Sentence Comprehension 4

Question 1

What brain areas are Broca’s area?

Answer 1

BA44 and BA45

Question 2

T or F: We know exactly what Broca’s area does

Answer 2

False- all hypothesis have problems accomodating the data

Question 3

Why might broca’s area NOT be necessary for sentence comprehension?
Neuropsychological results

Answer 3

• Dronkers et al found no significant correlation between lesion in Brocas area and sent comp
• Thothathi found marginal corrleation

Question 4

Why might broca’s area BE necessary for sentence comprehension?
Neuropsychological results

Answer 4

• stoke patients with imaired parsing of syntactic ambiguities
• stroke patients and tumor patients with impaired parsing of passives
• PNFA patients with various comp deficits

Question 5

Why might broca’s area NOT be necessary for sentence comprehension?
functional neuroimaging results

Answer 5

Typically no brocas actibation when sentences are compared with word lists

Question 6

Why might broca’s area BE necessary for sentence comprehension?
functional neuroimaging results

Answer 6

• Vigneau et al.’s meta- analysis
• snijder and Papoutsi syntactic ambiguity resolution
• Obleser syntactic complexity effects
• Friederici syntactic violations

Question 7

Based on all the studies we can conclude that Broca’s are ___ important for sentence comprehension.

Answer 7

IS important

Question 8

List the 3 hypothesis about how Broca’s area computes linguistic strucuture:

Answer 8

1)Grodzinsky
2)Friederici
3)Schlesewsky
4)

Question 9

d

Answer 9

: Broca’s area computes movement structure.

Question 10

List the 3 hypothesis about how Broca’s area computes linguistic strucuture:

Answer 10

1) Grodzinsky
2) Friederici
3) Schlesewsky

Question 11

1)Grodzinsky

Answer 11

Broca’s area computes movement structure.

Question 12

2)Friederici

Answer 12

Different regions of Broca’s area collaborate with other areas within Broca’s area to build - local phrase structure, hierarcical structure and semantic sentence interpretation

Question 13

3)Schlesewsky

Answer 13

Broca’s deals with prominence scales (ex. actorhood, animacy, referantiality)

Question 14

List the 3 hypothesis about general cognitive processing in Broca’s area :

Answer 14

1) AVSTM
2) Conflict resolution
3) Needed for checking and reanalysis of NP participant-roles

Question 15

List the 3 hypothesis about general cognitive processing in Broca’s area :

Answer 15

1) AVSTM
2) Conflict resolution
3) Needed for checking and reanalysis of NP participant-roles

Question 16

What are the support of Grodzinsky’s theory of syntactic movement?

Answer 16

• damage to brocas disrupts representation of traces and chains
• patients can’t determine participant role of moved NP, assign role of actor to first NP or other mechanisms
• Guessing of passives, object relatives etc.

Question 17

What are the problems of Grodzinsky’s theory of syntactic movement?

Answer 17

• controversial syntactic analysis

- contradictory neurpsychological data (only 6/38 were at chance on passives but not actives)

Question 18

What are the problems of Grodzinsky’s theory of syntactic movement?

Answer 18

• controversial syntactic analysis

- contradictory neurpsychological data (only 6/38 were at chance on passives but not actives)

Question 19

What are the supports of Fiederici’s theory of three separate structure building functions?

Answer 19

• the frontal operculum collaborates with aSTG to build local phrase structures (ex. The boy)
• BA44, aSTG, pSTG, pSTS/ BA39 collaborate to build complex hierarchically structured sequences
• BAs 45 and 47 with temporal regions to suport semantic aspects

Question 20

What are the problems of Fiederici’s theory of three separate structure building functions?

Answer 20

• sentences consist of hierarchically organized groupings, (both FO and BA44 should be active when sentences are compared to word lists) - this isn’t the case

Question 21

What is a potential solution to the problem of Fiederici’s theory of three separate structure building functions?

Answer 21

Possible that the automatic bottom up process of hierarcical structure analysis is done by the aSTG, other areas are only recruited if complex

Question 22

What are the supports to Schlesewsky theory that Broca’s area solves conflicts between universal prominence and other factors in word order?

Answer 22

-Brocas is sensitive to linearization of utterances and crosslinguistically common prominence scales (ex. animate>inanimate, actor>undergoer)

Question 23

What are the supports to Schlesewsky theory that Broca’s area solves conflicts between universal prominence and other factors in word order?

Answer 23

-Brocas is sensitive to linearization of utterances and crosslinguistically common prominence scales (ex. animate>inanimate, actor>undergoer)

Question 24

What are the problems to Schlesewsky theory that Broca’s area solves conflicts between universal prominence and other factors in word order?

Answer 24

-damage should reliably impair comprehension of reversible sentences and those with non-cannonical word order ex. passives

Question 25

What are the supports to Schlesewsky theory that Broca’s area solves conflicts between universal prominence and other factors in word order?

Answer 25

-Brocas is sensitive to linearization of utterances and crosslinguistically common prominence scales (ex. animate>inanimate, actor>undergoer)

Question 26

What are the problems to Schlesewsky theory that Broca’s area solves conflicts between universal prominence and other factors in word order?

Answer 26

-damage should reliably impair comprehension of reversible sentences and those with non-cannonical word order ex. passives

Question 27

Describe the general idea of the cognitive control hypothesis:

Answer 27

Broca’s area is part of prefrontal cortex which is known for its supervisory executive functions. (ex. planning, reasoning, multi-tasking)

Question 28

Describe the theory that Broca’s area contributes to AVSTM (auditory verbal STM)?

Answer 28

The idea that there are two components of AVSTM:
storage = pSTS
articulatory rehearsal =Brocas

Question 29

What are the supports to the theory that Broca’s area contributes to AVSTM (auditory verbal STM)?

Answer 29

-Rogalsky et al’s fMRI study showed that judgment of subject relatives were better than object relatives during an articulation task but not tapping task.

Question 30

What are the problems to the theory that Broca’s area contributes to AVSTM (auditory verbal STM)?

Answer 30

• not all patients with AVSTM deficits or BA44 damage have trouble with complex sent. Therefore they don’t necessarily impair comprehension.
• different types of sentences pose different challenges.

Question 31

What are the supports to Thompson-schill’s theory that Broca’s area resolves conflict?

Answer 31

-study of ambiguous nouns and phrases and activation of pMTG and broca’s

Question 32

Descibe how Broca’s area is thought to resolve conflict?

Answer 32

Broca’s area is thought to suppress the dominant analysis selected by the pMTG and allow activation of a subordinate analysis

Question 33

Describe Caplan and Walter’s theory that Broca’s area allows checking and reanalysis?

Answer 33

Suggests that Broca’s area doesn’t respond to any complex sentences but is strongly modulated by semantic constraints like reversable participant roles.

Question 34

Problems with Caplan and Walter’s theory that Broca’s area allows checking and reanalysis?

Answer 34

Like other hypothesis it doesn’t explain why damage to Broca’s are doesn’t always cause reversible sentence processing deficits.