ERIC Number: EJ943258
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2011-Dec
Pages: 5
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0093-934X
EISSN: N/A
BOLD Response to Motion Verbs in Left Posterior Middle Temporal Gyrus during Story Comprehension
Wallentin, Mikkel; Nielsen, Andreas Hojlund; Vuust, Peter; Dohn, Anders; Roepstorff, Andreas; Lund, Torben Ellegaard
Brain and Language, v119 n3 p221-225 Dec 2011
A primary focus within neuroimaging research on language comprehension is on the distribution of semantic knowledge in the brain. Studies have shown that the left posterior middle temporal gyrus (LPMT), a region just anterior to area MT/V5, is important for the processing of complex action knowledge. It has also been found that motion verbs cause activation in LPMT. In this experiment we investigated whether this effect could be replicated in a setting resembling real life language comprehension, i.e. without any overt behavioral task during passive listening to a story. During fMRI participants listened to a recording of the story "The Ugly Duckling". We incorporated a nuisance elimination regression approach for factoring out known nuisance variables both in terms of physiological noise, sound intensity, linguistic variables and emotional content. Compared to the remaining text, clauses containing motion verbs were accompanied by a robust activation of LPMT with no other significant effects, consistent with the hypothesis that this brain region is important for processing motion knowledge, even during naturalistic language comprehension conditions. (Contains 1 figure and 1 table.)
Descriptors: Listening Comprehension, Semantics, Verbs, Motion, Brain Hemisphere Functions, Diagnostic Tests, Language Processing, Audio Equipment, Regression (Statistics), Physiology, Acoustics, Phrase Structure, Story Reading
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
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