Idiosyncratic Tower of Babel: Individual Differences in Word-Meaning Representation Increase as Word Abstractness Increases

2021 ◽  
pp. 095679762110038
Author(s):  
Xiaosha Wang ◽  
Yanchao Bi
Keyword(s):  
Brain Activity ◽  
Activity Patterns ◽  
Word Meaning ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
Behavioral Measures ◽  
Relationship Patterns ◽  
Word Meanings ◽  
Tower Of Babel ◽  
Individual Variations ◽  
Meaning Representation

Humans primarily rely on language to communicate, on the basis of a shared understanding of the basic building blocks of communication: words. Do we mean the same things when we use the same words? Although cognitive neural research on semantics has revealed the common principles of word-meaning representation, the factors underlying the potential individual variations in word meanings are unknown. Here, we empirically characterized the intersubject consistency of 90 words across 20 adult subjects (10 female) using both behavioral measures (rating-based semantic-relationship patterns) and neuroimaging measures (word-evoked brain activity patterns). Across both the behavioral and neuroimaging experiments, we showed that the magnitude of individual disagreements on word meanings could be modeled on the basis of how much language or sensory experience is associated with a word and that this variation increases with word abstractness. Uncovering the cognitive and neural origins of word-meaning disagreements across individuals has implications for potential mechanisms to modulate such disagreements.

scholarly journals Idiosyncratic Tower of Babel: Individual differences in word meaning representation increase along abstractness

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaosha Wang ◽  
Yanchao Bi
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
John Locke ◽  
Word Meaning ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
Bertrand Russell ◽  
Shared Understanding ◽  
Variation Pattern ◽  
Tower Of Babel ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Meaning Representation

AbstractHumans primarily rely on language to communicate, based on a shared understanding of the basic building blocks of communication: words. However, words also have idiosyncratic aspects of meaning. Do we mean the same things when we use the same words? Classical philosophers disagreed on this point, speculating that words have more similar meanings across individuals if they are either more experiential (John Locke) or more abstract (Bertrand Russell). Here, we empirically characterize the individual variation pattern of 90 words using both behavioral and neuroimaging measures. We show that the magnitude of individual meaning disagreement is a function of how much language or sensory experience a word associates with, and this variation increases with abstractness of a word. Uncovering the cognitive and neural origins of word meaning disagreements across individuals has implications for potential mechanisms to modulate such disagreements.

scholarly journals Harmonic Brain Modes: A Unifying Framework for Linking Space and Time in Brain Dynamics

2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 277-293 ◽  
Author(s):  
Selen Atasoy ◽  
Gustavo Deco ◽  
Morten L. Kringelbach ◽  
Joel Pearson
Keyword(s):  
Neural Activity ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Activity Patterns ◽  
Structural Connectivity ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Brain Dynamics ◽  
Space And Time ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Brain

A fundamental characteristic of spontaneous brain activity is coherent oscillations covering a wide range of frequencies. Interestingly, these temporal oscillations are highly correlated among spatially distributed cortical areas forming structured correlation patterns known as the resting state networks, although the brain is never truly at “rest.” Here, we introduce the concept of harmonic brain modes—fundamental building blocks of complex spatiotemporal patterns of neural activity. We define these elementary harmonic brain modes as harmonic modes of structural connectivity; that is, connectome harmonics, yielding fully synchronous neural activity patterns with different frequency oscillations emerging on and constrained by the particular structure of the brain. Hence, this particular definition implicitly links the hitherto poorly understood dimensions of space and time in brain dynamics and its underlying anatomy. Further we show how harmonic brain modes can explain the relationship between neurophysiological, temporal, and network-level changes in the brain across different mental states ( wakefulness, sleep, anesthesia, psychedelic). Notably, when decoded as activation of connectome harmonics, spatial and temporal characteristics of neural activity naturally emerge from the interplay between excitation and inhibition and this critical relation fits the spatial, temporal, and neurophysiological changes associated with different mental states. Thus, the introduced framework of harmonic brain modes not only establishes a relation between the spatial structure of correlation patterns and temporal oscillations (linking space and time in brain dynamics), but also enables a new dimension of tools for understanding fundamental principles underlying brain dynamics in different states of consciousness.

scholarly journals Computational mechanisms for neural representation of words

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ze Fu ◽  
Xiaosha Wang ◽  
Xiaoying Wang ◽  
Huichao Yang ◽  
Jiahuan Wang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Neural Network ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Inferior Frontal Gyrus ◽  
Activity Patterns ◽  
Explanatory Power ◽  
Word Meaning ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Neural Representation ◽  
Space Representation ◽  
Neural Representations

A critical way for humans to acquire, represent and communicate information is through language, yet the underlying computation mechanisms through which language contributes to our word meaning representations are poorly understood. We compared three major types of word computation mechanisms from large language corpus (simple co-occurrence, graph-space relations and neural-network-vector-embedding relations) in terms of the association of words’ brain activity patterns, measured by two functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiments. Word relations derived from a graph-space representation, and not neural-network-vector-embedding, had unique explanatory power for the neural activity patterns in brain regions that have been shown to be particularly sensitive to language processes, including the anterior temporal lobe (capturing graph-common-neighbors), inferior frontal gyrus, and posterior middle/inferior temporal gyrus (capturing graph-shortest-path). These results were robust across different window sizes and graph sizes and were relatively specific to language inputs. These findings highlight the role of cumulative language inputs in organizing word meaning neural representations and provide a mathematical model to explain how different brain regions capture different types of language-derived information.

