Word Comprehension Tasks Research Articles

L1 production following brief L2 exposure: Evidence for cross-talk across comprehension and production.

Language control allows bilinguals to fluently shift between their languages. Here, we tested whether comprehension and production tasks initiate language control processes to the same extent, and whether these processes operate over specific concepts or globally. Seventy Hebrew-English bilinguals completed an L1 picture-naming production task in the first and third blocks, and either a reading aloud (word production) or an animacy judgment (word comprehension) task in their L2 in the second block. Further, concepts were either repeated across blocks or not. Results showed more filled pauses in the third block relative to the first block. Additionally, the size of this blocked-language order effect was similar following word production and word comprehension tasks in the L2, suggesting that production and comprehension tasks were similarly efficient in instigating control processes. Finally, both recurring and new concepts were affected, suggesting that mostly global language control is at play. These findings provide constraining evidence for fully understanding the scope of bilingual language control.

Angry, Sad, or Scared? Within-valence Mapping of Emotion Words to Facial and Body Cues in 2 to 4-Year-Old Children

The acquisition of emotion words is critical to children’s socio-emotional development. Previous studies report that children acquire emotion words gradually during ages 3–5 and beyond. The majority of this work, however, has used demanding tasks for young children (e.g., asking children to label emotion-related facial configurations) and has predominantly relied on facial configurations. Here we designed a child-friendly, word-comprehension task incorporating both facial configurations and body language. In two preregistered online experiments, we asked two to four-year-olds (N = 96) to connect emotion words—happy, sad, angry, and scared—to either facial configurations (Experiment 1) or combined facial and body cues (Experiment 2). We found relatively early competence in understanding emotion words, especially those of the same-valence. All age groups, including 2-year-olds, successfully linked emotion words to corresponding facial configurations (Experiment 1). Experiment 2 replicated this pattern and further showed that children performed equally well (though not substantially better) when given additional body cues. Parental reports of children’s exposure to and use of masks during the COVID-19 pandemic did not correlate with children’s performance in either experiment. Even before children can produce emotion words in an adult-like manner, they possess at least a partial understanding of those words and can map them to emotion cues within valence domains.

The Neuroanatomy of Speech Processing: A Large-scale Lesion Study.

The neural basis of language has been studied for centuries, yet the networks critically involved in simply identifying or understanding a spoken word remain elusive. Several functional-anatomical models of critical neural substrates of receptive speech have been proposed, including (1) auditory-related regions in the left mid-posterior superior temporal lobe, (2) motor-related regions in the left frontal lobe (in normal and/or noisy conditions), (3) the left anterior superior temporal lobe, or (4) bilateral mid-posterior superior temporal areas. One difficulty in comparing these models is that they often focus on different aspects of the sound-to-meaning pathway and are supported by different types of stimuli and tasks. Two auditory tasks that are typically used in separate studies-syllable discrimination and word comprehension-often yield different conclusions. We assessed syllable discrimination (words and nonwords) and word comprehension (clear speech and with a noise masker) in 158 individuals with focal brain damage: left (n = 113) or right (n = 19) hemisphere stroke, left (n = 18) or right (n = 8) anterior temporal lobectomy, and 26 neurologically intact controls. Discrimination and comprehension tasks are doubly dissociable both behaviorally and neurologically. In support of a bilateral model, clear speech comprehension was near ceiling in 95% of left stroke cases and right temporal damage impaired syllable discrimination. Lesion-symptom mapping analyses for the syllable discrimination and noisy word comprehension tasks each implicated most of the left superior temporal gyrus. Comprehension but not discrimination tasks also implicated the left posterior middle temporal gyrus, whereas discrimination but not comprehension tasks also implicated more dorsal sensorimotor regions in posterior perisylvian cortex.

A Heteromodal Word-Meaning Binding Site in the Visual Word Form Area under Top-Down Frontoparietal Control.

