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 150 000 MR Techniques in Brain Function DCN 1: Perception and Actions NCEBP 9: Mental Health NCEBP 8: Psychological determinants of chronic illness 110 003 Autism & depressions NCEBP 8: Psychological determinants of chronic illness |
Organization:
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Donders Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging Cognitive Neuroscience PI Group Memory and Emotion Psychiatry Medical Psychology PI Group Neurobiology of Language |
Former Organization:
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F.C. Donders Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging
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Abstract:
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In individuals with ASD, difficulties with language comprehension are most evident when higher-level semantic-pragmatic language processing is required, for instance when context has to be used to interpret the meaning of an utterance. Until now, it is unclear at what level of processing and for what type of context these difficulties in language comprehension occur. Therefore, in the current fMRI study, we investigated the neural correlates of the integration of contextual information during auditory language comprehension in 24 adults with ASD and 24 matched control participants. Different levels of context processing were manipulated by using spoken sentences that were correct or contained either a semantic or world knowledge anomaly. Our findings demonstrated significant differences between the groups in inferior frontal cortex that were only present for sentences with a world knowledge anomaly. Relative to the ASD group, the control group showed significantly increased activation in left inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG) for sentences with a world knowledge anomaly compared to correct sentences. This effect possibly indicates reduced integrative capacities of the ASD group. Furthermore, world knowledge anomalies elicited significantly stronger activation in right inferior frontal gyrus (RIFG) in the control group compared to the ASD group. This additional RIFG activation probably reflects revision of the situation model after new, conflicting information. The lack of recruitment of RIFG is possibly related to difficulties with exception handling in the ASD group.
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