Semantic representation

2007 ◽  
pp. 194-216 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabriella Vigliocco ◽  
David P. Vinson
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Representation ◽  
Word Meaning ◽  
Extensive Literature ◽  
Word Meanings ◽  
Conceptual Structures ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
Different Content ◽  
Meaning Representation

This article explores how word meaning is represented by speakers of a language, reviewing psychological perspectives on the representation of meaning. It starts by outlining four key issues in the investigation of word meaning, then introduces current theories of semantics. Meaning representation has long interested philosophers (since Aristotle) and linguists, in addition to psychologists, and a very extensive literature exists in these allied fields. When considering semantic representation, four fundamental questions to ask are: How are word meanings related to conceptual structures? How is the meaning of each word represented? How are the meanings of different words related to one another? Can the same principles of organisation hold in different content domains? The article also discusses holistic theories of semantic representation, along with featural theories.

Brain Signatures of Meaning Access in Action Word Recognition

2005 ◽  
Vol 17 (6) ◽  
pp. 884-892 ◽  
Author(s):  
Friedemann Pulvermüller ◽  
Yury Shtyrov ◽  
Risto Ilmoniemi
Keyword(s):  
Word Recognition ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Activity Patterns ◽  
Word Meaning ◽  
The Body ◽  
Local Source ◽  
Automatic Process ◽  
Close Relationship ◽  
Distraction Task ◽  
Motor Actions

The brain basis of action words may be neuron ensembles binding language-and action-related information that are dispersed over both language-and action-related cortical areas. This predicts fast spreading of neuronal activity from language areas to specific sensorimotor areas when action words semantically related to different parts of the body are being perceived. To test this, fast neurophysiological imaging was applied to reveal spatiotemporal activity patterns elicited by words with different action-related meaning. Spoken words referring to actions involving the face or leg were presented while subjects engaged in a distraction task and their brain activity was recorded using high-density magnetoencephalography. Shortly after the words could be recognized as unique lexical items, objective source localization using minimum norm current estimates revealed activation in superior temporal (130 msec) and inferior frontocentral areas (142-146 msec). Face-word stimuli activated inferior frontocentral areas more strongly than leg words, whereas the reverse was found at superior central sites (170 msec), thus reflecting the cortical somatotopy of motor actions signified by the words. Significant correlations were found between local source strengths in the frontocentral cortex calculated for all participants and their semantic ratings of the stimulus words, thus further establishing a close relationship between word meaning access and neurophysiology. These results show that meaning access in action word recognition is an early automatic process reflected by spatiotemporal signatures of word-evoked activity. Word-related distributed neuronal assemblies with specific cortical topographies can explain the observed spatiotemporal dynamics reflecting word meaning access.

scholarly journals Harmonic brain modes: a unifying framework for linking space and time in brain dynamics

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Selen Atasoy ◽  
Gustavo Deco ◽  
Morten L. Kringelbach ◽  
Joel Pearson
Keyword(s):  
Neural Activity ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Activity Patterns ◽  
Structural Connectivity ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Brain Dynamics ◽  
Space And Time ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Brain

AbstractA fundamental characteristic of spontaneous brain activity is coherent oscillations covering a wide range of frequencies. Interestingly, these temporal oscillations are highly correlated among spatially distributed cortical areas forming structured correlation patterns known as the resting state networks, although the brain is never truly at ‘rest’. Here, we introduce the concept of “harmonic brain modes” – fundamental building blocks of complex spatiotemporal patterns of neural activity. We define these elementary harmonic brain modes as harmonic modes of structural connectivity; i.e. connectome harmonics, yielding fully synchronous neural activity patterns with different frequency oscillations emerging on and constrained by the particular structure of the brain. Hence, this particular definition implicitly links the hitherto poorly understood dimensions of space and time in brain dynamics and its underlying anatomy. Further we show how harmonic brain modes can explain the relationship between neurophysiological, temporal and network-level changes in the brain across different mental states; (wakefulness, sleep, anaesthesia, psychedelic). Notably, when decoded as activation of connectome harmonics, spatial and temporal characteristics of neural activity naturally emerge from the interplay between excitation and inhibition and this critical relation fits the spatial, temporal and neurophysiological changes associated with different mental states. Thus, the introduced framework of harmonic brain modes not only establishes a relation between the spatial structure of correlation patterns and temporal oscillations (linking space and time in brain dynamics), but also enables a new dimension of tools for understanding fundamental principles underlying brain dynamics in different states of consciousness.

