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Neural Mechanisms Underlying the Dynamic Updating of Native Language
Language users encounter different sentence structures from different people in different contexts. Although syntactic variability and adults’ ability to adapt to it are both widely acknowledged, the relevant mechanisms and neural substrates are unknown. We hypothesized that syntactic updating might...
Autores principales: | , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
MIT Press
2020
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10158591/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37215586 http://dx.doi.org/10.1162/nol_a_00023 |
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author | Sharer, Kelly Thothathiri, Malathi |
author_facet | Sharer, Kelly Thothathiri, Malathi |
author_sort | Sharer, Kelly |
collection | PubMed |
description | Language users encounter different sentence structures from different people in different contexts. Although syntactic variability and adults’ ability to adapt to it are both widely acknowledged, the relevant mechanisms and neural substrates are unknown. We hypothesized that syntactic updating might rely on cognitive control, which can help detect and resolve mismatch between prior linguistic expectations and new language experiences that countervail those expectations and thereby assist in accurately encoding new input. Using functional neuroimaging (fMRI), we investigated updating in garden-path sentence comprehension to test the prediction that regions within the left inferior frontal cortex might be relevant neural substrates, and additionally, explored the role of regions within the multiple demand network. Participants read ambiguous and unambiguous main-verb and relative-clause sentences. Ambiguous relative-clause sentences led to a garden-path effect in the left pars opercularis within the lateral frontal cortex and the left anterior insula/frontal operculum within the multiple demand network. This effect decreased upon repeated exposure to relative-clause sentences, consistent with updating. The two regions showed several contrastive patterns, including different activation relative to baseline, correlation with performance in a cognitive control task (the Stroop task), and verb-specificity versus generality in adaptation. Together, these results offer new insight into how the brain updates native language. They demonstrate the involvement of left frontal brain regions in helping the language system adjust to new experiences, with different areas playing distinct functional roles. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-10158591 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2020 |
publisher | MIT Press |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-101585912023-05-19 Neural Mechanisms Underlying the Dynamic Updating of Native Language Sharer, Kelly Thothathiri, Malathi Neurobiol Lang (Camb) Research Articles Language users encounter different sentence structures from different people in different contexts. Although syntactic variability and adults’ ability to adapt to it are both widely acknowledged, the relevant mechanisms and neural substrates are unknown. We hypothesized that syntactic updating might rely on cognitive control, which can help detect and resolve mismatch between prior linguistic expectations and new language experiences that countervail those expectations and thereby assist in accurately encoding new input. Using functional neuroimaging (fMRI), we investigated updating in garden-path sentence comprehension to test the prediction that regions within the left inferior frontal cortex might be relevant neural substrates, and additionally, explored the role of regions within the multiple demand network. Participants read ambiguous and unambiguous main-verb and relative-clause sentences. Ambiguous relative-clause sentences led to a garden-path effect in the left pars opercularis within the lateral frontal cortex and the left anterior insula/frontal operculum within the multiple demand network. This effect decreased upon repeated exposure to relative-clause sentences, consistent with updating. The two regions showed several contrastive patterns, including different activation relative to baseline, correlation with performance in a cognitive control task (the Stroop task), and verb-specificity versus generality in adaptation. Together, these results offer new insight into how the brain updates native language. They demonstrate the involvement of left frontal brain regions in helping the language system adjust to new experiences, with different areas playing distinct functional roles. MIT Press 2020-11-01 /pmc/articles/PMC10158591/ /pubmed/37215586 http://dx.doi.org/10.1162/nol_a_00023 Text en © 2020 Massachusetts Institute of Technology https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. For a full description of the license, please visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . |
spellingShingle | Research Articles Sharer, Kelly Thothathiri, Malathi Neural Mechanisms Underlying the Dynamic Updating of Native Language |
title | Neural Mechanisms Underlying the Dynamic Updating of Native Language |
title_full | Neural Mechanisms Underlying the Dynamic Updating of Native Language |
title_fullStr | Neural Mechanisms Underlying the Dynamic Updating of Native Language |
title_full_unstemmed | Neural Mechanisms Underlying the Dynamic Updating of Native Language |
title_short | Neural Mechanisms Underlying the Dynamic Updating of Native Language |
title_sort | neural mechanisms underlying the dynamic updating of native language |
topic | Research Articles |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10158591/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37215586 http://dx.doi.org/10.1162/nol_a_00023 |
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