Wilhelm Wundt Institute for Psychology, Leipzig University, Germany; Lise Meitner Research Group Cognition and Plasticity, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany.
Department of Psychiatry, Ulm University, Germany.
Brain Lang. 2023 Sep;244:105313. doi: 10.1016/j.bandl.2023.105313. Epub 2023 Aug 16.
Conceptual knowledge is central to human cognition. Neuroimaging studies suggest that conceptual processing involves modality-specific and multimodal brain regions in a task-dependent fashion. However, it remains unclear (1) to what extent conceptual feature representations are also modulated by the task, (2) whether conceptual representations in multimodal regions are indeed cross-modal, and (3) how the conceptual system relates to the large-scale functional brain networks. To address these issues, we conducted multivariate pattern analyses on fMRI data. 40 participants performed three tasks-lexical decision, sound judgment, and action judgment-on written words. We found that (1) conceptual feature representations are strongly modulated by the task, (2) conceptual representations in several multimodal regions are cross-modal, and (3) conceptual feature retrieval involves the default, frontoparietal control, and dorsal attention networks. Conceptual representations in these large-scale networks are task-dependent and cross-modal. Our findings support theories that assume conceptual processing to rely on a flexible, multi-level architecture.
概念知识是人类认知的核心。神经影像学研究表明，概念处理涉及特定于模态和多模态的大脑区域，以任务依赖的方式进行。然而，目前尚不清楚（1）概念特征表示在多大程度上也受到任务的调节，（2）多模态区域中的概念表示是否确实是跨模态的，以及（3）概念系统与大规模功能大脑网络的关系如何。为了解决这些问题，我们对 fMRI 数据进行了多元模式分析。40 名参与者完成了三个任务——词汇判断、声音判断和动作判断——对书面单词进行判断。我们发现（1）概念特征表示强烈受到任务的调节，（2）几个多模态区域中的概念表示是跨模态的，以及（3）概念特征检索涉及默认网络、额顶控制网络和背侧注意网络。这些大规模网络中的概念表示是任务相关和跨模态的。我们的发现支持了这样一种理论，即概念处理依赖于灵活的、多层次的架构。
