Co-Planar Stereotaxic Atlas of the Human Brain—3-Dimensional Proportional System: An Approach to Cerebral Imaging, J. Talairach, P. Tournoux. Georg Thieme Verlag, New York (1988), 122 pp., 130 figs. DM 268

Semantic memory refers to knowledge about people, objects, actions, relations, self, and culture acquired through experience. The neural systems that store and retrieve this information have been studied for many years, but a consensus regarding their identity has not been reached. Using strict inclusion criteria, we analyzed 120 functional neuroimaging studies focusing on semantic processing. Reliable areas of activation in these studies were identified using the activation likelihood estimate (ALE) technique. These activations formed a distinct, left-lateralized network comprised of 7 regions: posterior inferior parietal lobe, middle temporal gyrus, fusiform and parahippocampal gyri, dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, inferior frontal gyrus, ventromedial prefrontal cortex, and posterior cingulate gyrus. Secondary analyses showed specific subregions of this network associated with knowledge of actions, manipulable artifacts, abstract concepts, and concrete concepts. The cortical regions involved in semantic processing can be grouped into 3 broad categories: posterior multimodal and heteromodal association cortex, heteromodal prefrontal cortex, and medial limbic regions. The expansion of these regions in the human relative to the nonhuman primate brain may explain uniquely human capacities to use language productively, plan, solve problems, and create cultural and technological artifacts, all of which depend on the fluid and efficient retrieval and manipulation of semantic knowledge.

/pdf/where-is-the-semantic-system-a-critical-review-and-meta-4aaglbm4tj.pdf

Where Is the Semantic System? A Critical Review and Meta-Analysis of 120 Functional Neuroimaging Studies

Meta-analyzing left hemisphere language areas: Phonology, semantics, and sentence processing

http://people.uncw.edu/tothj/PSY595/Binder-The%20Neurobio%20of%20Semantic%20Memory-TiCS-2011.pdf

The Neurobiology of Semantic Memory

Measuring event-related potentials (ERPs) has been fundamental to our understanding of how language is encoded in the brain. One particular ERP response, the N400 response, has been especially influential as an index of lexical and semantic processing. However, there remains a lack of consensus on the interpretation of this component. Resolving this issue has important consequences for neural models of language comprehension. Here we show that evidence bearing on where the N400 response is generated provides key insights into what it reflects. A neuroanatomical model of semantic processing is used as a guide to interpret the pattern of activated regions in functional MRI, magnetoencephalography and intracranial recordings that are associated with contextual semantic manipulations that lead to N400 effects.

/pdf/a-cortical-network-for-semantics-de-constructing-the-n400-2mkch9vs5v.pdf

A cortical network for semantics: (de)constructing the N400.

http://www.ebire.org/aphasia/dronkers/lesion_analysis.pdf

Lesion analysis of the brain areas involved in language comprehension.

Theories about the representation and processing of regular and irregular past tense forms of verbs in English have disagreed as to whether they should be treated as a unified phenomenon (e.g. both rule-governed, or both generated by a connectionist net), or as two distinct types of linguistic entities (e.g. regulars formed by rules of the grammar, irregulars stored in lexical memory). In this article we present data from a positron emission tomographic study in which subjects were asked to produce the past tense forms of regular, irregular, and nonce stems. We find very different amounts and areas of cortical activation in the regular and irregular tasks, as well as significantly different reaction times in producing the past tenses. We interpret our findings as supporting the grammar/lexicon theories, and discuss the implications of our results for general linguistic theory.*

A positron emission tomographic study of regular and irregular verb morphology in english

Do the brains of men and women show similar patterns of functional organization for language, or are men more strongly lateralized? We used PET to measure cerebral blood flow (CBF) as men and women read real and nonce verbs, and produced past tense forms. While the overall patterns of reaction time, error, and brain activation were similar, there were also significant sex-related differences in CBF patterns. During the past tense generation tasks, men showed left-lateralized activation while women recruited bilateral perisylvian cortex, confirming differences in functional laterality. During all tasks, women showed higher activation in occipital and/or cerebellar regions, suggesting differences in basic reading strategies. We conclude that sex differences in functional cortical organization exist in the absence of significant behavioral differences.

Sex differences in brain regions activated by grammatical and reading tasks.

One of the major advances in phonological theory during the past twenty years has been the refinement of a theory regarding the representation and behaviour of tones (Goldsmith 1976, 1990, Fromkin 1978, Clements & Goldsmith 1984, Hyman 1986, 1993, Pulleyblank 1986, 1997), particularly for African tone languages and East Asian tone languages (for recent reviews see Odden 1995 and Yip 1995). A general outline of such a theory, using an autosegmental framework, might be something like the following: (a) Tones or tone melodies are represented in underlying phonological representations (UR); in some cases they are linked to specific ‘tone-bearing units’ (TBUs) such as syllables, moras or vowels on other tiers in UR, and in other cases they are unlinked. (b) Phonological rules will associate tones with correct TBUs according to universal and language-specific principles, including a universal well-formedness condition, such that no tones or TBUs which remain at the end of the derivation are unassociated. Tones may be delinked and omitted or reassociated by phonological rules, which may involve tone spreading, tone sandhi and a number of other phenomena. (c) Tones have a primarily lexical rather than syntagmatic function. (d) Contour tones are represented in UR as a sequence of two or more level tones, and function as tone sequences in tone rules, such that for example an underlying HL sequence may surface as either a falling contour tone on a single TBU or a high–low sequence on two adjacent TBUs. (e) It is assumed that tonal systems in all languages follow the same universal principles, which underlie the theory outlined here.

Speech errors and the representation of tone in Mandarin Chinese

Contents: Preface. Kids' Slips as Evidence for Language Development. Kids' Slips and Adults' Slips: General Comparison. Phonetics and Phonology. The Lexicon and Lexical Errors. Semantic Relationships in Lexical Errors. Morphology and Syntax. Child Data.

Jeri J. Jaeger

Papers

Lesion analysis of the brain areas involved in language comprehension.

A positron emission tomographic study of regular and irregular verb morphology in english

Sex differences in brain regions activated by grammatical and reading tasks.

Speech errors and the representation of tone in Mandarin Chinese

Kids' Slips: What Young Children's Slips of the Tongue Reveal About Language Development