Imaging High-level Semantic Memory: A Pilot Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) Investigation

在国家科学基金会的支持下，Perfetti博士将进行为期一年的调查，以研究大脑以依赖于单词含义的方式存储单词信息的可能性。 例如，具体的词，如“狗”和抽象的词，如“信仰”是相当不同的，在上下文中使用，以及他们的意义类别。因此，人们往往有具体的共同形象与具体的话，而抽象的话唤起更多的特质图像。 虽然我们对大脑如何表现这些和其他意义差异知之甚少，但一种非常普遍的可能性是，意义是在一组完整的大脑区域中表现的。一个具体的词，如“狗”，可能包括与特定的狗的广泛经验，除了更一般的信息，关于视觉（大多数狗看起来像什么）和听觉属性（狗发出的声音）与狗相关联。人们通常也有类别信息，推断狗是哺乳动物也是动物。相比之下，我们对词义的认识更多地来自于语言语境，而不是来自于具体对象（例如“信仰”），这可能会有不同的表现。例如，像“信仰”这样的抽象词可能与感知系统的联系较弱，而更多地依赖于语言系统内的联系。为了探索这些可能性，功能磁共振成像方法将检查当成年人执行涉及单词含义的简单任务时特定大脑区域的血流。这个项目的最初目标是确定这种方法的承诺，提供有关组织的词义信息。这类研究的长期目标是了解大脑区域如何协同工作，以支持人类掌握与日常经验仅间接相关的概念的能力。增加这类知识对于科学地理解人类的智力能力，以及对各种损伤后这些能力的丧失、恢复和重组都很重要。

With National Science Foundation support, Dr. Perfetti will conduct a one year investigation into the possibility that the brain stores information about words in ways that depend on their meanings. For example, concrete words such as "dog" and abstract words such as "faith" are quite different in the contexts of their use as well as their meaning categories. Thus, people often have specific common images associated with concrete words whereas abstract words evoke more idiosyncratic images. Although little is known about how the brain represents these and other meaning differences, one very general possibility is meanings are represented across an integrated set of brain regions. A concrete word such as "dog" may include extensive experience with a particular dog, in addition to more general information about visual (what most dogs look like) and auditory attributes (sounds made by a dog) associated with dogs. People typically have category information as well, inferring that a dog is a mammal as well as an animal. By comparison, our knowledge of word meanings that are derived more from verbal contexts and less from concrete objects (e.g. "faith") could be represented differently. For example, an abstract word such as "faith" may have weaker connections to perceptual systems and more reliance on connections within the language system. To explore these possibilities, fMRI methods will examine blood flow to specific brain regions when adults perform simple tasks that involve the meanings of words. The initial goal of this project is to identify the promise of this method for providing information about the organization of word meanings. The longer term goal for research of this kind is to learn how brain areas work together to support the human ability to grasp concepts that are only indirectly connected to everyday experience. Increased knowledge of this type is important to a scientific understanding of human intellectual abilities and to the loss, recovery, and reorganization of these abilities that can follow impairments of various kinds.