2005, Cerebral Cortex) and how higher-level systems interact with lower-level perceptual processes (Davis, Ford & Johnsrude, in preparation).
Kenneth Hugdahl
Dept. Biological and Medical Psychology, University of Bergen
Brain asymmetry and speech sound perception
Hemisphere asymmetry, i.e. differences in functional specialization between the two cerebral hemispheres, is one of the most important concepts in cognitive neuroscience and neurolingusitics. A key question is the nature of the left hemisphere specialization for speech sound perception, and how this can be modulated through top-down cognitive influences, e.g. attention. In my talk I will review a series of experimental studies, using both behavioral and functional neuroimaging techniques. In particular, we have used a dichotic listening approach with simple CV-syllables together with PET and fMRI imaging to reveal the underlying neuronal circuitry behind asymmetry for perception of speech sounds, both at the syllabic and sub-syllabic level.
Yosef Grodzinsky
McGill University
(Second talk of two)
A blueprint for a brain map of syntax: an fMRI perspective
This talk will review results of recent imaging studies of syntax in health, and the view that they appear to support. I will begin with a discussion of results from the neuroscience of vision and audition, which will lead me to formulate a Syntacto-Topic Conjecture, which is a conjecture about the neurological and linguistic significance of the organization of syntax in brain space. I will provide empirical evidence in support of this conjecture from fMRI studies (coming mostly out of Andrea Santi's forthcoming McGill dissertation, but also from studies on German and Hebrew) of movement, binding, and parasitic gaps, which will illustrate how the brain differentiates between types of dependency relations, and what we can make of this differentiation.
Colin Phillips
UMCP
The fine temporal structure of syntactic computation
Studies of syntactic processing using electrophysiological (ERP, MEG) techniques provide detailed information about the timing of brain activity related to syntactic computation. These studies have shown that a great deal of syntactic analysis is carried out within about a half a second after each incoming word appears, with some syntactic processes initiating after only 100-200ms. Such findings beg the question of how rapid syntactic analysis is possible. This question will be investigated in this talk, drawing on electrophysiological studies of morphosyntax, ellipsis, and long-distance dependencies in English and Hindi.
Alec Marantz
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Using Evoked Magnetoencephalographic Responses for the Cognitive Neuroscience of Language
The talk will introduce MEG as a tool for cognitive neuroscience, with some recent examples of how MEG provides additional "reaction times" in experiments, over and above behavioral measures. In fact, stimulus manipulations may speed up brain responses at the same time as they slow down behavioral reaction times, as expected by cognitive models that postulate stages in, e.g., linguistic computation. I will demonstrate the feasibility of using single trials, rather than averages by conditions or by subjects, in statistical analysis of MEG data, allowing one truly to treat MEG brain responses on par with behavioral reaction times.
Liina Pylkkänen
New York University
From word form to sentence meaning: MEG studies of semantic interpretation
In this talk I'll discuss the roles of the fusiform gyri bilaterally in the prelexical detection of morphemes, the roles of the temporal lobes bilaterally in lexical access and lexical disambiguation and, finally, studies investigating the effect of semantic type-mismatch at the sentence level.
