Conflict and cognitive control during sentence comprehension: Recruitment of a frontal network during the processing of Spanish object-first sentences

• Published in: Neuropsychologia 2011-02, Vol.49 (3), p.382-391
• Main Authors: del Río, David, Maestú, Fernando, López-Higes, Ramón, Moratti, Stephan, Gutiérrez, Ricardo, Maestú, Ceferino, del-Pozo, Francisco
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adult; Analysis of Variance; Anatomical correlates of behavior; Behavioral psychophysiology; Biological and medical sciences; Brain Hemisphere Functions; Cognition - physiology; Cognitive Processes; Comprehension - physiology; Conflict; Conflict (Psychology); Diagnostic Tests; Evoked Potentials; Female; Frontal cortex; Frontal Lobe - physiology; Functional Laterality - physiology; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Humans; Language; Language Processing; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Magnetoencephalography; Male; Nerve Net - physiology; Nouns; Phrase Structure; Psycholinguistics; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Psychomotor Performance - physiology; Reaction Time - physiology; Reading; Sentence comprehension; Sentence Structure; Spanish; Syntactic processing; Syntax; Thematic roles; Word order; Young Adult
• ISSN: 0028-3932; 1873-3514
• DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2010.12.005

▶ Spanish subject-first cleft sentences are easier to process than object-first clefts. ▶ Spanish object-first cleft sentences engender a process of revision. ▶ This revision is associated with the time modulated activity of a frontal network. ▶ This includes late processes of conflict monitoring at anterior medial frontal areas. During sentence processing there is a preference to treat the first noun phrase found as the subject and agent, unless marked the other way. This preference would lead to a conflict in thematic role assignment when the syntactic structure conforms to a non-canonical object-before-subject pattern. Left perisylvian and fronto-parietal brain networks have been found to be engaged by increased computational demands during sentence comprehension, while event-reated brain potentials have been used to study the on-line manifestation of these demands. However, evidence regarding the spatiotemporal organization of brain networks in this domain is scarce. In the current study we used Magnetoencephalography to track spatio-temporally brain activity while Spanish speakers were reading subject- and object-first cleft sentences. Both kinds of sentences remained ambiguous between a subject-first or an object-first interpretation up to the appearance of the second argument. Results show the time-modulation of a frontal network at the disambiguation point of object-first sentences. Moreover, the time windows where these effects took place have been previously related to thematic role integration (300–500ms) and to sentence reanalysis and resolution of conflicts during processing (beyond 500ms post-stimulus). These results point to frontal cognitive control as a putative key mechanism which may operate when a revision of the sentence structure and meaning is necessary.