Word processing in the brain as revealed by neurophysiological imaging

2007 ◽  
pp. 118-140 ◽  
Author(s):  
Friedemann Pulvermüller
Keyword(s):  
Language Processing ◽  
Word Processing ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Research Perspectives ◽  
Psycholinguistic Variables ◽  
Brain Correlates ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
New Research ◽  
The Brain ◽  
The Universe

The advent of neuroimaging opened new research perspectives for the psycholinguist as it became possible to look at the neuronal mass activity that underlies language processing. Studies of brain correlates of psycholinguistic processes can complement behavioural results, and in some cases can lead to direct information about the basis of psycholinguistic processes. Even more importantly, the neuroscience move in psycholinguistics made it possible to advance language theorising to the level of the brain. This article discusses neurophysiological imaging with electroencephalography and magnetoencephalography. It examines behavioural and neurophysiological evidence in psycholinguistic research, focusing on lexical class membership and word frequency. The article also considers event-related potentials indicating language processing, early and late language potentials and their implications for psycholinguistics, the universe of psycholinguistic variables and its neurophysiological reality, and laterality of neurophysiological activity interpreted as the critical brain feature of language.

Words in the brain's language

1999 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 253-279 ◽  
Author(s):  
Friedemann Pulvermüller
Keyword(s):  
Neuronal Activity ◽  
High Frequency ◽  
Word Processing ◽  
Temporal Dynamics ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Function Words ◽  
Cell Assemblies ◽  
Frequency Responses ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
The Brain

If the cortex is an associative memory, strongly connected cell assemblies will form when neurons in different cortical areas are frequently active at the same time. The cortical distributions of these assemblies must be a consequence of where in the cortex correlated neuronal activity occurred during learning. An assembly can be considered a functional unit exhibiting activity states such as full activation (“ignition”) after appropriate sensory stimulation (possibly related to perception) and continuous reverberation of excitation within the assembly (a putative memory process). This has implications for cortical topographies and activity dynamics of cell assemblies forming during language acquisition, in particular for those representing words. Cortical topographies of assemblies should be related to aspects of the meaning of the words they represent, and physiological signs of cell assembly ignition should be followed by possible indicators of reverberation. The following postulates are discussed in detail: (1) assemblies representing phonological word forms are strongly lateralized and distributed over perisylvian cortices; (2) assemblies representing highly abstract words such as grammatical function words are also strongly lateralized and restricted to these perisylvian regions; (3) assemblies representing concrete content words include additional neurons in both hemispheres; (4) assemblies representing words referring to visual stimuli include neurons in visual cortices; and (5) assemblies representing words referring to actions include neurons in motor cortices. Two main sources of evidence are used to evaluate these proposals: (a) imaging studies focusing on localizing word processing in the brain, based on stimulus-triggered event-related potentials (ERPs), positron emission tomography (PET), and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), and (b) studies of the temporal dynamics of fast activity changes in the brain, as revealed by high-frequency responses recorded in the electroencephalogram (EEG) and magnetoencephalogram (MEG). These data provide evidence for processing differences between words and matched meaningless pseudowords, and between word classes, such as concrete content and abstract function words, and words evoking visual or motor associations. There is evidence for early word class-specific spreading of neuronal activity and for equally specific high-frequency responses occurring later. These results support a neurobiological model of language in the Hebbian tradition. Competing large-scale neuronal theories of language are discussed in light of the data summarized. Neurobiological perspectives on the problem of serial order of words in syntactic strings are considered in closing.

Neurocognitive approaches to bilingualism: Asian languages

2007 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 117-119 ◽  
Author(s):  
PING LI ◽  
DAVID W. GREEN
Keyword(s):  
Language Processing ◽  
Cognitive Neuroscience ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Functional Magnetic Resonance ◽  
Positron Emission ◽  
Critical Issues ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
Asian Languages ◽  
Multiple Languages ◽  
The Brain

In the last decade there has been a surge of interest in the use of neuroimaging tools such as event-related potentials (ERP) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine critical issues in the representation and processing of multiple languages in the brain. In 2001, David Green edited a special issue for Bilingualism: Language and Cognition on the cognitive neuroscience of bilingualism that involved studies of bilingual populations in English, German, Italian, and Japanese. According to a review by Vaid and Hull (2002), by 2001, there were at least 25 fMRI studies and 13 PET (positron emission tomography) studies of bilingual language processing in healthy individuals. This number has grown more rapidly since 2001. Many of these neuroscience studies of bilingualism have also appeared in top science journals and attracted widespread attention.

Bringing the brain into personality assessment: Is there a place for event-related potentials?

2019 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 488-501 ◽  
Author(s):  
Takakuni Suzuki ◽  
Kaylin E. Hill ◽  
Belel Ait Oumeziane ◽  
Dan Foti ◽  
Douglas B. Samuel
Keyword(s):  
Personality Assessment ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
The Brain

Magnetoencephalography and the Cortical Dynamics of Language Processing

2019 ◽  
pp. 114-153
Author(s):  
Riitta Salmelin ◽  
Jan Kujala ◽  
Mia Liljeström
Keyword(s):  
Language Processing ◽  
Language Disorders ◽  
Scientific Data ◽  
Neural Processing ◽  
Powerful Method ◽  
Cortical Dynamics ◽  
Brain Correlates ◽  
Adults And Children ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Selection Of

When seeking to uncover the brain correlates of language processing, timing and location are of the essence. Magnetoencephalography (MEG) offers them both, with the highest sensitivity to cortical activity. MEG has shown its worth in revealing cortical dynamics of reading, speech perception, and speech production in adults and children, in unimpaired language processing as well as developmental and acquired language disorders. The MEG signals, once recorded, provide an extensive selection of measures for examination of neural processing. Like all other neuroimaging tools, MEG has its own strengths and limitations of which the user should be aware in order to make the best possible use of this powerful method and to generate meaningful and reliable scientific data. This chapter reviews MEG methodology and how MEG has been used to study the cortical dynamics of language.

