Journal
HUMAN BRAIN MAPPING
Volume 42, Issue 15, Pages 4973-4984Publisher
WILEY
DOI: 10.1002/hbm.25593
Keywords
abstract concepts; concrete words; decoding; machine learning; MEG; RSA; semantics; word processing
Funding
- Academy of Finland [255349, 286070, 287474, 310988, 315553]
- Sigrid Juseliuksen Saatio
- Academy of Finland (AKA) [255349, 287474, 286070, 287474, 310988, 315553, 286070, 255349, 315553, 310988] Funding Source: Academy of Finland (AKA)
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Understanding how humans represent meaning in the brain involves Hebbian formalism and optimization principles, with statistical modeling being key in explaining neural representations of both concrete and abstract words. Using word embeddings and machine learning algorithms, neural encoding of word meanings can be successfully decoded from MEG signals, showcasing the importance of statistical regularities in language for grounding abstract word processing in the brain.
In order to describe how humans represent meaning in the brain, one must be able to account for not just concrete words but, critically, also abstract words, which lack a physical referent. Hebbian formalism and optimization are basic principles of brain function, and they provide an appealing approach for modeling word meanings based on word co-occurrences. We provide proof of concept that a statistical model of the semantic space can account for neural representations of both concrete and abstract words, using MEG. Here, we built a statistical model using word embeddings extracted from a text corpus. This statistical model was used to train a machine learning algorithm to successfully decode the MEG signals evoked by written words. In the model, word abstractness emerged from the statistical regularities of the language environment. Representational similarity analysis further showed that this salient property of the model co-varies, at 280-420 ms after visual word presentation, with activity in regions that have been previously linked with processing of abstract words, namely the left-hemisphere frontal, anterior temporal and superior parietal cortex. In light of these results, we propose that the neural encoding of word meanings can arise through statistical regularities, that is, through grounding in language itself.
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