Visual Sentence Research Articles

Speech Prosody Serves Temporal Prediction of Language via Contextual Entrainment.

Temporal prediction assists language comprehension. In a series of recent behavioral studies, we have shown that listeners specifically employ rhythmic modulations of prosody to estimate the duration of upcoming sentences, thereby speeding up comprehension. In the current human magnetoencephalography (MEG) study on participants of either sex, we show that the human brain achieves this function through a mechanism termed entrainment. Through entrainment, electrophysiological brain activity maintains and continues contextual rhythms beyond their offset. Our experiment combined exposure to repetitive prosodic contours with the subsequent presentation of visual sentences that either matched or mismatched the duration of the preceding contour. During exposure to prosodic contours, we observed MEG coherence with the contours, which was source-localized to right-hemispheric auditory areas. During the processing of the visual targets, activity at the frequency of the preceding contour was still detectable in the MEG; yet sources shifted to the (left) frontal cortex, in line with a functional inheritance of the rhythmic acoustic context for prediction. Strikingly, when the target sentence was shorter than expected from the preceding contour, an omission response appeared in the evoked potential record. We conclude that prosodic entrainment is a functional mechanism of temporal prediction in language comprehension. In general, acoustic rhythms appear to endow language for employing the brain's electrophysiological mechanisms of temporal prediction.

Line as a Visual Sentence: Context-Aware Line Descriptor for Visual Localization

Along with feature points for image matching, line features provide additional constraints to solve visual geometric problems in robotics and computer vision (CV). Although recent convolutional neural network (CNN)-based line descriptors are promising for viewpoint changes or dynamic environments, we claim that the CNN architecture has innate disadvantages to abstract variable line length into the fixed-dimensional descriptor. In this paper, we effectively introduce Line-Transformers dealing with variable lines. Inspired by natural language processing (NLP) tasks where sentences can be understood and abstracted well in neural nets, we view a line segment as a sentence that contains points (words). By attending to well-describable points on aline dynamically, our descriptor performs excellently on variable line length. We also propose line signature networks sharing the line's geometric attributes to neighborhoods. Performing as group descriptors, the networks enhance line descriptors by understanding lines' relative geometries. Finally, we present the proposed line descriptor and matching in a Point and Line Localization (PL-Loc). We show that the visual localization with feature points can be improved using our line features. We validate the proposed method for homography estimation and visual localization.

HD-tDCS over motor cortex facilitates figurative and literal action sentence processing

The extent to which action and perception systems of the brain are involved in semantic comprehension remains controversial. Whether figurative language, such as metaphors and idioms, is grounded in sensory-motor systems is especially contentious. Here, we used high-definition transcranial direct current stimulation (HD-tDCS) in healthy adults to examine the role of the left-hemisphere motor cortex during the comprehension of action sentences, relative to comprehension of sentences with visual verbs. Action sentences were divided into three types: literal, metaphoric, or idiomatic. This allowed us to ask whether processing of action verbs used in figurative contexts relies on motor cortex. The results revealed that action sentence comprehension response times were facilitated relative to the visual sentence control. Significant interaction relative to visual sentences was observed for literal, metaphoric, and idiomatic action sentences with HD-tDCS of the motor cortex. These results suggest that the left motor cortex is functionally involved in action sentence comprehension. Furthermore, this involvement exists when the action content of the sentences is figurative, for both idiomatic and metaphoric cases. The results provide evidence for functional links between conceptual and action systems of the brain.