The integral capacity of human language together with semantic memory drives the linkage of words and their meaning, which theoretically is subject to cognitive control. However, it remains unknown whether, across different language modalities and input/output formats, there is a shared system in the human brain for word-meaning binding and how this system interacts with cognitive control. Here, we conducted a functional magnetic resonance imaging experiment based on a large cohort of subjects (50 females, 50 males) to comprehensively measure the brain responses evoked by semantic processing in spoken and written word comprehension and production tasks (listening, speaking, reading, and writing). We found that heteromodal word input and output tasks involved distributed brain regions within a frontal-parietal-temporal network and focally coactivated the anterior lateral visual word form area (VWFA), which is located in the basal occipitotemporal area. Directed connectivity analysis revealed that the VWFA was invariably under significant top-down modulation of the frontoparietal control network and interacts with regions related to attention and semantic representation. This study reveals that the VWFA is a key site subserving general semantic processes linking words and meaning, challenging the predominant emphasis on this area's specific role in reading or more general visual processes. Our findings also suggest that the dynamics between semantic memory and cognitive control mechanisms during word processing are largely independent of the modalities of input or output.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Binding words and their meaning into a coherent whole during retrieval requires accessing semantic memory and cognitive control, allowing our thoughts to be expressed and comprehended through mind-external tokens in multiple modalities, such as written or spoken forms. However, it is still unknown whether multimodal language comprehension and production share a common word-meaning binding system in human brains and how this system is connected to a cognitive control mechanism. By systematically measuring brain activity evoked by spoken and written verbal input and output tasks tagging word-meaning binding processes, we demonstrate a general word-meaning binding site within the visual word form area (VWFA) and how this site is modulated by the frontal-parietal control network.

Looking represents choosing in toddlers: Exploring the equivalence between multimodal measures in forced-choice tasks.

In the two-alternative forced-choice (2AFC) paradigm, manual responses such as pointing have been widely used as measures to estimate cognitive abilities. While pointing measurements can be easily collected, coded, analyzed, and interpreted, absent responses are often observed particularly when adopting these measures for toddler studies, which leads to an increase of missing data. Although looking responses such as preferential looking can be available as alternative measures in such cases, it is unknown how well looking measurements can be interpreted as equivalent to manual ones. This study aimed to answer this question by investigating how accurately pointing responses (i.e., left or right) could be predicted from concurrent preferential looking. Using pre-existing videos of toddlers aged 18-23months engaged in an intermodal word comprehension task, we developed models predicting manual from looking responses. Results showed substantial prediction accuracy for both the Simple Majority Vote and Machine Learning-Based classifiers, which indicates that looking responses would be reasonable alternative measures of manual ones. However, the further exploratory analysis revealed that when applying the created models for data of toddlers who did not produce clear pointing responses, the estimation agreement of missing pointing between the models and the human coders slightly dropped. This indicates that looking responses without pointing were qualitatively different from those with pointing. Bridging two measurements in forced-choice tasks would help researchers avoid wasting collected data due to the absence of manual responses and interpret results from different modalities comprehensively.

Errorless Learning Therapy in Semantic Variant of Primary Progressive Aphasia.

The semantic variant of primary progressive aphasia (svPPA) is characterized by a progressive loss of semantic knowledge impairing the ability to name and to recognize the meaning of words. We aimed to evaluate the immediate and short-term effect of errorless learning speech therapy on the naming and recognition of commonly used words in patients with svPPA. Eight participants diagnosed with svPPA received 16 sessions of intensive errorless learning speech therapy. Naming and word comprehension tasks were evaluated at baseline, immediately postintervention, and at follow-up after 1, 3, and 6 months. These evaluations were performed using two item sets (a trained list and an untrained list). In the naming tasks, patients showed a significant improvement in trained items immediately after the intervention, but that improvement decayed progressively when therapy ended. No improvements were found either in trained comprehension or in untrained tasks. Errorless learning therapy could improve naming ability in patients with svPPA. This effect may be due to the relative preservation of episodic memory, but the benefit is not maintained over time, presumably because there is no consolidation.

