Processing events: Behavioral and neuromagnetic correlates of Aspectual Coercion

Much recent psycho- and neuro-linguistic work has aimed to elucidate the mechanisms by which sentence meanings are composed by investigating the processing of semantic mismatch. One controversial case for theories of semantic composition is expressions such as the clown jumped for ten minutes, in which the aspectual properties of a punctual verb clash with those of a durative modifier. Such sentences have been proposed to involve a coercion operation which shifts the punctual meaning of the verb to an iterative one. However, processing studies addressing this hypothesis have yielded mixed results. In this study, we tested four hypotheses of how aspectual mismatch is resolved with self-paced reading and magnetoencephalography. Using a set of verbs normed for punctuality, we identified an immediate behavioral cost of mismatch. The neural correlates of this processing were found to match effects in midline prefrontal regions previously implicated in the resolution of complement coercion. We also identified earlier effects in right-lateral frontal and temporal sites. We suggest that of the representational hypotheses currently in the literature, these data are most consistent with an account where aspectual mismatch initially involves the composition of an anomalous meaning that is later repaired via coercion.

[1]  R. Salmelin.  Clinical neurophysiology of language: The MEG approach , 2007, Clinical Neurophysiology.

[2]  C. Frith,et al.  Meeting of minds: the medial frontal cortex and social cognition , 2006, Nature Reviews Neuroscience.

[3]  R. Oostenveld,et al.  Nonparametric statistical testing of EEG- and MEG-data , 2007, Journal of Neuroscience Methods.

[4]  Ray Jackendoff,et al.  The Architecture of the Language Faculty , 1996 .

[5]  Martin J. Pickering,et al.  Context effects in coercion: Evidence from eye movements , 2005 .

[6]  J. Wallis.  Orbitofrontal cortex and its contribution to decision-making. , 2007, Annual review of neuroscience.

[7]  D. Caplan,et al.  Electrophysiological distinctions in processing conceptual relationships within simple sentences. , 2003, Brain research. Cognitive brain research.

[8]  Maria Mercedes Piñango,et al.  Semantic Operations in Aphasic Comprehension: Implications for the Cortical Organization of Language , 2001, Brain and Language.

[9]  G. Fricchione.  Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason and the Human Brain , 1995 .

[10]  Semantic Form and Abductive Fixation of Parameters 1 Introduction , 2003 .

[11]  Riitta Salmelin,et al.  Localization of Syntactic and Semantic Brain Responses using Magnetoencephalography , 2007, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[12]  Robert Frank,et al.  Aspectual Coercion and the Online Computation of Sentential Aspect , 2000 .

[13]  D. Caplan,et al.  The role of animacy and thematic relationships in processing active English sentences: Evidence from event-related potentials , 2007, Brain and Language.

[14]  J. Dölling.  Ontological domains , semantic sorts and systematic ambiguity , 1995 .

[15]  D. Poeppel,et al.  The cortical organization of speech processing , 2007, Nature Reviews Neuroscience.

[16]  E. Somersalo,et al.  Visualization of Magnetoencephalographic Data Using Minimum Current Estimates , 1999, NeuroImage.

[17]  Phillip J. Holcomb,et al.  Making sense of discourse: An fMRI study of causal inferencing across sentences , 2006, NeuroImage.

[18]  Martin J. Pickering,et al.  Deferred Interpretations: Why Starting Dickens is Taxing but Reading Dickens Isn't , 2006, Cogn. Sci..

[19]  M. Farah,et al.  Cerebral Cortex doi:10.1093/cercor/bhl176 The Role of Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex in Decision Making: Judgment under Uncertainty or Judgment Per Se? , 2007 .

[20]  Mark Steedman,et al.  Temporal Ontology and Temporal Reference , 1988, CL.

[21]  James Pustejovsky,et al.  The syntax of event structure , 1991, Cognition.

[22]  Liina Pylkkänen,et al.  An MEG Study of Silent Meaning , 2007, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[23]  Elaine J. Francis,et al.  Mismatch: Form-Function Incongruity and the Architecture of Grammar , 2003 .

[24]  Johannes Dölling,et al.  Aspectual (re-)interpretation: Structural representation and processing , 2003 .

