Xu Xiaodong, Yu Hongbo, Gao Xiaoxue, Shen Bo, Feng Wangshu, Zhou Xiaolin
School of Foreign Languages and Cultures, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing 210097, China.
Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA 93106-9660, USA.
Brain Lang. 2022 Nov;234:105177. doi: 10.1016/j.bandl.2022.105177. Epub 2022 Sep 6.
Concessive relations, often indicated by conjunction words such as although, are semantically and pragmatically more complex than causal relations (expressed using because), as they involve more semantic features such as implicated meaning and negation. However, it remains unclear how linguistic-level complexity is manifested through different brain activities and functional connectivities. This fMRI study investigated how the neural underpinnings of concessive relations differ from those of causal relations. Pragmatically congruent and incongruent words were embedded in causal as well as concessive sentences. The whole-brain analysis revealed that relative to because-congruent sentences, although-congruent sentences evoked increased activations in a left network including IFG, bilateral MFG, mPFC, pMTG, and TPJ. DCM analysis showed that while the functional connectivity from IFG to MFG was commonly involved in processing concessive and causal relations, functional connectivities from pMTG to IFG and from pMTG to TPJ were involved in processing causal and concessive relations, respectively.
让步关系通常由诸如although等连词表示，在语义和语用上比因果关系（用because表示）更复杂，因为它们涉及更多的语义特征，如隐含意义和否定。然而，语言层面的复杂性如何通过不同的大脑活动和功能连接表现出来仍不清楚。这项功能磁共振成像研究调查了让步关系的神经基础与因果关系的神经基础有何不同。在因果句和让步句中嵌入了语用一致和不一致的词语。全脑分析显示，相对于because一致的句子，although一致的句子在包括额下回（IFG）、双侧额中回（MFG）、内侧前额叶皮质（mPFC）、颞中回后部（pMTG）和顶下小叶（TPJ）的左侧网络中引起了增强的激活。动态因果模型（DCM）分析表明，虽然从额下回到额中回的功能连接通常参与处理让步和因果关系，但从颞中回后部到额下回的功能连接和从颞中回后部到顶下小叶的功能连接分别参与处理因果和让步关系。
