Psycholinguistic : Neurophysiology of language

Question 1

Components by hemispheres

Answer 1

LEFT
Phonology
Semantics
Input-output lexicons
Syntax morphology

RIGHT
Prosody
Coarse semantics (emotion terms, not literal meaning)
Discourse context

Question 2

Process specific neural networks

Answer 2

1 - Acoustic-phonological analysis
2 - Initial syntactic processes
3 - Computation of semantics & syntactic relations

Question 3

Different processes of language

Answer 3

Phonology (sound)
Syntax (structure)
Semantics (meaning)
Pragmatics (use of language in conversation)
Discourse
Emotional comprehension / production

Question 4

Acoustic-phonological analysis

Answer 4

N1 / N100
Primary auditory cortex - STG
Brain resources for language and music

Question 5

Initial syntactic process

Answer 5

ELAN
(early left anterior negativity)

Inferior frontal gyrus (in particular Broca’s area, not just frontal operculum)
Broca’s aphasia -> non fluent (no verbs, no adverbs)
Articulation involves motor cortex

Question 6

Computation of semantics and syntactic relations

Answer 6

N400
Temporal and frontal both interact with each other

> Anterior and posterior temporal cortex as well as in the Inferior Frontal Gyrus

Question 7

Two prosodies

Prosodic cues

Answer 7

Linguistic prosody
Pauses btw the words, tone in statement vs question

Emotional prosody
crucial in social interactions
Intonation

Prosodic cues
High colinearity among cues
-Pitch and pitch modulation
-Voice intensity
-Voice quality
-Speech rate and rhythm

Question 8

Speech ?

Answer 8

One of the more complex task but automatic

Question 9

Why ERP

Answer 9

“It is hard to see the wood through the trees” Friederici

High temporal resolution (compared to MRI)
The knowledge of the begining of the stimulus is crucial
Many stimuli in order to mean them (and get ride of noise)
Peak = specific process linked
Nasion-Inion
Odd = left
Even = right
PB with language production > motor artefacts

Question 10

ERP
component identification

Answer 10

polarity - amplitude - scalp location - sensitivity to experimental manipulations

Amplitude : peak or mean (less sensitive to latency jitter)

C1 first component from visual field

Later windows : peaks more diffused

Question 11

ERP
More electrodes ?

Answer 11

Be careful coz
= more impedance (decrease with conductive gel)

Cherry picking (too much data)

Question 12

ERP effects reported for acoustic-phonological

Answer 12

N1

Mismatch negativity

Question 13

Mismatch Negativity

Answer 13

Measure the discrimination of acoustic and phoneme categories (bayesian probaility)

Attention independant - doesn’t require any task from the patient (useful with dyslexia)

Question 14

N1

Answer 14

75-150ms

Component form primary and secondary auditory cortex (can be affected by frontal)

Mostly exogenous but top-down influence

Function significance
correlates with identification of phonemes

Question 15

MMN

Answer 15

150-250 ms

Mismatch negativity

auditory cortex

Functional significance
It reflects the discrimination of acoustic and phoneme categories (Pülvermuller)

Question 16

N400

Answer 16

Related to semantic congruency

Procesing of semantics at word and sentence level

Reflects the difficulty of lexical-semantic intergration

Increases with
non-word (ertertrrss) / pseudoword (murle)
unfit pairs “Nurse / Hospital” < “Nurse / Apple”
…

Decreases with as the sentence unrolls due to increased predictability of the upcoming word

Question 17

P600

Answer 17

processes of syntactic reanalysis and repair

Observed in situation of :
processing of syntactic anomalies
Temporarly ambigous sentences

• ” The judge believed the defendant was lying. “*
• The defendant* has been analyzed as an object, but was forces reanalyzing it as a subject

Question 18

A model of language processing

Answer 18

The neurotemporal dynamic of language comprehension
3 sequential phases

Phase 1
An initial phrase structure on the basis of word category information is built.

Phase 2
The relation btw the verb and its arguments is computed to assign the thematic roles in sentence.

Phase 3
The final interpretation takes place

Question 19

Language process : Phase 1

Answer 19

Phase 1
An initial phrase structure on the basis of word category information is built.

> This process is highly automatic, independent of semantic and verb argument information, and independent of task demands.

> N100, MMN

Question 20

Language process : Phase 2

Answer 20

Phase 2
The relation btw the verb and its arguments is computed to assign the thematic roles in sentence.

Morphosyntactic information (subject-verb agreement, LAN), case information (LAN or N400, depending on the particular language), and lexical selectional restriction information (N400) are taken into consideration to achieve assignment of the relation between the different elements in a sentence.

Question 21

Language process : Phase 3

Answer 21

Phase 3

The final interpretation takes place, with semantic and syntactic information being taken into account and mapped onto world knowledge.

> P600

Question 22

Non verbal expression of emotion

Answer 22

“The voice is an auditory face”

Question 23

Voice affective information

Answer 23

EMOTIONAL PROSODY
set of acoustic parameters of speech directly influenced by affect

Frequency info : pitch
Temporal info : Speech rate or rythm
Loudness info : intensity

→ Several acoustic cues

Question 24

Multi stage model of emotional processing

Answer 24

1 & 2 : two steps of emtional processing (2 ERP signatures)

1 - Sensory processing
auditory processing region : cortex → STS
N100

2 - Detection of emotionaly significant acoustic cues
Ventral auditory pathway : bilateral STG → anterior STS
Important because influences the velocity of other processings (important to happen early)
P200

3 - Cognitive evaluation of emotional meaning
Semantic processing : IFG - left hemispehere
400 ms

Extremely fast interaction btw processes to understand speech.

Question 25

The differentiation between neutral and emotional cues

Answer 25

Occurs rapidly

Question 26

ERP results of emotional speech

Answer 26

Study with sentences (Pinheiro, 2013)
Prosody effect : N100 : neutral > angry // P200 : neutral>happy>angry

Study with sentences (Pinheiro, 2014)
Prosody effect : N100 : angry > neutral // P200 : neutral>happy

ERPs can differentiate various prosody types at an early processing stage.
– The N100 and P200 components index two stages of vocal emotional processing and are sensitive to valence.

Detecting emotional salience from acoustic cues is a rapid process.
– The first differentiation between neutral and emotional prosody occurs at the level of N100, long before the production of an utterance is complete.

Question 27

Vocal emotional processing

Answer 27

Highly automatic process

Emotional information cannot be ignored even when it is not task-relevant.

Can be impaired in diseases like Schizophrenia

Question 28

Verbal emotional info

Answer 28

Emotionally relevant adjectives are processed spontaneously and selectively

– Healthy subjects may have a natural bias towards pleasant information

N400: better semantic integration of pleasant words

Question 29

Mood affects language

Answer 29

Neutral mood
– Predictive role of sentence context (N400 to expected words ≠ N400 unexpected words)
– Role of memory structure (WCV < BCV)

Positive mood:
– Facilitative effects on semantic processing (WCV were processed as if they were EW)

Negative mood:
– Narrowing effects on available semantic choices and bias towards contextual information (WCV=BCV)

Question 30

ERPs can provide

Answer 30

Insights into the speed with which vocal emotional information is decoded

Hints at the processing stages involved

Information on the functional architecture of the auditory system as applied to vocal emotional processing