Event-Related Potentials in Psychiatry: Approaches to Research and Clinical Applications

1983 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 307-318 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. G. Stampfer
Keyword(s):  
Information Processing ◽  
Psychiatric Disorders ◽  
Rapid Development ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Clinical Applications ◽  
Direct Access ◽  
Practical Application ◽  
Clinical Methods ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
The Brain

This article suggests that the potential usefulness of event-related potentials in psychiatry has not been fully explored because of the limitations of various approaches to research adopted to date, and because the field is still undergoing rapid development. Newer approaches to data acquisition and methods of analysis, combined with closer co-operation between medical and physical scientists, will help to establish the practical application of these signals in psychiatric disorders and assist our understanding of psychophysiological information processing in the brain. Finally, it is suggested that psychiatrists should seek to understand these techniques and the data they generate, since they provide more direct access to measures of complex cerebral processes than current clinical methods.

scholarly journals Proficiency Differences in Syntactic Processing of Monolingual Native Speakers Indexed by Event-related Potentials

2010 ◽  
Vol 22 (12) ◽  
pp. 2728-2744 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Pakulak ◽  
Helen J. Neville
Keyword(s):  
Language Proficiency ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
English Language ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Memory Span ◽  
Wide Spectrum ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
Native Speakers Of English ◽  
Proficiency Scores

Although anecdotally there appear to be differences in the way native speakers use and comprehend their native language, most empirical investigations of language processing study university students and none have studied differences in language proficiency, which may be independent of resource limitations such as working memory span. We examined differences in language proficiency in adult monolingual native speakers of English using an ERP paradigm. ERPs were recorded to insertion phrase structure violations in naturally spoken English sentences. Participants recruited from a wide spectrum of society were given standardized measures of English language proficiency, and two complementary ERP analyses were performed. In between-groups analyses, participants were divided on the basis of standardized proficiency scores into lower proficiency and higher proficiency groups. Compared with lower proficiency participants, higher proficiency participants showed an early anterior negativity that was more focal, both spatially and temporally, and a larger and more widely distributed positivity (P600) to violations. In correlational analyses, we used a wide spectrum of proficiency scores to examine the degree to which individual proficiency scores correlated with individual neural responses to syntactic violations in regions and time windows identified in the between-groups analyses. This approach also used partial correlation analyses to control for possible confounding variables. These analyses provided evidence for the effects of proficiency that converged with the between-groups analyses. These results suggest that adult monolingual native speakers of English who vary in language proficiency differ in the recruitment of syntactic processes that are hypothesized to be at least in part automatic as well as of those thought to be more controlled. These results also suggest that to fully characterize neural organization for language in native speakers it is necessary to include participants of varying proficiency.

scholarly journals Monitoring Migraine Cycle Dynamics with an Easy-to-Use Electrophysiological Marker—A Pilot Study

Sensors ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (11) ◽  
pp. 3918 ◽  
Author(s):  
Goded Shahaf ◽  
Pora Kuperman ◽  
Yuval Bloch ◽  
Shahak Yariv ◽  
Yelena Granovsky
Keyword(s):  
Pilot Study ◽  
Stress Level ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Healthy Controls ◽  
Preliminary Results ◽  
Auditory Oddball ◽  
Control Subjects ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
Auditory Oddball Task ◽  
The Brain

Migraine attacks can cause significant discomfort and reduced functioning for days at a time, including the pre-ictal and post-ictal periods. During the inter-ictsal period, however, migraineurs seem to function normally. It is puzzling, therefore, that event-related potentials of migraine patients often differ in the asymptomatic and inter-ictal period. Part of the electrophysiological dynamics demonstrated in the migraine cycle are attention related. In this pilot study we evaluated an easy-to-use new marker, the Brain Engagement Index (BEI), for attention monitoring during the migraine cycle. We sampled 12 migraine patients for 20 days within one calendar month. Each session consisted of subjects’ reports of stress level and migraine-related symptoms, and a 5 min EEG recording, with a 2-electrode EEG device, during an auditory oddball task. The first minute of the EEG sample was analyzed. Repetitive samples were also obtained from 10 healthy controls. The brain engagement index increased significantly during the pre-ictal (p ≈ 0.001) and the ictal (p ≈ 0.020) periods compared with the inter-ictal period. No difference was observed between the pre-ictal and ictal periods. Control subjects demonstrated intermediate Brain Engagement Index values, that is, higher than inter-ictal, yet lower than pre-ictal. Our preliminary results demonstrate the potential advantage of the use of a simple EEG system for improved prediction of migraine attacks. Further study is required to evaluate the efficacy of the Brain Engagement Index in monitoring the migraine cycle and the possible effects of interventions.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document