The effect of monetary reward on listening effort and sentence recognition

Recently we showed that higher reward results in increased pupil dilation during listening (listening effort). Remarkably, this effect was not accompanied with improved speech reception. Still, increased listening effort may reflect more in-depth processing, potentially resulting in a better memory representation of speech. Here, we investigated this hypothesis by also testing the effect of monetary reward on recognition memory performance. Twenty-four young adults performed speech reception threshold (SRT) tests, either hard or easy, in which they repeated sentences uttered by a female talker masked by a male talker. We recorded the pupil dilation response during listening. Participants could earn a high or low reward and the four conditions were presented in a blocked fashion. After each SRT block, participants performed a visual sentence recognition task. In this task, the sentences that were presented in the preceding SRT task were visually presented in random order and intermixed with unfamiliar sentences. Participants had to indicate whether they had previously heard the sentence or not. The SRT and sentence recognition were affected by task difficulty but not by reward. Contrary to our previous results, peak pupil dilation did not reflect effects of reward. However, post-hoc time course analysis (GAMMs) revealed that in the hard SRT task, the pupil response was larger for high than low reward. We did not observe an effect of reward on visual sentence recognition. Hence, the current results provide no conclusive evidence that the effect of monetary reward on the pupil response relates to the memory encoding of speech.

Face recognition in beginning readers: Investigating the potential relationship between reading and face recognition during the first year of school

ABSTRACT Reading acquisition has been suggested to drive the lateralization of the face processing system to the right cerebral hemisphere. To investigate whether this developmental co-dependency has a behavioural cost, at least in the short run, we tested whether learning to read reduced face recognition ability. In a longitudinal design, 82 children (5–7 years) were tested twice, at the beginning and end of their first year in school. In both sessions, visual letter recognition, word recognition, sentence reading, and immediate face recognition were tested. Reliable increases were found across all four measures, suggesting no absolute cost of literacy acquisition on face processing efficiency. In addition, we found no evidence suggesting a negative relationship between literacy acquisition and face recognition performance. Indeed, our results were most supportive of the null hypothesis suggesting independence in the development of literacy and face processing skills on the behavioural level.

Gesture's body orientation modulates the N400 for visual sentences primed by gestures.

Body orientation of gesture entails social‐communicative intention, and may thus influence how gestures are perceived and comprehended together with auditory speech during face‐to‐face communication. To date, despite the emergence of neuroscientific literature on the role of body orientation on hand action perception, limited studies have directly investigated the role of body orientation in the interaction between gesture and language. To address this research question, we carried out an electroencephalography (EEG) experiment presenting to participants (n = 21) videos of frontal and lateral communicative hand gestures of 5 s (e.g., raising a hand), followed by visually presented sentences that are either congruent or incongruent with the gesture (e.g., “the mountain is high/low…”). Participants underwent a semantic probe task, judging whether a target word is related or unrelated to the gesture‐sentence event. EEG results suggest that, during the perception phase of handgestures, while both frontal and lateral gestures elicited a power decrease in both the alpha (8–12 Hz) and the beta (16–24 Hz) bands, lateral versus frontal gestures elicited reduced power decrease in the beta band, source‐located to the medial prefrontal cortex. For sentence comprehension, at the critical word whose meaning is congruent/incongruent with the gesture prime, frontal gestures elicited an N400 effect for gesture‐sentence incongruency. More importantly, this incongruency effect was significantly reduced for lateral gestures. These findings suggest that body orientation plays an important role in gesture perception, and that its inferred social‐communicative intention may influence gesture‐language interaction at semantic level.

Unconstrained multivariate EEG decoding can help detect lexical-semantic processing in individual children

In conditions such as minimally-verbal autism, standard assessments of language comprehension are often unreliable. Given the known heterogeneity within the autistic population, it is crucial to design tests of semantic comprehension that are sensitive in individuals. Recent efforts to develop neural signals of language comprehension have focused on the N400, a robust marker of lexical-semantic violation at the group level. However, homogeneity of response in individual neurotypical children has not been established. Here, we presented 20 neurotypical children with congruent and incongruent visual animations and spoken sentences while measuring their neural response using electroencephalography (EEG). Despite robust group-level responses, we found high inter-individual variability in response to lexico-semantic anomalies. To overcome this, we analysed our data using temporally and spatially unconstrained multivariate pattern analyses (MVPA), supplemented by descriptive analyses to examine the timecourse, topography, and strength of the effect. Our results show that neurotypical children exhibit heterogenous responses to lexical-semantic violation, implying that any application to heterogenous disorders such as autism spectrum disorder will require individual-subject analyses that are robust to variation in topology and timecourse of neural responses.