scholarly journals Decoding Brain Activity Associated with Literal and Metaphoric Sentence Comprehension Using Distributional Semantic Models

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 231-246
Author(s):  
Vesna G. Djokic ◽  
Jean Maillard ◽  
Luana Bulat ◽  
Ekaterina Shutova
Keyword(s):  
Language Processing ◽  
Sentence Comprehension ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Activity Patterns ◽  
Word Embeddings ◽  
Semantic Models ◽  
Distributional Semantic Models ◽  
Metaphor Processing ◽  
Meaning Representation ◽  
The Brain

Recent years have seen a growing interest within the natural language processing (NLP) community in evaluating the ability of semantic models to capture human meaning representation in the brain. Existing research has mainly focused on applying semantic models to decode brain activity patterns associated with the meaning of individual words, and, more recently, this approach has been extended to sentences and larger text fragments. Our work is the first to investigate metaphor processing in the brain in this context. We evaluate a range of semantic models (word embeddings, compositional, and visual models) in their ability to decode brain activity associated with reading of both literal and metaphoric sentences. Our results suggest that compositional models and word embeddings are able to capture differences in the processing of literal and metaphoric sentences, providing support for the idea that the literal meaning is not fully accessible during familiar metaphor comprehension.

Causal Priorities between Comprehension Subskills: Word Meaning and Paragraph Meaning

1976 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 351-362 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marshall Arlin
Keyword(s):  
Correlation Analysis ◽  
Word Meaning ◽  
Empirical Support ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
Conventional Wisdom ◽  
Relative Performance ◽  
Word Meanings ◽  
Causal Priority ◽  
Lagged Correlation

Causal priorities between word meaning ability and paragraph meaning ability were examined in three types of readers across a period of nine months. Subjects were 180 pupils in grades 7 and 8. They were categorized by relative performance in word and paragraph meaning into three groups (n = 60 each) defined as “balanced”, “word dominant” and “paragraph dominant”. Cross-lagged correlation analysis supported the causal priority of word meaning in balanced and word dominant readers and a different pattern in the paragraph dominant readers. For most readers, the conventional wisdom hypothesis of word meanings as building blocks of paragraph meaning received empirical support.

scholarly journals Cross-decoding reveals shared brain activity patterns between saccadic eye-movements and semantic processing of implicitly spatial words

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Markus Ostarek ◽  
Jeroen van Paridon ◽  
Falk Huettig
Keyword(s):  
Eye Movements ◽  
Semantic Processing ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Activity Patterns ◽  
Saccadic Eye Movements ◽  
Frontal Eye Field ◽  
Neural Basis ◽  
Word Meanings ◽  
Eye Field ◽  
High Level

AbstractProcessing words with referents that are typically observed up or down in space (up/down words) influences the subsequent identification of visual targets in congruent locations. Eye-tracking studies have shown that up/down word comprehension shortens launch times of subsequent saccades to congruent locations and modulates concurrent saccade trajectories. This can be explained by a task-dependent interaction of semantic processing and oculomotor programs or by a direct recruitment of direction-specific processes in oculomotor and spatial systems as part of semantic processing. To test the latter possibility, we conducted a functional magnetic resonance imaging experiment and used multi-voxel pattern analysis to assess 1) whether the typical location of word referents can be decoded from the fronto-parietal spatial network and 2) whether activity patterns are shared between up/down words and up/down saccadic eye movements. In line with these hypotheses, significant decoding of up vs. down words and cross-decoding between up/down saccades and up/down words were observed in the frontal eye field region in the superior frontal sulcus and the inferior parietal lobule. Beyond these spatial attention areas, typical location of word referents could be decoded from a set of occipital, temporal, and frontal areas, indicating that interactions between high-level regions typically implicated with lexical-semantic processing and spatial/oculomotor regions constitute the neural basis for access to spatial aspects of word meanings.

scholarly journals How the healthy ageing brain supports semantic binding during language comprehension

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roksana Markiewicz ◽  
Katrien Segaert ◽  
Ali Mazaheri
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Young Adults ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Word Meaning ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
Opposite Pattern ◽  
Healthy Older Adults ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Oscillatory Brain Activity ◽  
High Beta

AbstractSemantic binding refers to constructing complex meaning based on elementary building blocks. Using EEG, we investigated the age-related changes in modulations of oscillatory brain activity supporting semantic binding. Young and older adult participants were visually presented two-word phrases in a semantic binding (e.g. swift horse) vs. no semantic binding context (e.g. swrfeq horse). We found that the oscillatory brain activity associated with semantic binding significantly differed between healthy older and young adults. Specifically, in young adults we found a semantic binding signature in the low-beta range centred around the onset of the target word (i.e. a smaller low-beta increase for binding relative to no binding), while in healthy older adults we found an opposite pattern about ~500ms later in the low- and high-beta range (i.e. a smaller low- and high-beta decrease for binding relative to no binding). We interpret the different and delayed oscillatory signature for semantic binding in healthy older adults to reflect that they are relying on different mechanisms to integrate word meaning into their semantic context.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document