[25]  John C J Hoeks,et al.  Seeing words in context: the interaction of lexical and sentence level information during reading. , 2004, Brain research. Cognitive brain research.

[26]  Jesse A. Harris,et al.  The cost of question concealment: Eye-tracking and MEG evidence , 2008, Brain and Language.

[27]  C. Clifton,et al.  The independence of syntactic processing , 1986 .

[28]  Evelyn C. Ferstl,et al.  The role of coherence and cohesion in text comprehension: an event-related fMRI study. , 2001, Brain research. Cognitive brain research.

[29]  Rolf A. Zwaan.  Processing Narrative Time Shifts , 1996 .

[30]  Susan Rothstein.  Structuring Events: A Study in the Semantics of Lexical Aspect , 2004 .

[31]  Carlota S. Smith,et al.  The Parameter of Aspect , 1991 .

[32]  Martin J. Pickering,et al.  The difficulty of coercion: A response to de Almeida , 2005, Brain and Language.

[33]  E. Formisano,et al.  Phase coupling in a cerebro-cerebellar network at 8-13 Hz during reading. , 2007, Cerebral cortex.

[34]  C. Frith,et al.  Functional imaging of ‘theory of mind’ , 2003, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[35]  Maria Mercedes Piñango,et al.  Time-Course of Semantic Composition: The Case of Aspectual Coercion , 2006, Journal of psycholinguistic research.

[36]  Leonard Talmy,et al.  The Relation of Grammar to Cognition–a Synopsis , 1978, TINLAP.

[37]  Phillip J. Holcomb,et al.  Neural correlates of processing syntactic, semantic, and thematic relationships in sentences , 2006 .

[38]  Martin J. Pickering,et al.  Coercion in sentence processing: evidence from eye-movements and self-paced reading , 2002 .

[39]  Henriëtte de Swart,et al.  Aspect shift and coercion , 1998 .

[40]  C. Polkey,et al.  "Theory of mind" impairments and their relationship to executive functioning following frontal lobe excisions. , 2001, Brain : a journal of neurology.

[41]  A. Damasio.  Descartes’ Error. Emotion, Reason and the Human Brain. New York (Grosset/Putnam) 1994. , 1994 .

[42]  Brian McElree,et al.  Reading time evidence for enriched composition , 2001, Cognition.

[43]  Anders M. Dale,et al.  N400-like Magnetoencephalography Responses Modulated by Semantic Context, Word Frequency, and Lexical Class in Sentences , 2002, NeuroImage.

[44]  Evelyn C. Ferstl,et al.  What Does the Frontomedian Cortex Contribute to Language Processing: Coherence or Theory of Mind? , 2002, NeuroImage.

[45]  L. R Gleitman,et al.  Proceedings of the twenty-second annual conference of the cognitive science society , 2000 .

[46]  R. Salmelin,et al.  Semantic Cortical Activation in Dyslexic Readers , 1999, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[47]  Martin J. Pickering,et al.  Underspecification and Aspectual Coercion , 2006 .

[48]  Liina Pylkkänen,et al.  The Syntax-Semantics Interface , 2006 .

[49]  L. Osterhout,et al.  The independence of combinatory semantic processing: Evidence from event-related potentials , 2005 .

[50]  Heike Tappe,et al.  Mediating between concepts and grammar , 2003 .

[51]  A. Damasio,et al.  Emotion, decision making and the orbitofrontal cortex. , 2000, Cerebral cortex.

[52]  A. Nakamura,et al.  Localizing the distributed language network responsible for the N400 measured by MEG during auditory sentence processing , 2006, Brain Research.

[53]  James Pustejovsky,et al.  The Generative Lexicon , 1995, CL.

[54]  Martin J. Pickering,et al.  A time course analysis of enriched composition , 2006, Psychonomic bulletin & review.

[55]  M M Piñango,et al.  Real-Time Processing Implications of Enriched Composition at the Syntax–Semantics Interface , 1999, Journal of psycholinguistic research.

[56]  M. Kutas,et al.  Reading senseless sentences: brain potentials reflect semantic incongruity. , 1980, Science.

[57]  Cathrine Fabricius-Hansen,et al.  Flexibility in adverbal modification : Reinterpretation as contextual enrichment , 2009 .