Relationship Between Auditory and Visual Noise Acceptance in Normal-Hearing Listeners.

Research has shown that hearing aid acceptance is closely related to how well an individual tolerates background noise, regardless of improved speech understanding in background noise. The acceptable noise level (ANL) test was developed to quantify background noise acceptance. The ANL test measures a listener's willingness to listen to speech in noise rather than their ability to understand speech in noise, and is clinically valuable as a predictor of hearing aid success. Noise acceptance is thought to be mediated by central regions of the nervous system, but the underlying mechanism of noise acceptance is not well understood. Higher order central efferent mechanisms may be weaker and/or central afferent mechanisms are more active in listeners with large versus small ANLs. Noise acceptance, therefore, may not be limited to the auditory modality but observable across modalities. We designed a visual-ANL test, as a parallel of the auditory-ANL test, to examine the relations between auditory and visual noise acceptance. A correlational design. Thirty-seven adults between the ages of 21 and 30 years with normal hearing participated in this study. All participants completed the standard auditory-ANL task, the visual-ANL task developed for this study, reception thresholds for sentences using the hearing in noise test, and visual sentence recognition in noise using the text reception threshold test. Correlational analyses were performed to evaluate the relations between and among the ANL and perception tasks. Auditory- and Visual-ANLs were correlated; those who accepted more auditory noise were also those who accepted more visual noise. Auditory and visual perceptual measures were also correlated, demonstrating that both measures reflect common processes underlying the ability to recognize speech in noise. Finally, as expected, noise acceptance levels were unrelated to perception in noise across modalities. The results of this study support our hypothesis that noise acceptance may not be unique to the auditory modality, specifically, that the common variance shared between the two ANL tasks, may reflect a shared general perceptual or cognitive mechanism that is not specific to the auditory or visual domains. These findings also support that noise acceptance and speech recognition reflect different aspects of auditory and visual perception. Future work will relate these ANL measures with central tasks of inhibition and include hearing-impaired individuals to explore the mechanisms underlying noise acceptance.

GraphTQL: A visual query system for graph databases

Abstract End-users who are experts in an application domain need to retrieve data from databases in order to answer particular inquiries. Visual Query Systems (VQSs) facilitate this task; but, formulating complex queries is still challenging for end-users. In particular, VQSs for graph databases can be broadly classified into two groups: One group is based on data exploration and allow for direct manipulation of data graphs, but with limited query expressiveness. The other group, oriented to build visual sentences that represent the query, provide greater expressiveness, but they transfer complex language concepts and operations to the visual language. Thus, this research developed GraphTQL a visual query system that provides greater expressiveness and ease in the query formulation. GraphTQL uses a graph data model to depict the domain of interest at the conceptual level. A set of operators provides the means to transform schema and instance graphs, reducing them progressively to obtain the data of interest. The operators include implicit management of incomplete data; as well as clarification dialogues to guide users in order to express complex filter conditions and to select the paths which connect entities in the graph. The development of GraphTQL followed a user-centered design approach which focused on the medical domain. Thus, potential users’ contribution and feedback played a significant role in this work. A comparison with a graphical query interface for SPARQL showed better results for GraphTQL regarding the number of queries correctly formulated by users, the number of errors and the time spent for query formulation.

Neural networks for sentence comprehension and production: An ALE-based meta-analysis of neuroimaging studies.

