Language in Schizophrenia Part 2: What Can Psycholinguistics Bring to the Study of Schizophrenia...and Vice Versa?

This is the second of two articles that discuss higher-order language and semantic processing in schizophrenia. The companion article (Part 1) gives an introduction to language dysfunction in schizophrenia patients. This article reviews a selection of psycholinguistic studies which suggest that sentence-level abnormalities in schizophrenia may stem from a relative overdependence on semantic associative relationships at the expense of building higher-order meaning. Language disturbances in schizophrenia may be best conceptualized as arising from an imbalance of activity across two streams of processing, one drawing upon semantic relationships within semantic memory and the other involving the use of combinatorial mechanisms to build propositional meaning. I will also discuss some of the ways in which the study of schizophrenia may offer new insights into the cognitive and neural architecture of the normal language system.

[1]  Gina R. Kuperberg,et al.  Neural mechanisms of language comprehension: Challenges to syntax , 2007, Brain Research.

[2]  Markus Kiefer,et al.  Semantic and syntactic processes during sentence comprehension in patients with schizophrenia: evidence from event-related potentials , 2003, Schizophrenia Research.

[3]  K. McRae,et al.  Integrating Verbs, Situation Schemas, and Thematic Role Concepts , 2001 .

[4]  Susan M. Garnsey.  Event-related brain potentials in the study of language , 1993 .

[5]  R. Jackendoff.  Language, Consciousness, Culture: Essays on Mental Structure , 2007 .

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

[7]  P. Hagoort,et al.  Integration of Word Meaning and World Knowledge in Language Comprehension , 2004, Science.

[8]  Walter Kintsch,et al.  Comprehension: A Paradigm for Cognition , 1998 .

[9]  Fernanda Ferreira,et al.  The misinterpretation of noncanonical sentences , 2003, Cognitive Psychology.

[10]  D. Goff,et al.  Increased temporal and prefrontal activity in response to semantic associations in schizophrenia. , 2007, Archives of general psychiatry.

[11]  Colin M. Brown,et al.  Anticipating upcoming words in discourse: evidence from ERPs and reading times. , 2005, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[12]  Karl J. Friston.  The disconnection hypothesis , 1998, Schizophrenia Research.

[13]  S. Andrews,et al.  Event-related potential indices of semantic processing in schizophrenia , 1993, Biological Psychiatry.

[14]  M. Kutas,et al.  An electrophysiological analysis of animacy effects in the processing of object relative sentences. , 1999, Psychophysiology.

[15]  M. Just,et al.  From the SelectedWorks of Marcel Adam Just 1992 A capacity theory of comprehension : Individual differences in working memory , 2017 .

[16]  Gina R Kuperberg,et al.  The time course of building discourse coherence in schizophrenia: an ERP investigation. , 2007, Psychophysiology.

[17]  E. J. O'Brien,et al.  Maintaining global coherence during reading , 1994 .

[18]  Gina R Kuperberg,et al.  What can Event-related Potentials tell us about language, and perhaps even thought, in schizophrenia? , 2010, International journal of psychophysiology : official journal of the International Organization of Psychophysiology.

[19]  Mante S. Nieuwland,et al.  Individual differences and contextual bias in pronoun resolution: Evidence from ERPs , 2006, Brain Research.

[20]  J. Elman,et al.  A basis for generating expectancies for verbs from nouns , 2005, Memory & cognition.

[21]  Gina R Kuperberg,et al.  Making sense of sentences in schizophrenia: electrophysiological evidence for abnormal interactions between semantic and syntactic processing. , 2006, Journal of abnormal psychology.

[22]  J. Ragland,et al.  Alterations of fronto-temporal connectivity during word encoding in schizophrenia , 2007, Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging.

[23]  F. Dick,et al.  Language deficits, localization, and grammar: evidence for a distributive model of language breakdown in aphasic patients and neurologically intact individuals. , 2001, Psychological review.

[24]  Mante S. Nieuwland,et al.  When the Truth Is Not Too Hard to Handle , 2008, Psychological science.

