Sentence Comprehension 4 Flashcards
What brain areas are Broca’s area?
BA44 and BA45
T or F: We know exactly what Broca’s area does
False- all hypothesis have problems accomodating the data
Why might broca’s area NOT be necessary for sentence comprehension?
Neuropsychological results
- Dronkers et al found no significant correlation between lesion in Brocas area and sent comp
- Thothathi found marginal corrleation
Why might broca’s area BE necessary for sentence comprehension?
Neuropsychological results
- stoke patients with imaired parsing of syntactic ambiguities
- stroke patients and tumor patients with impaired parsing of passives
- PNFA patients with various comp deficits
Why might broca’s area NOT be necessary for sentence comprehension?
functional neuroimaging results
Typically no brocas actibation when sentences are compared with word lists
Why might broca’s area BE necessary for sentence comprehension?
functional neuroimaging results
- Vigneau et al.’s meta- analysis
- snijder and Papoutsi syntactic ambiguity resolution
- Obleser syntactic complexity effects
- Friederici syntactic violations
Based on all the studies we can conclude that Broca’s are ___ important for sentence comprehension.
IS important
List the 3 hypothesis about how Broca’s area computes linguistic strucuture:
1)Grodzinsky
2)Friederici
3)Schlesewsky
4)
d
: Broca’s area computes movement structure.
List the 3 hypothesis about how Broca’s area computes linguistic strucuture:
1) Grodzinsky
2) Friederici
3) Schlesewsky
1)Grodzinsky
Broca’s area computes movement structure.
2)Friederici
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
3)Schlesewsky
Broca’s deals with prominence scales (ex. actorhood, animacy, referantiality)
List the 3 hypothesis about general cognitive processing in Broca’s area :
1) AVSTM
2) Conflict resolution
3) Needed for checking and reanalysis of NP participant-roles
List the 3 hypothesis about general cognitive processing in Broca’s area :
1) AVSTM
2) Conflict resolution
3) Needed for checking and reanalysis of NP participant-roles
What are the support of Grodzinsky’s theory of syntactic movement?
- 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.
What are the problems of Grodzinsky’s theory of syntactic movement?
- controversial syntactic analysis
- contradictory neurpsychological data (only 6/38 were at chance on passives but not actives)
What are the problems of Grodzinsky’s theory of syntactic movement?
- controversial syntactic analysis
- contradictory neurpsychological data (only 6/38 were at chance on passives but not actives)
What are the supports of Fiederici’s theory of three separate structure building functions?
- 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
What are the problems of Fiederici’s theory of three separate structure building functions?
- 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
What is a potential solution to the problem of Fiederici’s theory of three separate structure building functions?
Possible that the automatic bottom up process of hierarcical structure analysis is done by the aSTG, other areas are only recruited if complex
What are the supports to Schlesewsky theory that Broca’s area solves conflicts between universal prominence and other factors in word order?
-Brocas is sensitive to linearization of utterances and crosslinguistically common prominence scales (ex. animate>inanimate, actor>undergoer)
What are the supports to Schlesewsky theory that Broca’s area solves conflicts between universal prominence and other factors in word order?
-Brocas is sensitive to linearization of utterances and crosslinguistically common prominence scales (ex. animate>inanimate, actor>undergoer)
What are the problems to Schlesewsky theory that Broca’s area solves conflicts between universal prominence and other factors in word order?
-damage should reliably impair comprehension of reversible sentences and those with non-cannonical word order ex. passives
What are the supports to Schlesewsky theory that Broca’s area solves conflicts between universal prominence and other factors in word order?
-Brocas is sensitive to linearization of utterances and crosslinguistically common prominence scales (ex. animate>inanimate, actor>undergoer)
What are the problems to Schlesewsky theory that Broca’s area solves conflicts between universal prominence and other factors in word order?
-damage should reliably impair comprehension of reversible sentences and those with non-cannonical word order ex. passives
Describe the general idea of the cognitive control hypothesis:
Broca’s area is part of prefrontal cortex which is known for its supervisory executive functions. (ex. planning, reasoning, multi-tasking)
Describe the theory that Broca’s area contributes to AVSTM (auditory verbal STM)?
The idea that there are two components of AVSTM:
storage = pSTS
articulatory rehearsal =Brocas
What are the supports to the theory that Broca’s area contributes to AVSTM (auditory verbal STM)?
-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.
What are the problems to the theory that Broca’s area contributes to AVSTM (auditory verbal STM)?
- 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.
What are the supports to Thompson-schill’s theory that Broca’s area resolves conflict?
-study of ambiguous nouns and phrases and activation of pMTG and broca’s
Descibe how Broca’s area is thought to resolve conflict?
Broca’s area is thought to suppress the dominant analysis selected by the pMTG and allow activation of a subordinate analysis
Describe Caplan and Walter’s theory that Broca’s area allows checking and reanalysis?
Suggests that Broca’s area doesn’t respond to any complex sentences but is strongly modulated by semantic constraints like reversable participant roles.
Problems with Caplan and Walter’s theory that Broca’s area allows checking and reanalysis?
Like other hypothesis it doesn’t explain why damage to Broca’s are doesn’t always cause reversible sentence processing deficits.