Comprehending and producing sentences is a complex endeavor requiring the coordinated activity of multiple brain regions. We examined three issues related to the brain networks underlying sentence comprehension and production in healthy individuals: First, which regions are recruited for sentence comprehension and sentence production? Second, are there differences for auditory sentence comprehension vs. visual sentence comprehension? Third, which regions are specifically recruited for the comprehension of syntactically complex sentences? Results from activation likelihood estimation (ALE) analyses (from 45 studies) implicated a sentence comprehension network occupying bilateral frontal and temporal lobe regions. Regions implicated in production (from 15 studies) overlapped with the set of regions associated with sentence comprehension in the left hemisphere, but did not include inferior frontal cortex, and did not extend to the right hemisphere. Modality differences between auditory and visual sentence comprehension were found principally in the temporal lobes. Results from the analysis of complex syntax (from 37 studies) showed engagement of left inferior frontal and posterior temporal regions, as well as the right insula. The involvement of the right hemisphere in the comprehension of these structures has potentially important implications for language treatment and recovery in individuals with agrammatic aphasia following left hemisphere brain damage.

Phonetic recalibration of visual and auditory speech by visual sentences

Phonetic recalibration is a form of perceptual learning in which experience with an ambiguous speech segment accompanied by disambiguating context biases subsequent perception of that segment. For example, presenting an auditory "f" final word (i.e., “Witlof”; Dutch for “Chicory”) with the final fricative replaced with a sound between /s/ and /f/ results in participants subsequently categorizing more items from a /f/-/s/ continuum as /f/ (Norris, McQueen, Cutler 2003). A similar effect is found for ambiguous visual speech that is accompanied by clear auditory speech (Baart & Vroomen 2010), and for ambiguous auditory speech that is accompanied by clear visual speech (e.g., Vroomen & Baart, 2009). It is unknown whether visual speech alone can recalibrate visual speech segments or whether recalibration in one modality can be transferred to another modality (but see, Dias & Rosenblum 2016). In Experiment 1 of this study we found that sentence context disambiguated a silent visual ambiguous /s/f/ fricative and resulted in visual recalibration. Experiment 2 used these same silent sentences but measured recalibration on an auditory continuum. Preliminary results suggest that recalibration effects can be transferred across modalities in this way. These experiments have implications for theories of amodal perceptual learning.

Modulation of Task-Related and Resting-State Oscillatory Responses in Primary Progressive Aphasia

