Getting a grip on sensorimotor effects in lexical–semantic processing

Magnetoencephalographic (MEG) changes in cortical activity were studied in a chronic Finnish-speaking deep dyslexic patient during single-word and sentence reading. It has been hypothesized that in deep dyslexia, written word recognition and its lexical-semantic analysis are subserved by the intact right hemisphere. However, in our patient, as well as in most nonimpaired readers, lexical-semantic processing as measured by sentence-final semantic-incongruency detection was related to the left superior-temporal cortex activation. Activations around this same cortical area could be identified in single-word reading as well. Another factor relevant to deep dyslexic reading, the morphological complexity of the presented words, was also studied. The effect of morphology was observed only during the preparation for oral output. By performing repeated recordings 1 year apart, we were able to document significant variability in both the spontaneous activity and the evoked responses in the lesioned left hemisphere even though at the behavioural level, the patient's performance was stable. The observed variability emphasizes the importance of estimating consistency of brain activity both within and between measurements in brain-damaged individuals.

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The time-course of morphosyntactic and semantic priming in late bilinguals: A study of German adjectives

Bilingualism Language and Cognition ◽

10.1017/s1366728916000055 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 20 (3) ◽

pp. 435-456 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

SINA BOSCH ◽

HELENA KRAUSE ◽

ALINA LEMINEN

Keyword(s):

Semantic Processing ◽

Time Course ◽

Semantic Information ◽

Temporal Dynamics ◽

Native Speaker ◽

Behavioral Experiment ◽

Lexical Semantic ◽

Brain Responses ◽

L2 Learners ◽

Spatially Extended

How do late proficient bilinguals process morphosyntactic and lexical-semantic information in their non-native language (L2)? How is this information represented in the L2 mental lexicon? And what are the neural signatures of L2 morphosyntactic and lexical-semantic processing? We addressed these questions in one behavioral and two ERP priming experiments on inflected German adjectives testing a group of advanced late Russian learners of German in comparison to native speaker (L1) controls. While in the behavioral experiment, the L2 learners performed native-like, the ERP data revealed clear L1/L2 differences with respect to the temporal dynamics of grammatical processing. Specifically, our results show that L2 morphosyntactic processing yielded temporally and spatially extended brain responses relative to L1 processing, indicating that grammatical processing of inflected words in an L2 is more demanding and less automatic than in the L1. However, this group of advanced L2 learners showed native-like lexical-semantic processing.

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Context effects in embodied lexical-semantic processing

Frontiers in Psychology ◽

10.3389/fpsyg.2010.00150 ◽

2010 ◽

Cited By ~ 11

Author(s):

van Dam

Keyword(s):

Semantic Processing ◽

Context Effects ◽

Lexical Semantic

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Neural Responses to Human Voice and Hemisphere Dominance for Lexical-semantic Processing

Methods of Information in Medicine ◽

10.1055/s-0038-1625416 ◽

2007 ◽

Vol 46 (02) ◽

pp. 247-250 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

H. Takahashi ◽

N. Yahata ◽

M. Matsuura ◽

K. Asai ◽

Y. Okubo ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Healthy Subjects ◽

Semantic Processing ◽

Hemispheric Dominance ◽

Cerebral Activation ◽

Voice Perception ◽

Lexical Semantic ◽

Human Voice ◽

Fmri Study ◽

The Right ◽

Parietal Cortices

Summary Objectives : In our previous functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, we determined that there was distinct left hemispheric dominance for lexical- semantic processing without the influence of human voice perception in right-handed healthy subjects. However, the degree of right-handedness in the right-handed subjects ranged from 52 to 100 according to the Edinburgh Handedness Inventory (EHI) score. In the present study, we aimed to clarify the correlation between the degree of right-handedness and language dominance in the fronto-temporo-parietal cortices by examining cerebral activation for lexical-semantic processing. Methods : Twenty-seven normal right-handed healthy subjects were scanned by fMRI while listening to sentences (SEN), reverse sentences (rSEN), and identifiable non-vocal sounds (SND). Fronto-temporo-parietal activation was observed in the left hemisphere under the SEN - rSEN contrast, which included lexical- semantic processing without the influence of human voice perception. Laterality Indexwas calculated as LI = (L - R)/(L + R) X 100, L: left, R: right. Results : Laterality Index in the fronto-temporo-parietal cortices did not correlate with the degree of right-handedness in EHI score. Conclusions : The present study indicated that the degree of right-handedness from 52 to 100 in EHI score had no effect on the degree of left hemispheric dominance for lexical-semantic processing in right-handed healthy subjects.

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Semantic and lexical features of words dissimilarly affected by non-fluent, logopenic, and semantic primary progressive aphasia

Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society ◽

10.1017/s1355617719000948 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 25 (10) ◽

pp. 1011-1022 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Jet M. J. Vonk ◽

Roel Jonkers ◽

H. Isabel Hubbard ◽

Maria Luisa Gorno-Tempini ◽

Adam M. Brickman ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Semantic Processing ◽

Mental Lexicon ◽

Primary Progressive Aphasia ◽

Word Form ◽

Lexical Frequency ◽

Progressive Aphasia ◽

Primary Progressive ◽

Lexical Semantic ◽

Psycholinguistic Variables

AbstractObjective:To determine the effect of three psycholinguistic variables—lexical frequency, age of acquisition (AoA), and neighborhood density (ND)—on lexical-semantic processing in individuals with non-fluent (nfvPPA), logopenic (lvPPA), and semantic primary progressive aphasia (svPPA). Identifying the scope and independence of these features can provide valuable information about the organization of words in our mind and brain.Method:We administered a lexical decision task—with words carefully selected to permit distinguishing lexical frequency, AoA, and orthographic ND effects—to 41 individuals with PPA (13 nfvPPA, 14 lvPPA, 14 svPPA) and 25 controls.Results:Of the psycholinguistic variables studied, lexical frequency had the largest influence on lexical-semantic processing, but AoA and ND also played an independent role. The results reflect a brain-language relationship with different proportional effects of frequency, AoA, and ND in the PPA variants, in a pattern that is consistent with the organization of the mental lexicon. Individuals with nfvPPA and lvPPA experienced an ND effect consistent with the role of inferior frontal and temporoparietal regions in lexical analysis and word form processing. By contrast, individuals with svPPA experienced an AoA effect consistent with the role of the anterior temporal lobe in semantic processing.Conclusions:The findings are in line with a hierarchical mental lexicon structure with a conceptual (semantic) and a lexeme (word-form) level, such that a selective deficit at one of these levels of the mental lexicon manifests differently in lexical-semantic processing performance, consistent with the affected language-specific brain region in each PPA variant.

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