The role of the left anterior temporal lobe in semantic composition vs. semantic memory
The role of the left anterior temporal lobe in semantic composition vs. semantic memory
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DOI：
10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2014.03.001
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发表时间：
2014-05
期刊：
影响因子：
2.6
通讯作者：
Masha Westerlund;L. Pylkkänen
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Masha Westerlund;L. Pylkkänen
越来越多的文献表明左前颞叶（LATL）与语义加工密切相关。然而，这些结果来自两个不同的工作机构，涉及两个不同的处理水平。一方面，LATL已被表征为“语义中枢”，其基于语义痴呆的结果和与基本范例相比的特定分类的血流动力学发现，在分布式网络中绑定概念的特征。另一方面，LATL与语言中的组合操作有关，如与句子和基本短语的处理相关的该区域的活动增加所示。本工作旨在调和这两个文献中独立操纵组合和概念特异性的最小MEG范式。参与者查看简单的名词，表示要么低特异性（鱼）或高特异性类别（鳟鱼）在组合（斑点鱼/鳟鱼）或非组合的情况下（xhsl鱼/鳟鱼）。通过结合这两篇文献的研究范式，我们直接比较了LATL在语义记忆和语义合成中的作用。我们的研究结果表明，虽然名词特异性微妙地调节LATL活动引起的单个名词，它最强大的影响的组成效果的大小时，这些名词是形容词修饰，低特异性名词引起更大的影响。我们的结论是，这些研究结果是兼容的帐户，其中的特异性和组成的影响，从一个共同的机制的意义规范。
The left anterior temporal lobe (LATL) is robustly implicated in semantic processing by a growing body of literature. However, these results have emerged from two distinct bodies of work, addressing two different processing levels. On the one hand, the LATL has been characterized as a ‘semantic hub׳ that binds features of concepts across a distributed network, based on results from semantic dementia and hemodynamic findings on the categorization of specific compared to basic exemplars. On the other, the LATL has been implicated in combinatorial operations in language, as shown by increased activity in this region associated with the processing of sentences and of basic phrases. The present work aimed to reconcile these two literatures by independently manipulating combination and concept specificity within a minimal MEG paradigm. Participants viewed simple nouns that denoted either low specificity (fish) or high specificity categories (trout) presented in either combinatorial (spotted fish/trout) or non-combinatorial contexts (xhsl fish/trout). By combining these paradigms from the two literatures, we directly compared the engagement of the LATL in semantic memory vs. semantic composition. Our results indicate that although noun specificity subtly modulates the LATL activity elicited by single nouns, it most robustly affects the size of the composition effect when these nouns are adjectivally modified, with low specificity nouns eliciting a much larger effect. We conclude that these findings are compatible with an account in which the specificity and composition effects arise from a shared mechanism of meaning specification.