Event Abstract Back to Event Modulation of Task-Related and Resting-State Oscillatory Responses in Primary Progressive Aphasia Aneta Kielar1*, Regina Jokel2 and Jed A. Meltzer2 1 University of Arizona, Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences, United States 2 Baycrest Hospital, Rotman Research Institute, Canada Introduction: Patients with PPA respond to linguistic stimuli differently than healthy controls, reflecting degeneration of language networks and engagement of compensatory mechanisms1,2,3,4,5. Although the location of neurodegeneration is thus far the best predictor of individual variation in linguistic performance across patients, alterations in network function beyond the regions of major atrophy may provide valuable information on how the brain copes with ongoing neurodegeneration. Aims: We used magnetoencephalography (MEG) to evaluate patterns of oscillatory responses during sentence comprehension and spontaneous brain electrical activity related to impairment and preservation of linguistic function in PPA. We asked whether impaired language processing in PPA is associated with altered patterns of induced and spontaneous oscillatory responses, and whether spared language functions can be associated with recruitment of preserved brain regions in the left and right hemispheres. Methods Participants: MEG data were acquired from 13 patients with PPA (Age: M = 69.62 years, SE = 2.08; Education = M = 14 years, SE = .85; 7 females) and 15 age-matched healthy controls (Age: M = 69 years, SE = 1.77; Education: M = 17 years, SE = .69, 4 females). Materials and Procedure: Participants performed a visual sentence comprehension task while their neural responses were examined using (MEG). The sentences included semantic anomalies (e.g., She went to the bakery for the loaf of books*/bread) and syntactically anomalous words (She going*/went to the bakery for the loaf of books) that evoked distinct electrophysiological responses. Results: Patients with PPA showed altered patterns of induced oscillations, characterized by delayed latencies and attenuated amplitude (Figure 1 A and B). In the left parietal region, PPA patients exhibited reversed sensitivity to semantic anomalies, with greater event-related desynchronization for control words instead (Figure 1 D). The recruitment of right hemisphere temporo-parietal areas (also found in controls) was correlated with preserved semantic processing abilities (Figure 1 E). In addition, delayed peak latencies of oscillatory responses to language stimuli were associated with lower accuracy for detecting semantic anomalies, suggesting that language deficits observed in PPA may be linked to delayed or slowed information processing. Patients with PPA exhibited altered spontaneous electrical activity, with a general shift to slower oscillations and decreased power at higher frequencies. These resting-state oscillatory abnormalities were correlated with slowed neural responses to language stimuli (Figure 1G), suggesting that degenerative pathology is linked with slower brain dynamics in both task-related and spontaneous activity. Discussion and Conclusions: The present results indicate that neuropathological changes in the brains of PPA patients result in slowed information processing, which, in turn, is linked with progressive cognitive decline. Preserved semantic processing is supported by the functionality of preserved right hemisphere regions. In contrast, syntactic processing seems to be more sensitive to the degeneration in left hemisphere language regions. The combination of spontaneous and language related oscillatory responses can reveal the extent of the neural tissue that is not directly atrophied, but is functionally compromised. Abnormalities in both resting-state and task-evoked oscillations can serve as sensitive indicators of neuronal damage associated with neurodegenerative conditions such as PPA. Figure 1 Acknowledgements This work was supported by a Basic Science Grant from the Ontario Brain Institute Ontario Neurodegenerative Disease Research Initiative (ONDRI) to JAM and RJ, an Alzheimer’s Association New Investigator Research Grant to JAM, and a postdoctoral research award from the Ontario Research Coalition to AK. We thank the participating volunteers and their families.

Cross-modal integration of polyphonic characters in Chinese audio-visual sentences: a MVPA study based on functional connectivity.

This study aimed to investigate the functional connectivity in the brain during the cross-modal integration of polyphonic characters in Chinese audio-visual sentences. The visual sentences were all semantically reasonable and the audible pronunciations of the polyphonic characters in corresponding sentences contexts varied in four conditions. To measure the functional connectivity, correlation, coherence and phase synchronization index (PSI) were used, and then multivariate pattern analysis was performed to detect the consensus functional connectivity patterns. These analyses were confined in the time windows of three event-related potential components of P200, N400 and late positive shift (LPS) to investigate the dynamic changes of the connectivity patterns at different cognitive stages. We found that when differentiating the polyphonic characters with abnormal pronunciations from that with the appreciate ones in audio-visual sentences, significant classification results were obtained based on the coherence in the time window of the P200 component, the correlation in the time window of the N400 component and the coherence and PSI in the time window the LPS component. Moreover, the spatial distributions in these time windows were also different, with the recruitment of frontal sites in the time window of the P200 component, the frontal-central-parietal regions in the time window of the N400 component and the central-parietal sites in the time window of the LPS component. These findings demonstrate that the functional interaction mechanisms are different at different stages of audio-visual integration of polyphonic characters.

Extending local context-based specifications of visual languages

In this paper we present a framework for the fast prototyping of visual languages exploiting their local context based specification.In previous research, the local context specification has been used as a weak form of syntactic specification to define when visual sentences are well formed. In this paper we add new features to the local context specification in order to fully specify complex constructs of visual languages such as entity-relationships, use case and class diagrams. One of the advantages of this technique is its simplicity of application and, to show this, we present a tool implementing our framework.Moreover, we describe a user study aimed at evaluating the effectiveness and the user satisfaction when prototyping a visual language.

