Neural Systems Underlying the Processing of Complex Sentences

The functional neuroanatomy of sentence processing is one of the most classical topics of cognitive neuropsychology of speech and language processing. We first outline the cognitive processes involved in the processing of complex sentences with noncanonical and embedded sentence structures, for which cross-linguistic psycholinguistic research has reported increased processing difficulty. We performed an activation likelihood estimate meta-analysis on the activation coordinates from all neurolinguistic imaging studies that report the main effects of either noncanonicity or embedding. The results state that Brodmann area 44 in the left-hemispheric inferior frontal gyrus as well as the left middle and superior temporal gyri are the regions most likely activated during complex sentence processing. From the present review and meta-analysis, we synthesize the common underlying function in complex sentence processing to lie in the establishment of multiple hierarchical dependencies between subjects and objects and their verbs, avoiding their possible interference.

[1]  F. Rösler,et al.  Brain Activation Modulated by the Comprehension of Normal and Pseudo-word Sentences of Different Processing Demands: A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study , 2002, NeuroImage.

[2]  M. Just,et al.  Individual differences in syntactic processing: The role of working memory , 1991 .

[3]  G. Waters,et al.  Activation of Broca's area by syntactic processing under conditions of concurrent articulation , 2000, Human brain mapping.

[4]  William Badecker,et al.  Morphology, agreement and working memory retrieval in sentence production : Evidence from gender and case in Slovak , 2007 .

[5]  Andreas Meyer-Lindenberg,et al.  Shared and distinct neurophysiological components of the digits forward and backward tasks as revealed by functional neuroimaging , 2004, Neuropsychologia.

[6]  Kirrie J Ballard,et al.  Subtypes of progressive aphasia: application of the International Consensus Criteria and validation using β-amyloid imaging. , 2011, Brain : a journal of neurology.

[7]  Lyn Frazier,et al.  Syntactic processing: Evidence from dutch , 1987 .

[8]  Naama Friedmann,et al.  Cortical representation of verb processing in sentence comprehension: number of complements, subcategorization, and thematic frames. , 2007, Cerebral cortex.

[9]  K. Zilles,et al.  Coordinate‐based activation likelihood estimation meta‐analysis of neuroimaging data: A random‐effects approach based on empirical estimates of spatial uncertainty , 2009, Human brain mapping.

[10]  Yosef Grodzinsky,et al.  fMRI adaptation dissociates syntactic complexity dimensions , 2010, NeuroImage.

[11]  Michael K. Tanenhaus,et al.  Natural language parsing: Do listeners compute linguistic representations? , 1985 .

[12]  Alan C. Evans,et al.  Enhancement of MR Images Using Registration for Signal Averaging , 1998, Journal of Computer Assisted Tomography.

[13]  Richard L. Lewis,et al.  Computational principles of working memory in sentence comprehension , 2006, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[14]  Bruce L. Miller,et al.  Anatomical Correlates of Sentence Comprehension and Verbal Working Memory in Neurodegenerative Disease , 2007, The Journal of Neuroscience.

[15]  D. Swinney,et al.  On the temporal course of gap-filling during comprehension of verbal passives , 1993, Journal of psycholinguistic research.

[16]  Matthias Schlesewsky,et al.  The emergence of the unmarked: A new perspective on the language‐specific function of Broca's area , 2005, Human brain mapping.

[17]  Alfred Anwander,et al.  Segregating the core computational faculty of human language from working memory , 2009, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[18]  Angela R. Laird,et al.  Activation likelihood estimation meta-analysis revisited , 2012, NeuroImage.

[19]  Angela D. Friederici,et al.  Dynamic assignment of neural resources in auditory comprehension of complex sentences , 2011, NeuroImage.

[20]  B. Miller,et al.  Neural Correlates of Syntactic Processing in the Nonfluent Variant of Primary Progressive Aphasia , 2010, The Journal of Neuroscience.

[21]  Angela D. Friederici,et al.  Who did what to whom? The neural basis of argument hierarchies during language comprehension , 2005, NeuroImage.

[22]  R. Saxe,et al.  A Noisy-Channel Account of Crosslinguistic Word-Order Variation , 2013, Psychological science.

[23]  Brian MacWhinney,et al.  The processing of restrictive relative clauses in Hungarian , 1988, Cognition.

[24]  Shigeru Sato,et al.  Scrambling effects on the processing of Japanese sentences: An fMRI study , 2009, Journal of Neurolinguistics.

[25]  Sharlene D. Newman,et al.  The effect of semantic relatedness on syntactic analysis: An fMRI study , 2010, Brain and Language.

[26]  Yosef Grodzinsky,et al.  Neural correlates of syntactic movement: converging evidence from two fMRI experiments , 2004, NeuroImage.

[27]  T. Hendler,et al.  The Neural Reality of Syntactic Transformations , 2003, Psychological science.

[28]  Edith Kaan,et al.  Cross-serial dependencies in dutch: Testing the influence of NP type on processing load , 2004, Memory & cognition.

[29]  S. Bookheimer,et al.  Form and Content Dissociating Syntax and Semantics in Sentence Comprehension , 1999, Neuron.

[30]  William D. Marslen-Wilson,et al.  Crossed and nested dependencies in German and Dutch , 1986 .

[31]  Ryuta Kinno,et al.  Neural correlates of noncanonical syntactic processing revealed by a picture‐sentence matching task , 2008, Human brain mapping.

[32]  E. Gibson.  Linguistic complexity: locality of syntactic dependencies , 1998, Cognition.

[33]  Maria Babyonyshev,et al.  The Complexity of Nested Structures in Japanese. , 1999 .