The language profile of progressive supranuclear palsy

A progressive speech/language disorder, such as the non fluent/agrammatic variant of primary progressive aphasia and progressive apraxia of speech, can be due to neuropathologically verified Progressive Supranuclear Palsy (PSP). The prevalence of linguistic deficits and the linguistic profile in PSP patients who present primarily with a movement disorder is unknown. In the present study, we investigated speech and language performance in a sample of clinically diagnosed PSP patients using a comprehensive language battery, including, besides traditional language tests, a detailed analysis of connected speech (picture description task assessing 26 linguistic features). The aim was to identify the most affected linguistic levels in seventeen PSP with a movement disorder presentation, compared to 21 patients with Parkinson's disease and 27 healthy controls. Machine learning methods were used to detect the most relevant language tests and linguistic features characterizing the language profile of PSP patients. Our results indicate that even non-clinically aphasic PSP patients have subtle language deficits, in particular involving the lexical-semantic and discourse levels. Patients with the Richardson's syndrome showed a lower performance in the word comprehension task with respect to the other PSP phenotypes with predominant frontal presentation, parkinsonism and progressive gait freezing. The present findings support the usefulness of a detailed language assessment in all patients in the PSP spectrum.

Effects of Anodal Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (atDCS) on Sentence Comprehension.

This study examined the effects of anodal transcranial direct current stimulation (a-tDCS) on sentence and word comprehension in healthy adults. Healthy adult participants, aged between 19 and 30 years, received either a-tDCS over the left inferior frontal gyrus (n=18) or sham stimulation (n=18). Participants completed sentence comprehension and word comprehension tasks before and during stimulation. Accuracy and reaction times (RTs) were recorded as participants completed both tasks. a-tDCS was found to significantly decrease RT on the sentence comprehension task compared to baseline. There was no change in RT following sham stimulation. a-tDCS was not found to have a significant effect on accuracy. Also, a-tDCS did not affect accuracy or RTs on the word comprehension task. The study provides evidence that non-invasive anodal electrical stimulation can modulate sentence comprehension in healthy adults, at least compared to their baseline performance. (JINS, 2019, 25, 331-335).

Abnormal cortical activation during an auditory word comprehension task in benign childhood epilepsy with centrotemporal spikes: A magnetoencephalographic study

ObjectiveBenign childhood epilepsy with centrotemporal spikes (BECTS), also known as rolandic epilepsy, has recently been reported to be associated with variable degrees of cognitive dysfunction. Many studies reported poor language ability in children with BECTS compared with healthy control children. To elucidate the harmful effects of BECTS on language cognition, we studied the magnetoencephalographic activity elicited by an auditory language comprehension task. MethodsThe participants (N = 20) included 10 children diagnosed with BECTS (aged 10.8 ± 2.8 years) and 10 age-matched healthy children (control) (aged 10.6 ± 1.6 years). Cognitive function was assessed using general intellectual function and language ability. In patients with BECTS, we reviewed the clinical course and electroencephalogram (EEG) findings. We recorded the cortical responses elicited by an auditory language comprehension task using magnetoencephalography (MEG). We compared those results between groups and analyzed the correlation with cognitive scores and frequency of spikes. ResultsThe full-scale intelligence quotient (FSIQ) by the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children—4th edition was significantly reduced in the group with BECTS (96.4 ± 12.3) compared with the control group (110.0 ± 7.4). In half of the group with BECTS, the auditory comprehension score fell below the age-standard level. In the group with BECTS, the cortical activation during the task showed reduced intensity in language-associated areas such as the bilateral primary auditory cortex, left superior and mid-temporal areas, and inferior frontal area compared with those in the control group. In addition, the cortical activation in the left superior temporal area was negatively correlated with spike frequency and positively correlated with FSIQ in the group with BECTS. Conversely, the right inferior frontal and mid-temporal areas had increased the activations in the group with BECTS. From the time frequency analysis, low gamma band event-related desynchronization was reduced in the group with BECTS. ConclusionEpileptic spikes negatively influenced responsiveness to the auditory language comprehension task in the language-associated cortices. These findings suggest that epileptic spikes could have a negative impact on the functional activity in rolandic areas and become a reason to change the functional development of the language network.

Mapping the Neural Dynamics of Korean-English Bilinguals With Medium Proficiency During Auditory Word Processing.