Integration of moral values during L2 sentence processing

This study reports an event-related potential (ERP) experiment examining whether valuation (i.e., one's own values) is integrated incrementally and whether it affects L2 speakers' online interpretation of the sentence. We presented Spanish native speakers and French–Spanish mid-proficiency late L2 speakers with visual sentences containing value-consistent and value-inconsistent statements (e.g., ‘Nowadays, paedophilia should be prohibited/tolerated across the world.’). Participants' brain activity was recorded as they were reading the sentences and indicating whether they agreed with the statements or not. Behaviourally, the two groups revealed identical valuation. The ERP analyses showed both a semantic (N400) and an affect-related response (LPP) to value-inconsistent statements in the native group, but only an LPP in the non-native group. These results suggest that valuation is integrated online (presence of LPP) during L2 sentence comprehension but that it does not interfere with semantic processing (absence of N400).

Robot Learning Manipulation Action Plans by "Watching" Unconstrained Videos from the World Wide Web

In order to advance action generation and creation in robots beyond simple learned schemas we need computational tools that allow us to automatically interpret and represent human actions. This paper presents a system that learns manipulation action plans by processing unconstrained videos from the World Wide Web. Its goal is to robustly generate the sequence of atomic actions of seen longer actions in video in order to acquire knowledge for robots. The lower level of the system consists of two convolutional neural network (CNN) based recognition modules, one for classifying the hand grasp type and the other for object recognition. The higher level is a probabilistic manipulation action grammar based parsing module that aims at generating visual sentences for robot manipulation. Experiments conducted on a publicly available unconstrained video dataset show that the system is able to learn manipulation actions by ``watching'' unconstrained videos with high accuracy.

Brain activity during divided and selective attention to auditory and visual sentence comprehension tasks.

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we measured brain activity of human participants while they performed a sentence congruence judgment task in either the visual or auditory modality separately, or in both modalities simultaneously. Significant performance decrements were observed when attention was divided between the two modalities compared with when one modality was selectively attended. Compared with selective attention (i.e., single tasking), divided attention (i.e., dual-tasking) did not recruit additional cortical regions, but resulted in increased activity in medial and lateral frontal regions which were also activated by the component tasks when performed separately. Areas involved in semantic language processing were revealed predominantly in the left lateral prefrontal cortex by contrasting incongruent with congruent sentences. These areas also showed significant activity increases during divided attention in relation to selective attention. In the sensory cortices, no crossmodal inhibition was observed during divided attention when compared with selective attention to one modality. Our results suggest that the observed performance decrements during dual-tasking are due to interference of the two tasks because they utilize the same part of the cortex. Moreover, semantic dual-tasking did not appear to recruit additional brain areas in comparison with single tasking, and no crossmodal inhibition was observed during intermodal divided attention.

The P600 as a correlate of ventral attention network reorientation

When, during language processing, a reader or listener is confronted with a structurally deviant phrase, this typically elicits a late positive ERP deflection (P600). The P600 is often understood as a correlate of structural analysis. This assumption has informed a number of neurocognitive models of language. However, the P600 strongly resembles the P3, likely a more general electrophysiological correlate of reorientation behaviour supported by noradrenergic input to the ventral attention network/VAN. Some researchers have proposed that the P600 is an instance of the P3, not a distinct component reflecting the analysis of structured inputs. Here, we tested the P600-as-P3 hypothesis by estimating the alignment of the P600 elicited in a visual sentence processing task to simultaneously collected behavioural measures. A similar analysis was undertaken for a P3 elicited in a separate non-linguistic (face detection) task. Since the P3 is usually aligned to reaction time/RT, the same should hold for the P600; a failure to find RT alignment of the P600 would pose a problem for the P600-as-P3 hypothesis. In contrast, RT alignment of the P600 would associate it with the well-established VAN/Locus Coeruleus – Noradrenaline – Network subserving cortical reorientation.We failed to falsify the hypothesis of RT alignment. Secondary measures, while less unambiguous, were more in agreement with the P600-as-P3 hypothesis. We interpret our results as corroborating the hypothesis that the P600 is a P3, in that it shows that the P600 is RT-aligned. This perspective is unpredicted by an account of the P600 as indexing high-level processing.

