Journal
CEREBRAL CORTEX
Volume 22, Issue 8, Pages 1761-1773Publisher
OXFORD UNIV PRESS INC
DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhr252
Keywords
fMRI; frontal lobes; lexical ambiguity; semantic selection; speech
Categories
Funding
- UK Medical Research Council
- Peterhouse, Cambridge
- Leverhulme Trust
- Canadian Institutes of Health Research
- Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada
- Canada Research Chairs Program
- Wellcome Trust
- UK Medical Research Council [MC_US_A060_0038]
- MRC [MC_U105580446] Funding Source: UKRI
- Medical Research Council [MC_U105580446] Funding Source: researchfish
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Comprehension of sentences containing semantically ambiguous words requires listeners to select appropriate interpretations, maintain linguistic material in working memory, and to reinterpret sentences that have been misinterpreted. All these functions appear to involve frontal cortical regions. Here, we attempt to differentiate these functions by varying the relative timing of an ambiguous word and disambiguating information in spoken sentences. We compare the location, magnitude, and timing of evoked activity using a fast-acquisition semisparse functional magnetic resonance imaging sequence. The left inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG) shows a strong response to sentences that are initially ambiguous (disambiguated by information that occurs either soon after the ambiguity or that is delayed until the end of the sentence). Response profiles indicate that activity, in both anterior and posterior LIFG regions, is triggered both by the ambiguous word and by the subsequent disambiguating information. The LIFG also responds to ambiguities that are preceded by disambiguating context. These results suggest that the LIFG subserves multiple cognitive processes including selecting an appropriate meaning and reinterpreting sentences that have been misparsed. In contrast, the left inferior temporal gyrus responds to the disambiguating information but not to the ambiguous word itself and may be involved in reprocessing sentences that were initially misinterpreted.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available