If the cortex is an associative memory, strongly connected cell assemblies will form when neurons in different cortical areas are frequently active at the same time. The cortical distributions of these assemblies must be a consequence of where in the cortex correlated neuronal activity occurred during learning. An assembly can be considered a functional unit exhibiting activity states such as full activation ("ignition") after appropriate sensory stimulation (possibly related to perception) and continuous reverberation of excitation within the assembly (a putative memory process). This has implications for cortical topographies and activity dynamics of cell assemblies forming during language acquisition, in particular for those representing words. Cortical topographies of assemblies should be related to aspects of the meaning of the words they represent, and physiological signs of cell assembly ignition should be followed by possible indicators of reverberation. The following postulates are discussed in detail: (1) assemblies representing phonological word forms are strongly lateralized and distributed over perisylvian cortices; (2) assemblies representing highly abstract words such as grammatical function words are also strongly lateralized and restricted to these perisylvian regions; (3) assemblies representing concrete content words include additional neurons in both hemispheres; (4) assemblies representing words referring to visual stimuli include neurons in visual cortices; and (5) assemblies representing words referring to actions include neurons in motor cortices. Two main sources of evidence are used to evaluate these proposals: (a) imaging studies focusing on localizing word processing in the brain, based on stimulus-triggered event-related potentials (ERPs), positron emission tomography (PET), and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), and (b) studies of the temporal dynamics of fast activity changes in the brain, as revealed by high-frequency responses recorded in the electroencephalogram (EEG) and magnetoencephalogram (MEG). These data provide evidence for processing differences between words and matched meaningless pseudowords, and between word classes, such as concrete content and abstract function words, and words evoking visual or motor associations. There is evidence for early word class-specific spreading of neuronal activity and for equally specific high-frequency responses occurring later. These results support a neurobiological model of language in the Hebbian tradition. Competing large-scale neuronal theories of language are discussed in light of the data summarized. Neurobiological perspectives on the problem of serial order of words in syntactic strings are considered in closing.

/pdf/words-in-the-brain-s-language-3edkms0ktj.pdf

Words in the brain's language.

People sometimes solve problems with a unique process called insight, accompanied by an “Aha!” experience. It has long been unclear whether different cognitive and neural processes lead to insight versus noninsight solutions, or if solutions differ only in subsequent subjective feeling. Recent behavioral studies indicate distinct patterns of performance and suggest differential hemispheric involvement for insight and noninsight solutions. Subjects solved verbal problems, and after each correct solution indicated whether they solved with or without insight. We observed two objective neural correlates of insight. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (Experiment 1) revealed increased activity in the right hemisphere anterior superior temporal gyrus for insight relative to noninsight solutions. The same region was active during initial solving efforts. Scalp electroencephalogram recordings (Experiment 2) revealed a sudden burst of high-frequency (gamma-band) neural activity in the same area beginning 0.3 s prior to insight solutions. This right anterior temporal area is associated with making connections across distantly related information during comprehension. Although all problem solving relies on a largely shared cortical network, the sudden flash of insight occurs when solvers engage distinct neural and cognitive processes that allow them to see connections that previously eluded them.

/pdf/neural-activity-when-people-solve-verbal-problems-with-5cnu3cvj1v.pdf

Neural Activity When People Solve Verbal Problems with Insight

https://cseweb.ucsd.edu/~gary/cs200/f06/papers/TiCS_BAIS_lang.pdf

Bilateral brain processes for comprehending natural language

Reviewed are studies using event-related potentials to examine when and how sentence context information is used during language comprehension. Results suggest that, when it can, the brain uses context to predict features of likely upcoming items. However, although prediction seems important for comprehension, it also appears susceptible to age-related deterioration and can be associated with processing costs. The brain may address this trade-off by employing multiple processing strategies, distributed across the two cerebral hemispheres. In particular, left hemisphere language processing seems to be oriented toward prediction and the use of top-down cues, whereas right hemisphere comprehension is more bottom-up, biased toward the veridical maintenance of information. Such asymmetries may arise, in turn, because language comprehension mechanisms are integrated with language production mechanisms only in the left hemisphere (the PARLO framework).

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1469-8986.2007.00531.x

Thinking ahead: The role and roots of prediction in language comprehension.

Publisher Summary
This chapter explores the mechanisms underlying motivation and self-regulation from a functional-design perspective. Traditional approaches emphasize the mediating role of beliefs and other cognitive contents. An example of this approach is classical expectancy–value theory according to which a student's motivation to invest time and effort depends on his or her expectation of success and on the perceived value of good achievement. Learned helplessness is a practical example that illustrates the difference between content-based and functional explanations: After exposure to uncontrollable failure, many people lose their motivation and show impaired performance just as depressed patients do in response to adverse life conditions. According to traditional theorizing, those motivational and cognitive deficits are attributable to negative beliefs, such as pessimistic beliefs about one's own abilities. In contrast, according to a functional account, pessimistic beliefs and motivational deficits are consequences rather than causes of performance deficits that occur when people are confronted with uncontrollable failure: Experimental evidence shows that generalized pessimistic control beliefs typically occur after, not before, people develop symptoms of helplessness and depression. According to these findings, learned helplessness and depression cannot be remedied through making people believe in their abilities as attempted in cognitive therapy until one has established the necessary abilities. Specifying the mechanisms that underlie self-regulatory abilities is the target of functional approaches to self-regulation.

Chapter 5 – A Functional-Design Approach to Motivation and Self-Regulation: The Dynamics of Personality Systems Interactions

There are now numerous observations of subtle right hemisphere (RH) contributions to language comprehension. It has been suggested that these contributions reflect coarse semantic coding in the RH. That is, the RH weakly activates large semantic fields---including concepts distantly related to the input word---whereas the left hemisphere (LH) strongly activates small semantic fields---limited to concepts closely related to the input (Beeman, 1993a,b). This makes the RH less effective at interpreting single words, but more sensitive to semantic overlap of multiple words. To test this theory, subjects read target words preceded by either “Summation” primes (three words each weakly related to the target) or Unrelated primes (three unrelated words), and target exposure duration was manipulated so that subjects correctly named about half the target words in each hemifield. In Experiment 1, subjects benefited more from Summation primes when naming target words presented to the left visual field-RH (Ivf-RH) than when naming target words presented to the right visual field-LH (rvf-LH), suggesting a RH advantage in coarse semantic coding. In Experiment 2, with a low proportion of related prime-target trials, subjects benefited more from “Direct” primes (one strong associate flanked by two unrelated words) than from Summation primes for rvf-LH target words, indicating that the LH activates closely related information much more strongly than distantly related information. Subjects benefited equally from both prime types for Ivf-RH target words, indicating that the RH activates closely related information only slightly more strongly, at best, than distantly related information. This suggests that the RH processes words with relatively coarser coding than the LH, a conclusion consistent with a recent suggestion that the RH coarsely codes visual input (Kosslyn, Chabris, Mar-solek, & Koenig, 1992).

Enrique Perez

Papers

Summation priming and coarse semantic coding in the right hemisphere