Rogalsky Corianne, Hickok Gregory
Center for Cognitive Neuroscience & Department of Cognitive Sciences, University of California, Irvine, 92697, USA.
Cereb Cortex. 2009 Apr;19(4):786-96. doi: 10.1093/cercor/bhn126. Epub 2008 Jul 31.
Numerous studies have identified an anterior temporal lobe (ATL) region that responds preferentially to sentence-level stimuli. It is unclear, however, whether this activity reflects a response to syntactic computations or some form of semantic integration. This distinction is difficult to investigate with the stimulus manipulations and anomaly detection paradigms traditionally implemented. The present functional magnetic resonance imaging study addresses this question via a selective attention paradigm. Subjects monitored for occasional semantic anomalies or occasional syntactic errors, thus directing their attention to semantic integration, or syntactic properties of the sentences. The hemodynamic response in the sentence-selective ATL region (defined with a localizer scan) was examined during anomaly/error-free sentences only, to avoid confounds due to error detection. The majority of the sentence-specific region of interest was equally modulated by attention to syntactic or compositional semantic features, whereas a smaller subregion was only modulated by the semantic task. We suggest that the sentence-specific ATL region is sensitive to both syntactic and integrative semantic functions during sentence processing, with a smaller portion of this area preferentially involved in the later. This study also suggests that selective attention paradigms may be effective tools to investigate the functional diversity of networks involved in sentence processing.
众多研究已确定了一个颞叶前部（ATL）区域，该区域对句子层面的刺激有优先反应。然而，尚不清楚这种活动是反映了对句法计算的反应还是某种形式的语义整合。用传统实施的刺激操纵和异常检测范式很难研究这种区别。本功能磁共振成像研究通过选择性注意范式解决了这个问题。受试者监测偶尔出现的语义异常或偶尔出现的句法错误，从而将注意力导向语义整合或句子的句法属性。仅在无异常/错误的句子期间检查句子选择性ATL区域（通过定位扫描定义）的血液动力学反应，以避免因错误检测而产生混淆。大部分句子特定的感兴趣区域受到对句法或组合语义特征的关注的同等调节，而较小的子区域仅受到语义任务的调节。我们认为，句子特定的ATL区域在句子处理过程中对句法和整合语义功能均敏感，其中该区域的较小部分优先参与后者。这项研究还表明，选择性注意范式可能是研究句子处理中涉及的网络功能多样性的有效工具。
