Unification of Speaker and Meaning in Language Comprehension: An fMRI Study

When interpreting a message, a listener takes into account several sources of linguistic and extralinguistic information. Here we focused on one particular form of extralinguistic information, certain speaker characteristics as conveyed by the voice. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we e...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of cognitive neuroscience 2009-11, Vol.21 (11), p.2085-2099
Main Authors: Tesink, Cathelijne M. J. Y, Petersson, Karl Magnus, van Berkum, Jos J. A, van den Brink, Daniëlle, Buitelaar, Jan K, Hagoort, Peter
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Age
Auditory Perception
Brain
Brain Mapping
Comprehension
Comprehension - physiology
Concept Formation - physiology
Female
Frontal Lobe - physiology
Humans
Individual Characteristics
Inferences
Language
Language Processing
Language Tests
Linguistics
Listening comprehension
Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Male
Medicin och hälsovetenskap
Neurological Organization
Neurosciences
NMR
Nuclear magnetic resonance
Psycholinguistics
Reference Values
Sentences
Sex
Social Perception
Socioeconomic Background
Speech Perception - physiology
Studies
Voice Quality - physiology
Young Adult
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Summary:When interpreting a message, a listener takes into account several sources of linguistic and extralinguistic information. Here we focused on one particular form of extralinguistic information, certain speaker characteristics as conveyed by the voice. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we examined the neural structures involved in the unification of sentence meaning and voice-based inferences about the speaker's age, sex, or social background. We found enhanced activation in the inferior frontal gyrus bilaterally (BA 45/47) during listening to sentences whose meaning was incongruent with inferred speaker characteristics. Furthermore, our results showed an overlap in brain regions involved in unification of speaker-related information and those used for the unification of semantic and world knowledge information [inferior frontal gyrus bilaterally (BA 45/47) and left middle temporal gyrus (BA 21)]. These findings provide evidence for a shared neural unification system for linguistic and extralinguistic sources of information and extend the existing knowledge about the role of inferior frontal cortex as a crucial component for unification during language comprehension.
ISSN:0898-929X
1530-8898
DOI:10.1162/jocn.2008.21161