Department of Rehabilitation Medicine Seoul National University Hospital Jongno-gu, Seoul Korea.
Department of Rehabilitation Medicine Asan Medical Center Songpa-gu Seoul Korea.
Brain Behav. 2017 Sep 12;7(10):e00829. doi: 10.1002/brb3.829. eCollection 2017 Oct.
The Korean language is based on a syntactic system that is different from other languages. This study investigated the processing area of the Korean proverb in comparison with the literal sentence using functional magnetic resonance imaging. In addition, the effect of opacity and transparency of proverbs on the activation pattern, when familiarity is set to the same condition, was also examined.
The experimental stimuli included 36 proverbs and 18 literal sentences. A cohort of 15 healthy participants silently read each sentence for 6 s. A total of 18 opaque proverbs, 18 transparent proverbs, and 18 literal sentences were presented pseudo-randomly in one of three predesigned sequences.
Compared with the literal sentences, a significant activation pattern was observed in the left hemisphere, including the left inferior frontal gyrus, in association with the proverbs. Compared with the transparent proverbs, opaque proverbs elicited more activation in the right supramarginal gyrus and precuneus.
Our study confirmed that the left inferior frontal gyrus mediates the retrieval and/or selection of semantic knowledge in the Korean language. The present findings indicated that the right precuneus and the right supramarginal gyrus may be involved in abstract language processing.
韩语的句法系统与其他语言不同。本研究使用功能磁共振成像比较了韩国谚语和字面句的处理区域。此外，还考察了在熟悉度相同的条件下，谚语的不透明性和透明性对激活模式的影响。
实验刺激包括 36 条谚语和 18 条字面句。一组 15 名健康参与者默读每个句子 6 秒。总共呈现 18 条不透明的谚语、18 条透明的谚语和 18 条字面句，以三种预设序列中的一种随机呈现。
与字面句相比，谚语会引起左半球的显著激活模式，包括左额下回。与透明的谚语相比，不透明的谚语会引起右缘上回和楔前叶的更多激活。
本研究证实左额下回介导了韩语中语义知识的检索和/或选择。本研究结果表明，右楔前叶和右缘上回可能参与了抽象语言处理。
