Subject:
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110 000 Neurocognition of Language 110 003 Autism & depression 110 007 PLUS: A neurocomputational model for the Processing of Linguistic Utterances based on the Unification-Space architecture 110 009 The human brain and Chinese prosody 110 012 Social cognition of verbal communication 110 013 Binding and the MUC-model 110 014 Public activities 110 030 ERC Janzen Spatial memory DCN 1: Perception and Action NCEBP 9: Mental health 110 003 Autism & depressions |
Organization:
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Donders Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging Psychiatry PI Group Neurobiology of Language SW OZ BSI OLO PI Group Memory and Emotion |
Former Organization:
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F.C. Donders Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging
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Journal title:
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Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience
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Abstract:
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When interpreting a message, a listener takes into account several sources of linguistic and extralinguistic information. Here we focused on one particular form of extralinguistic information, certain speaker characteristics as conveyed by the voice. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we examined the neural structures involved in the unification of sentence meaning and voice-based inferences about the speaker's age, sex, or social background. We found enhanced activation in the inferior frontal gyrus bilaterally (BA 45/47) during listening to sentences whose meaning was incongruent with inferred speaker characteristics. Furthermore, our results showed an overlap in brain regions involved in unification of speaker-related information and those used for the unification of semantic and world knowledge information [inferior frontal gyrus bilaterally (BA 45/47) and left middle temporal gyrus (BA 21)]. These findings provide evidence for a shared neural unification system for linguistic and extralinguistic sources of information and extend the existing knowledge about the role of inferior frontal cortex as a crucial component for unification during language comprehension.
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