[25]  Albert Kim,et al.  The Cambridge Handbook of Psycholinguistics: The Neurobiology of Sentence Comprehension , 2012 .

[26]  D. Goff,et al.  Neurocognitive abnormalities during comprehension of real-world goal-directed behaviors in schizophrenia. , 2009, Journal of abnormal psychology.

[27]  K. Rayner,et al.  Making and correcting errors during sentence comprehension: Eye movements in the analysis of structurally ambiguous sentences , 1982, Cognitive Psychology.

[28]  Marianna D. Eddy,et al.  Regionally localized thinning of the cerebral cortex in schizophrenia , 2003, Schizophrenia Research.

[29]  H. Kolk,et al.  Late positivities in unusual situations , 2007, Brain and Language.

[30]  Deanna M Barch,et al.  Language comprehension and working memory language comprehension and working memory deficits in patients with schizophrenia , 2003, Schizophrenia Research.

[31]  R. McCarley,et al.  Aberrant semantic activation in schizophrenia: a neurophysiological study. , 1997, The American journal of psychiatry.

[32]  E. Kaan,et al.  The brain circuitry of syntactic comprehension , 2002, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[33]  E. Bleuler.  [Dementia praecox or the group of schizophrenias]. , 1968, Vertex.

[34]  Shanley E. M. Allen,et al.  The Cambridge Handbook of Child Language: Verb argument structure , 2009 .

[35]  R Ratcliff,et al.  Semantic associations and elaborative inference. , 1989, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[36]  A. Friederici,et al.  Syntactic Gender and Semantic Expectancy: ERPs Reveal Early Autonomy and Late Interaction , 2000, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[37]  C. Petten.  A comparison of lexical and sentence-level context effects in event-related potentials , 1993 .

[38]  Katherine A. DeLong,et al.  Probabilistic word pre-activation during language comprehension inferred from electrical brain activity , 2005, Nature Neuroscience.

[39]  Gina R. Kuperberg,et al.  Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Reveals Neuroanatomical Dissociations During Semantic Integration in Schizophrenia , 2008, Biological Psychiatry.

[40]  J. Fodor.  The Modularity of mind. An essay on faculty psychology , 1986 .

[41]  Kara D. Federmeier,et al.  Electrophysiology reveals semantic memory use in language comprehension , 2000, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[42]  Phillip J. Holcomb,et al.  Two Neurocognitive Mechanisms of Semantic Integration during the Comprehension of Visual Real-world Events , 2008, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[43]  K. Amunts,et al.  Broca's region , 2006 .

[44]  Kara D. Federmeier.  Thinking ahead: the role and roots of prediction in language comprehension. , 2007, Psychophysiology.

[45]  L. J. Chapman,et al.  A THEORY OF VERBAL BEHAVIOR IN SCHIZOPHRENIA. , 1964, Progress in experimental personality research.

[46]  R. McCarley,et al.  ERP assessment of visual and auditory language processing in schizophrenia. , 1997, Journal of abnormal psychology.

[47]  Simon Garrod,et al.  The role of scenario mapping in text comprehension. , 1998 .

[48]  Peter Hagoort,et al.  The Neural Integration of Speaker and Message , 2008, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[49]  Maryellen C. MacDonald,et al.  The lexical nature of syntactic ambiguity resolution , 1994 .

[50]  Terry E. Goldberg,et al.  The Neuropsychology of Mental Illness: Behavioral and electrophysiological approaches to understanding language dysfunction in neuropsychiatric disorders: insights from the study of schizophrenia , 2009 .

[51]  A. Friederici,et al.  Verb Argument Structure Processing: The Role of Verb-Specific and Argument-Specific Information☆☆☆ , 2000 .

[52]  Kara D. Federmeier,et al.  A Rose by Any Other Name: Long-Term Memory Structure and Sentence Processing , 1999 .

[53]  Brian A. Lawlor,et al.  A single oral dose challenge of buspirone does not affect memory processes in older volunteers , 1992, Biological Psychiatry.

[54]  Z. Harris,et al.  Foundations of language , 1941 .

[55]  W. Kintsch.  The role of knowledge in discourse comprehension: a construction-integration model. , 1988, Psychological review.