Bilingualism is a worldwide phenomenon and provides an opportunity to understand how the brain represents language processing. Although many studies have investigated the neural mechanism of bilingualism, it still remain unclear how brain systems are involved in the second language processing. Here, we examined the neural dynamics of bilinguals with medium proficiency during auditory word processing. Korean–English (K–E) bilinguals were recruited for the study (L1: Korean and L2: English). They performed a word comprehension task on phonological and semantic aspects by hearing words. We compared their task performance, task-induced regional activity, and functional connectivity (FC) between L1 and L2 processing. Brain activation analyses revealed that L2 evoked more widespread and stronger activation in brain regions involved in auditory word processing and the increased regional activity in L2 was prominent during phonological processing. Moreover, L2 evoked up-regulation during semantic processing was associated with L2 proficiency. FC analyses demonstrated that the intra-network connectivity showed stronger in the language network (LN), dorsal attention network (DAN), and default mode network (DMN) in L2 than L1. For the L2 phonological processing, the increased FC within the DAN was positively correlated with individuals’ L2 proficiency. Also, L2 semantic processing induced the enhanced internetwork connectivity between the LN and DMN. Our findings suggest that L2 processing in K–E bilinguals induces dynamic changes in the brain at a regional and network-level and FC analysis can disentangle the different networks involvement in L2 auditory word processing according to two key features: phonology and semantics.

Atypical auditory language processing in adolescents with autism spectrum disorder

ObjectiveIndividuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often show characteristic differences in auditory processing. To clarify the mechanisms underlying communication impairment in ASD, we examined auditory language processing with both anatomical and functional methods. MethodsWe assessed the language abilities of adolescents with ASD and typically developing (TD) adolescents, and analyzed the surface-based morphometric structure between the groups using magnetic resonance imaging. Furthermore, we measured cortical responses to an auditory word comprehension task with magnetoencephalography and performed network-based statistics using the phase locking values. ResultsWe observed no structural differences between the groups. However, the volume of the left ventral central sulcus (vCS) showed a significant correlation with linguistic scores in ASD. Moreover, adolescents with ASD showed weaker cortical activation in the left vCS and superior temporal sulcus. Furthermore, these regions showed differential correlations with linguistic scores between the groups. Moreover, the ASD group had an atypical gamma band (25–40 Hz) network centered on the left vCS. ConclusionsAdolescents with ASD showed atypical responses on the auditory word comprehension task and functional brain differences. SignificanceOur results suggest that phonological processing and gamma band cortical activity play a critical role in auditory language processing-related pathophysiology in adolescents with ASD.

Investigating comprehension of nouns and verbs: is there a difference?

ABSTRACTBackground: There is growing evidence that verbs are often more difficult to process than nouns and that verb retrieval is more commonly affected in aphasia. However, existing observations are largely based on naming and semantic judgment tasks. The extent to which this processing difficulty is modality-general has yet to be established. In addition, most of the present language batteries do not allow direct comparison between noun and verb comprehension deficits. To fill this gap, a test was developed for the assessment of noun and verb lexical-semantic comprehension.Aims: The current study investigates whether verb processing difficulties are modality-general by administering novel balanced noun and verb comprehension tasks to participants with and without aphasia.Methods & Procedures: In this study, we directly compare the difficulty of comprehension of verbs versus nouns in a group of participants with aphasia (PWA, n = 32) and non-brain-damaged, age-matched participants (NBD, n = 20). The word comprehension task was implemented on a tablet measuring accuracy and reaction times (RTs). Participants were required to listen to an aurally presented word and match it to one of four pictures (a target and three distractors: semantic, phonological, and irrelevant) by tapping on it with the non-dominant hand. In total, 30 nouns and 30 verbs were presented. The verbal stimuli in the two tasks were matched on relevant psychometric properties such as familiarity, age of acquisition, subjective visual complexity, imageability, image agreement, and frequency.Outcomes & Results: Both groups experienced more difficulties in the verb comprehension task, indicated by lower accuracy and longer RTs in PWA and longer RTs in NBD. PWA who were performing the task within normal limits (i.e., demonstrated no difference in accuracy compared to the control group) still showed significantly longer RTs in the verb task than controls. Also, PWA who demonstrated similar accuracy in both tasks had longer RTs in the verb task relative to the noun task. The pattern was general and no differences were observed in performance between participants with fluent and non-fluent aphasia types. Moreover, the observed dissociations in RTs were greater for PWA than for NBD, indicating that a damaged language system experiences even more difficulties in processing verbs.Conclusions: Overall, the study demonstrated the relative difficulty of verb processing in a comprehension task, supporting the hypothesis that verb processing difficulties are modality-general. The new test allows researchers to compare performance on noun and verb comprehension and registers even subtle differences by measuring RTs.

