Thompson-Schill S L, D'Esposito M, Aguirre G K, Farah M J
Department of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1997 Dec 23;94(26):14792-7. doi: 10.1073/pnas.94.26.14792.
A number of neuroimaging findings have been interpreted as evidence that the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) subserves retrieval of semantic knowledge. We provide a fundamentally different interpretation, that it is not retrieval of semantic knowledge per se that is associated with left IFG activity but rather selection of information among competing alternatives from semantic memory. Selection demands were varied across three semantic tasks in a single group of subjects. Functional magnetic resonance imaging signal in overlapping regions of left IFG was dependent on selection demands in all three tasks. In addition, the degree of semantic processing was varied independently of selection demands in one of the tasks. The absence of left IFG activity for this comparison counters the argument that the effects of selection can be attributed solely to variations in degree of semantic retrieval. Our findings suggest that it is selection, not retrieval, of semantic knowledge that drives activity in the left IFG.
许多神经影像学研究结果被解释为左额下回(IFG)负责语义知识检索的证据。我们给出了一种截然不同的解释,即与左IFG活动相关的并非语义知识本身的检索,而是从语义记忆中的竞争选项里进行信息选择。在一组受试者的三个语义任务中,选择要求各不相同。左IFG重叠区域的功能磁共振成像信号在所有三个任务中均取决于选择要求。此外,在其中一个任务中,语义处理程度与选择要求无关。该对比中左IFG无活动这一情况反驳了那种认为选择效应可完全归因于语义检索程度变化的观点。我们的研究结果表明,驱动左IFG活动的是语义知识的选择,而非检索。