[56]  Gina R Kuperberg,et al.  Building up linguistic context in schizophrenia: evidence from self-paced reading. , 2006, Neuropsychology.

[57]  Martin Paczynski,et al.  Establishing Causal Coherence across Sentences: An ERP Study , 2011, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[58]  Paul Fletcher,et al.  The eye's mind: brain mapping and psychiatry , 2003, British Journal of Psychiatry.

[59]  R. Jackendoff.  Foundations of Language: Brain, Meaning, Grammar, Evolution , 2002 .

[60]  T. Ditman,et al.  Building coherence: A framework for exploring the breakdown of links across clause boundaries in schizophrenia , 2010, Journal of Neurolinguistics.

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

[62]  Y. Grodzinsky,et al.  A blueprint for a brain map of syntax1 , 2004 .

[63]  S. Steinhauer,et al.  The language system in schizophrenia: effects of capacity and linguistic structure. , 2002, Schizophrenia bulletin.

[64]  M. Kutas,et al.  Psycholinguistics Electrified II (1994–2005) , 2006 .

[65]  R. McCarley,et al.  ERP abnormalities during semantic processing in schizophrenia , 1993, Schizophrenia Research.

[66]  T. Crow.  Schizophrenia as the price that Homo sapiens pays for language: a resolution of the central paradox in the origin of the species , 2000, Brain Research Reviews.

[67]  P. McGuire,et al.  Sensitivity to linguistic anomalies in spoken sentences: a case study approach to understanding thought disorder in schizophrenia , 2000, Psychological Medicine.

[68]  S. Garrod,et al.  Understanding written language: Explorations of comprehension beyond the sentence , 1981 .

[69]  Lorraine K. Tyler,et al.  Spoken language comprehension : an experimental approach to disordered and normal processing , 1992 .

[70]  S. Steinhauer,et al.  Working memory capacity predicts language comprehension in schizophrenic patients , 1996, Schizophrenia Research.

[71]  P. McGuire,et al.  Reduced sensitivity to linguistic context in schizophrenic thought disorder: evidence from on-line monitoring for words in linguistically anomalous sentences. , 1998, Journal of abnormal psychology.

[72]  D. Levy,et al.  Contextual insensitivity in schizophrenic language processing: evidence from lexical ambiguity. , 2000, Journal of abnormal psychology.

[73]  J. Ford,et al.  Reduced communication between frontal and temporal lobes during talking in schizophrenia , 2002, Biological Psychiatry.

[74]  Marianna D. Eddy,et al.  Regionally Localized Thinning of the Cerebral Cortex in Schizophrenia , 2003 .

[75]  E. Matsushima,et al.  An event-related potential study in schizophrenia using Japanese sentences , 1999, Schizophrenia Research.

[76]  Edward J. O'Brien,et al.  What is readily available during reading? A memory‐based view of text processing , 1998 .

[77]  Murray Singer,et al.  The role of working memory capacity and knowledge access in text inference processing , 1996, Memory & cognition.

[78]  Michael K. Tanenhaus,et al.  Lexical structure and language comprehension , 1989 .

[79]  Debra Titone,et al.  Idiom processing in schizophrenia: literal implausibility saves the day for idiom priming. , 2002, Journal of abnormal psychology.

[80]  William D. Marslen-Wilson,et al.  Lexical Representations in Spoken Language Comprehension , 1988 .

[81]  S. Andrews,et al.  Active and passive attention in schizophrenia: An ERP study of information processing in a linguistic task , 1991, Biological Psychology.

[82]  S. Frisch,et al.  The N400 reflects problems of thematic hierarchizing , 2001, Neuroreport.

[83]  Tatiana Sitnikova,et al.  Electrophysiological insights into language processing in schizophrenia. , 2002, Psychophysiology.

[84]  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.

[85]  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.

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

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

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

[89]  Jerome L. Myers,et al.  Accessing the discourse representation during reading , 1998 .

[90]  Julie E. Boland,et al.  Chapter 13 The Role of Lexical Representations in Sentence Processing , 1991 .