EEG oscillations during word processing predict MCI conversion to Alzheimer's disease.

Only a subset of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) patients progress to develop a form of dementia. A prominent feature of Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a progressive decline in language. We investigated if subtle anomalies in EEG activity of MCI patients during a word comprehension task could provide insight into the likelihood of conversion to AD. We studied 25 amnestic MCI patients, a subset of whom developed AD within 3-years, and 11 elderly controls. In the task, auditory category descriptions (e.g., ‘a type of wood’) were followed by a single visual target word either semantically congruent (i.e., oak) or incongruent with the preceding category. We found that the MCI convertors group (i.e. patients that would go on to convert to AD in 3-years) had a diminished early posterior-parietal theta (3–5 Hz) activity induced by first presentation of the target word (i.e., access to lexico-syntactic properties of the word), compared to MCI non-convertors and controls. Moreover, MCI convertors exhibited oscillatory signatures for processing the semantically congruent words that were different from non-convertors and controls. MCI convertors thus showed basic anomalies for lexical and meaning processing. In addition, both MCI groups showed anomalous oscillatory signatures for the verbal learning/memory of repeated words: later alpha suppression (9–11 Hz), which followed first presentation of the target word, was attenuated for the second and third repetition in controls, but not in either MCI group. Our findings suggest that a subtle breakdown in the brain network subserving language comprehension can be foretelling of conversion to AD.

Fine Subdivisions of the Semantic Network Supporting Social and Sensory-Motor Semantic Processing.

Neuroimaging studies have consistently indicated that semantic processing involves a brain network consisting of multimodal cortical regions distributed in the frontal, parietal, and temporal lobes. However, little is known about how semantic information is organized and processed within the network. Some recent studies have indicated that sensory-motor semantic information modulates the activation of this network. Other studies have indicated that this network responds more to social semantic information than to other information. Using fMRI, we collectively investigated the brain activations evoked by social and sensory-motor semantic information by manipulating the sociality and imageability of verbs in a word comprehension task. We detected 2 subgroups of brain regions within the network showing sociality and imageability effects, respectively. The 2 subgroups of regions are distinct but overlap in bilateral angular gyri and adjacent middle temporal gyri. A follow-up analysis of resting-state functional connectivity showed that dissociation of the 2 subgroups of regions is partially associated with their intrinsic functional connectivity differences. Additionally, an interaction effect of sociality and imageability was observed in the left anterior temporal lobe. Our findings indicate that the multimodal cortical semantic network has fine subdivisions that process and integrate social and sensory-motor semantic information.

Verbal short-term memory and language impairments in Cantonese speakers after stroke

Purpose: The study examined the relationship between verbal short-term memory (STM) and language impairment in Cantonese speakers after stroke. It is hypothesised that Cantonese speakers with left-hemisphere (LH) stroke would perform worse than those with right hemisphere (RH) stroke and normal controls. Specific linguistic factors of Cantonese might affect results in the tasks.Method: Fifteen participants with LH stroke, 10 with RH stroke and 25 healthy controls were tested with auditory–verbal immediate serial recall (ISR) tasks and auditory linguistic tasks. All stroke participants were assessed with the Cantonese version of Western Aphasia Battery (CAB).Result: The LH group performed significantly worse than the RH and healthy control groups in the auditory verbal ISR and auditory linguistic tasks. There were significant lexicality, frequency and imageability effects in most tasks. Auditory discrimination and word comprehension tasks, but not the auditory word recognition task had correlations with ISR tasks.Conclusion: Verbal STM and language performance of Cantonese-speakers with history of LH stroke were inferior to RH stroke and healthy controls. The effects of lexicality, word frequency and imageability on verbal STM memory performance were found. Cantonese tones have effects on performance in auditory word recognition task, similar to onset, nucleus and rime.

