Abstract
Quantifiers, like “some” or “few,” are frequent in daily language. Linguists posit at least three distinct classes of quantifiers: cardinal quantifiers that rely on numerosity, majority quantifiers that additionally depend on executive resources, and logical quantifiers that rely on perceptual attention. We used BOLD fMRI to investigate the roles of frontal and parietal regions in quantifier comprehension. Participants performed a sentence-picture verification task to determine whether a sentence containing a quantifier accurately describes a picture. A whole-brain analysis identified a network involved in quantifier comprehension: This implicated bilateral inferior parietal, superior parietal and dorsolateral prefrontal cortices, and right inferior frontal cortex. We then performed region-of-interest analyses to assess the relative contribution of each region for each quantifier class. Inferior parietal cortex was equally activated across all quantifier classes, consistent with prior studies implicating the region for quantifier comprehension due in part to its role in the representation of number knowledge. Right superior parietal cortex was up-regulated in comparison to frontal regions for cardinal and logical quantifiers, but parietal and frontal regions were equally activated for majority quantifiers and each frontal region is most highly activated for majority quantifiers. This finding is consistent with the hypothesis that majority quantifiers rely on numerosity mechanisms in parietal cortex and executive mechanisms in frontal cortex. Also, right inferior frontal cortex was up-regulated for logical compared to cardinal quantifiers, which may be related to selection demands associated with logical quantifier comprehension. We conclude that distinct components of a large-scale fronto-parietal network contribute to specific aspects of quantifier comprehension, and that this biologically defined network is consistent with cognitive theories of quantifier meaning.
Highlights
In the phrase “at least three blue birds,” the property is the number of blue birds and the truth-value here is whether this quantity of blue birds falls above the limit “three.” While we know a great deal about the formal semantic properties of generalized quantifiers (Barwise and Cooper, 1981; van Benthem, 1986), we understand little about the neural basis for quantifier comprehension
We identified a large-scale network in parietal and frontal cortex that supports the comprehension of multiple classes of quantifiers, and we evaluated the relative contribution of these components to each class of quantifier
Within the www.frontiersin.org fronto-parietal network recruited by all quantifiers, we observed that dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) is up-regulated during the comprehension of majority quantifiers compared to other quantifier classes and that right inferior frontal cortex is recruited for the comprehension of logical quantifiers compared to cardinal quantifiers
Summary
Phrases such as “at least three,” “less than half,” and “some” are very frequent. In the phrase “at least three blue birds,” the property is the number of blue birds and the truth-value here is whether this quantity of blue birds falls above the limit “three.” While we know a great deal about the formal semantic properties of generalized quantifiers (Barwise and Cooper, 1981; van Benthem, 1986), we understand little about the neural basis for quantifier comprehension. “Majority” quantifiers like “most” or “less than half ” involve a number component and depend on computational resources such as strategic processing and working memory before the truth statement can be evaluated. “some” involves detecting a group of targets; finding a single exception is necessary for “not all” to be true
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