A Semiotic approach to content analysis of lighting in Egyptian Films adapted from Naguib Mahfouz's novels

Many of the works of literature by Naguib Mahfouz received extensive studies occupying whole books and university theses, and his literary novels that were converted into films also received similar studies. But most of these studies were limited to the study of character building, narration and plot in both of them. However, the lighting language as the most important component of the language of cinematography in cinematic works taken on literary novels has not received any similar study. The research aims to highlight the role of lighting in the composition of the visual language in Egyptian cinematography, cited from the novels of Naguib Mahfouz, to serve events, character building and conflict with the novel. It also aims to provide a semiotic analysis of the lighting language in these films during the research body and also during the content analysis. It also aims to reveal the most important points of convergence and difference between the novel and cinematic lighting in films adapted from Naguib Mahfouz's literary novels. The research assumes that the lighting in the hands of the creative director of photography is able to create a visual image equivalent to the eloquence of the literary text in the novel. The researcher first studies the most important points of difference and convergence between the novel and the lighting of the cinematographic movie cited from it. He then describes and analyzes lighting in scenes from films adapted from the works of Naguib Mahfouz, using semiotics as an introduction to content analysis. The selection of the research by Naguib Mahfouz stems from his reaching the top of his artistic expression through the novel. And by that he occupied his place on the map of Arab national and international culture. The importance of Naguib Mahfouz in the cinema is not less than the importance of his presence in literature. Naguib Mahfouz's name appeared on the screen in 62 Egyptian films from 1947 until 1989, including eleven of the hundred best Egyptian films. Al-Matn permeates lighting analysis in a group of the most important films cited from his works, which are: "Beginning and End", "Cairo 30" and "Qasr Al-Shouq". The researcher aimed at analyzing the content to study the movie "The Thief and the Dogs", which is based on Naguib Mahfouz's novel "The Thief and the Dogs", as a selected sample for the purpose of analysis and achieving the research objectives. The research follows the descriptive and analytical method for displaying and analyzing the content of the cinematic visual image through its most important vocabulary, which is lighting in different shots and scenes from films adapted from the works of Naguib Mahfouz. One of the most important findings of the research is that the lighting in the hands of the creative director of photography turns into a visual language, and it has a rhetorical ability that parallels the narrative language in expressing the psychological states of the film's characters, their struggles and the events they pass through. The relationship between the signifier and the signified in the language of illumination is not confined to the iconic mark only, but the relationship between them can often be symbolic, which gives the illumination a clear semantic depth. Lighting is subject to the concept of the original signifier and additional linguistic mean. Also, the success of Kamal Karim in the movie "The Thief and the Dogs" in using lighting creatively to create homogeneous visual sentences that tell a drama and loaded with indications, has achieved the desired goal in the novel

Action Sentences Activate Sensory Motor Regions in the Brain Independently of Their Status of Reality

Some studies have reported that understanding concrete action-related words and sentences elicits activations of motor areas in the brain. The present fMRI study goes one step further by testing whether this is also the case for comprehension of nonfactual statements. Three linguistic structures were used (factuals, counterfactuals, and negations), referring either to actions or, as a control condition, to visual events. The results showed that action sentences elicited stronger activations than visual sentences in the SMA, extending to the primary motor area, as well as in regions generally associated with the planning and understanding of actions (left superior temporal gyrus, left and right supramarginal gyri). Also, we found stronger activations for action sentences than for visual sentences in the extrastriate body area, a region involved in the visual processing of human body movements. These action-related effects occurred not only in factuals but also in negations and counterfactuals, suggesting that brain regions involved in action understanding and planning are activated by default even when the actions are described as hypothetical or as not happening. Moreover, some of these regions overlapped with those activated during the observation of action videos, indicating that the act of understanding action language and that of observing real actions share neural networks. These results support the claim that embodied representations of linguistic meaning are important even in abstract linguistic contexts.