This project proposes three series of fMRI brain imaging studies to investigate high-level conceptual processes in text comprehension, particularly the comprehension of metaphor, irony, and causality. The operating characteristics of the cortical networks that underlie such processing are multifaceted, including the specification of which cortical areas activate, the time courses of their activation, and the patterns of synchronization across areas. The brain activation characteristics will be related to the underlying cognitive processes and to measures of behavioral performance, integrating the two levels of explanation. In particular, the studies will have the following specific aims, among others: ? To characterize the brain activation during the comprehension of novel, dynamically computed metaphors, in contrast to frozen metaphors (e.g. information highway) that are retrieved from memory, and in contrast to literal sentences that have no figurative meaning. 1- To determine the role of visual and auditory imagery in figurative language comprehension. 2- To examine how prosodic cues like a sarcastic tone are processed in the auditory comprehension of irony. 3- To determine how information about the emotional state of a speaker (e.g. jocular, bitter) is used to interpret an ironical utterance. 4- To examine how the relation between two events described in a text is computed, depending on whether the events are related by physical causality, social causality, serial order, or verb-based information. 5- To determine how causal connectives like Therefore affect the processing of causal relations between events described in a text. Finally, an overarching aim is to construct a common computational model within the theoretical framework that accounts for as many of the brain activation and behavioral findings as possible, postulating as small a number of plausible underlying mechanisms as possible. The research will provide tools for assessing patients with brain damage to parts of the language system and provide a basis for future therapies.
Showing the most recent 10 out of 56 publications
