Neural correlates of noncanonical syntactic processing revealed by a picture-sentence matching task.

@article{citeulike:2698818, abstract = {It remains controversial whether the left inferior frontal gyrus subserves syntactic processing or short-term memory demands. Here we devised a novel picture-sentence matching task involving Japanese sentences with different structures to clearly contrast syntactic reanalysis processes. Using event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), activations under three main conditions were directly compared: a canonical/subject-initial active sentence (AS), a noncanonical/subject-initial passive sentence (PS), and a noncanonical/object-initial scrambled sentence (SS). We found that activation in the dorsal region of the left inferior frontal gyrus (dF3t) was enhanced more by the noncanonical processing under the PS and SS conditions than by the canonical processing under the AS condition, and this enhancement was independent of domain-general factors, such as general memory demands and task difficulty. Moreover, the left posterior superior/middle temporal gyrus (pSTG/MTG) showed more enhanced responses to object-initial sentences under the SS condition than to subject-initial sentences under the AS and PS conditions, which were not significantly affected by task difficulty. Furthermore, activation in the left lateral premotor cortex (LPMC) increased under the AS, PS, and SS conditions, in that order. It is possible that task difficulty affects the left LPMC, but the three distinct activations patterns suggest that these frontal and temporal regions work in concert to process syntactic structures, with their respective contributions dynamically regulated by linguistic requirements. Hum Brain Mapp 2007. (c) 2007 Wiley-Liss, Inc.}, address = {Department of Basic Science, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, The University of Tokyo, Komaba, Tokyo, Japan.}, author = {Kinno, Ryuta and Kawamura, Mitsuru and Shioda, Seiji and Sakai, Kuniyoshi L L. }, citeulike-article-id = {2698818}, doi = {10.1002/hbm.20441}, issn = {1065-9471}, journal = {Hum Brain Mapp}, keywords = {jc-hbm}, month = {October}, posted-at = {2008-04-22 03:23:11}, priority = {2}, title = {Neural correlates of noncanonical syntactic processing revealed by a picture-sentence matching task.}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/hbm.20441}, year = {2007} }

TY - JOUR ID - citeulike:2698818 L3 - citeulike-article-id:2698818 TI - Neural correlates of noncanonical syntactic processing revealed by a picture-sentence matching task. JF - Hum Brain Mapp AD - Department of Basic Science, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, The University of Tokyo, Komaba, Tokyo, Japan. SN - 1065-9471 N2 - It remains controversial whether the left inferior frontal gyrus subserves syntactic processing or short-term memory demands. Here we devised a novel picture-sentence matching task involving Japanese sentences with different structures to clearly contrast syntactic reanalysis processes. Using event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), activations under three main conditions were directly compared: a canonical/subject-initial active sentence (AS), a noncanonical/subject-initial passive sentence (PS), and a noncanonical/object-initial scrambled sentence (SS). We found that activation in the dorsal region of the left inferior frontal gyrus (dF3t) was enhanced more by the noncanonical processing under the PS and SS conditions than by the canonical processing under the AS condition, and this enhancement was independent of domain-general factors, such as general memory demands and task difficulty. Moreover, the left posterior superior/middle temporal gyrus (pSTG/MTG) showed more enhanced responses to object-initial sentences under the SS condition than to subject-initial sentences under the AS and PS conditions, which were not significantly affected by task difficulty. Furthermore, activation in the left lateral premotor cortex (LPMC) increased under the AS, PS, and SS conditions, in that order. It is possible that task difficulty affects the left LPMC, but the three distinct activations patterns suggest that these frontal and temporal regions work in concert to process syntactic structures, with their respective contributions dynamically regulated by linguistic requirements. Hum Brain Mapp 2007. (c) 2007 Wiley-Liss, Inc. KW - jc-hbm AU - Kinno, Ryuta AU - Kawamura, Mitsuru AU - Shioda, Seiji AU - Sakai, Kuniyoshi L PY - 2007/10/09/ UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/hbm.20441 ER -