[34]  Richard S. J. Frackowiak,et al.  The neural correlates of the verbal component of working memory , 1993, Nature.

[35]  J. A. Dyke.  Interference effects from grammatically unavailable constituents during sentence processing. , 2007 .

[36]  Bernard Mazoyer,et al.  Meta-analyzing left hemisphere language areas: Phonology, semantics, and sentence processing , 2006, NeuroImage.

[37]  Randi C. Martin,et al.  Neural basis of semantic and syntactic interference in sentence comprehension , 2013, Brain and Language.

[38]  I. Johnsrude,et al.  The problem of functional localization in the human brain , 2002, Nature Reviews Neuroscience.

[39]  Cristina Romani,et al.  Verbal working memory and sentence comprehension: A multiple-components view. , 1994 .

[40]  Weijia Ni,et al.  Sentence complexity and input modality effects in sentence comprehension: an fMRI study , 2004, NeuroImage.

[41]  Y. Grodzinsky.  The neurology of syntax: Language use without Broca's area , 2000, Behavioral and Brain Sciences.

[42]  Gregory Hickok,et al.  The Role of Broca's Area in Sentence Comprehension , 2011, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[43]  Simon B Eickhoff,et al.  Minimizing within‐experiment and within‐group effects in activation likelihood estimation meta‐analyses , 2012, Human brain mapping.

[44]  P. Gordon,et al.  Memory interference during language processing. , 2001, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[45]  Guinevere F. Eden,et al.  Meta-Analysis of the Functional Neuroanatomy of Single-Word Reading: Method and Validation , 2002, NeuroImage.

[46]  Elizabeth Cowper,et al.  Constraints on sentence complexity : a model for syntactic processing , 1976 .

[47]  Richard L. Lewis.  Interference in short-term memory: The magical number two (or three) in sentence processing , 1996, Journal of psycholinguistic research.

[48]  Roelien Bastiaanse,et al.  Comprehension of passives in Broca’s aphasia , 2006, Brain and Language.

[49]  C. Rorden,et al.  Damage to left anterior temporal cortex predicts impairment of complex syntactic processing: A lesion‐symptom mapping study , 2013, Human brain mapping.

[50]  G. Waters,et al.  Verbal working memory and sentence comprehension , 1999, Behavioral and Brain Sciences.

[51]  C. Fiebach,et al.  The role of left inferior frontal and superior temporal cortex in sentence comprehension: localizing syntactic and semantic processes. , 2003, Cerebral cortex.

[52]  J. Hyönä,et al.  Effects of Case Marking and Word Order on Sentence Parsing in Finnish: An Eye Fixation Analysis , 1997 .

[53]  B. McElree,et al.  Retrieval interference in sentence comprehension. , 2006, Journal of memory and language.

[54]  N. Alpert,et al.  Localization of Syntactic Comprehension by Positron Emission Tomography , 1996, Brain and Language.

[55]  François Rigalleau,et al.  When a missing verb makes a French sentence more acceptable , 2009 .

[56]  Yoshihiro Muragaki,et al.  Differential reorganization of three syntax-related networks induced by a left frontal glioma. , 2014, Brain : a journal of neurology.

[57]  George A. Miller,et al.  Free Recall of Self-Embedded English Sentences , 1964, Inf. Control..

[58]  C. Clifton,et al.  Filling gaps: Decision principles and structure in sentence comprehension , 1983, Cognition.

[59]  Lyn Frazier,et al.  Lexical Expectations in Sentence Comprehension. , 1984 .

[60]  Yoshihiro Muragaki,et al.  Agrammatic Comprehension Caused by a Glioma in the Left Frontal Cortex , 2022 .

[61]  M. Tanenhaus,et al.  Verb-specific constraints in sentence processing: Separating effects of lexical preference from garden-paths. , 1993 .

[62]  William Matchin,et al.  Broca's Area, Sentence Comprehension, and Working Memory: An fMRI Study , 2008, Frontiers in human neuroscience.

[63]  Ina Bornkessel-Schlesewsky,et al.  Word order and Broca’s region: Evidence for a supra-syntactic perspective , 2009, Brain and Language.

[64]  Angela D. Friederici,et al.  Linking ordering in Broca's area to storage in left temporo-parietal regions: The case of sentence processing , 2012, NeuroImage.

[65]  Matthias Schlesewsky,et al.  Processing linguistic complexity and grammaticality in the left frontal cortex. , 2005, Cerebral cortex.

[66]  Edward Gibson,et al.  Processing relative clauses in Chinese , 2003, Cognition.

[67]  E. Gibson,et al.  Memory Limitations and Structural Forgetting: The Perception of Complex Ungrammatical Sentences as Grammatical , 1999 .

[68]  V. M. Holmes,et al.  Eye fixation patterns during the reading of relative-clause sentences. , 1981 .

[69]  Erica B. Michael,et al.  fMRI investigation of sentence comprehension by eye and by ear: Modality fingerprints on cognitive processes , 2001, Human brain mapping.

[70]  Bruno Rossion,et al.  Category Specificity in Early Perception: Face and Word N170 Responses Differ in Both Lateralization and Habituation Properties , 2008, Frontiers in human neuroscience.

[71]  M. Just,et al.  Brain Activation Modulated by Sentence Comprehension , 1996, Science.

[72]  Janet D. Fodor,et al.  Using cross-modal lexical decision tasks to investigate sentence processing. , 1994, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[73]  Richard L. Lewis,et al.  Argument-Head Distance and Processing Complexity: Explaining both Locality and Antilocality Effects , 2006 .

[74]  Thomas F Münte,et al.  An fMRI study of canonical and noncanonical word order in German , 2007, Human brain mapping.