Title: An MEG evaluation of the dual-route model on language

Title: An MEG evaluation of the dual-route model on language

Effects of task complexity on activation of language areas in a semantic decision fMRI protocol

Language tasks used for clinical fMRI studies may be too complex for some patients with cognitive impairments, and “easier” versions are sometimes substituted, though the effects on brain activity of such changes in task complexity are largely unknown. To investigate these differences, we compared two versions of an fMRI language comprehension protocol, with different levels of difficulty, in 24 healthy right-handed adults.The protocol contrasted an auditory word comprehension task (semantic decision) with a nonspeech control task using tone sequences (tone decision). In the “complex” version (CV), the semantic decision task required two complex semantic decisions for each word, and the tone decision task required the participant to count the number of target tones in each sequence. In the “easy” version (EV), the semantic task required only a single easier decision, and the tone task required only detection of the presence or absence of a target tone in each sequence. The protocols were adapted for a Brazilian population.Typical left hemisphere language lateralization was observed in 92% of participants for both CV and EV using the whole-brain lateralization index, and typical language lateralization was also observed for others regions of interest. Task performance was superior on the EV compared to the CV (p=0.014). There were many common areas of activation across the two version; however, the CV produced greater activation in the left superior and middle frontal giri, angular gyrus, and left posterior cingulate gyrus compared to the EV, the majority of which are areas previously identified with language and semantic processing. The EV produced stronger activation only in a small area in the posterior middle temporal gyrus.These results reveal differences between two versions of the protocol and provide evidence that both are useful for language lateralization and worked well for Brazilian population. The complex version produces stronger activation in several nodes of the semantic network and therefore is elected for participants who can perform well these tasks.

Task influences on the production and comprehension of compound words

Studies of compound word processing have revealed effects of the compound's constituents in a wide variety of word production and comprehension tasks. Surprisingly, effects of the compound's constituents were not found in a recent word production study using the picture-naming task. Here, we examined whether these contrasting constituent effects reflect methodological differences or whether they reflect the influence of task-specific characteristics on compound processing. A large set of compounds was used to elicit picture-naming latencies in Experiment 1 and visual lexical decision latencies in Experiment 2. Regression analyses revealed surface frequency effects in picture naming and lexical decision and constituent effects only in lexical decision. These results rule out methodological differences as the basis for the contrasting constituent effects observed between the various tasks and imply that constituent effects are best understood as arising out of task-specific characteristics.

Relating traffic, construction, and ventilation noise to cognitive performances and subjective perceptions

The present study investigates the cognitive performance and subjective perceptions in the context of road traffic noise alone and multiple noises, including construction and ventilation noises. A total of 20 university students were exposed to seven noise conditions. Laboratory experiments employed semantic and episodic memory tasks. Self-reports of perception were collected from the participants. It was found that multiple noise sources impaired the free recall of words, and free recall scores were affected by noise type. Significant differences in free recall scores were found when the noise level difference between the individual noise and multiple noise sources was more than 5 dB. In contrast, word comprehension did not mediate the effects of noise on semantic memory. Annoyance caused by multiple noise sources correlated highly with the results of the free recall and word comprehension tasks. Moreover, loudness and roughness were found to account for the annoyance ratings of combinations of road traffic noise with construction or ventilation noises.

Grief and joy: Emotion word comprehension in the dementias.

Word comprehension deficits in neurodegenerative conditions are most striking in the syndrome of semantic dementia. Tests of word comprehension typically examine concrete and abstract nonemotion words. Whether or not understanding of words describing emotion concepts (e.g., insulted, fascinated) is also impaired in the dementias has not been systematically investigated. Patients with semantic dementia (SD; n = 8), behavioral-variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD; n = 8), Alzheimer's disease (AD; n = 12), as well as healthy controls (n = 15) completed newly designed emotion word comprehension tasks. Participants also undertook the Graded Synonyms Test, an abstract and concrete nonemotion word comprehension measure. Degradation of knowledge about negative and positive emotion words was most impaired in SD. Correlation analyses in the SD group also showed that knowledge of emotion words correlated with the understanding of abstract nonemotion words. The bvFTD group was impaired only when making associations for emotion words. The AD cohort did not differ from controls on any measures of word comprehension. Impairment in word knowledge is greatest in the syndrome of SD, compared with bvFTD and AD, and includes concrete words, abstract words as well as emotion words. Importantly, word comprehension deficits affect positive and negative emotions.