Revisiting the role of Broca's area in sentence processing: Syntactic integration versus syntactic working memory

被引:246
作者
Fiebach, CJ
Schlesewsky, M
Lohmann, G
von Cramon, DY
Friederici, AD
机构
[1] Univ Calif Berkeley, Dept Psychol, Berkeley, CA 94720 USA
[2] Univ Calif Berkeley, Helen Wills Neurosci Inst, Berkeley, CA 94720 USA
[3] Max Planck Inst Human Cognit & Brain Sci, Leipzig, Germany
[4] Univ Marburg, Junior Res Grp Neurolinguist, Marburg, Germany
关键词
language; sentence comprehension; syntax; grammar; working memory; Broca's area; functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI);
D O I
10.1002/hbm.20070
中图分类号
Q189 [神经科学];
学科分类号
071006 ;
摘要
Most previous neuroimaging studies of sentence processing have associated Broca's area with 0 is et not syntactic processing; however, the exact nature of the processes subserved by this brain region well understood. Although some authors suggest that Brodmann area (BA) 44 of the left inferior frontal gyrus (i.e., Broca's area) is relevant for syntactic integration processes, others claim that it is associated with working memory mechanisms relevant for language processing. To dissociate these two possible functions, the present study investigated hemodynamic responses elicited while participants processed German indirect wh-questions. Activation increases were observed in left BA 44, to-ether with superior temporal areas and right hemispheric homologues for sentences with noncanonical word order, in which a verb argument was dislocated from its canonical position over a relatively long distance. In these sentences, syntactic working memory load was assumed to be greatest. In contrast, no activation increase was elicited by object-initial as opposed to subject-initial sentences that did not differ with respect to working memory costs but with respect to syntactic integration costs. These data strongly suggest that Broca's area plays a critical role in syntactic working memory during online sentence comprehension. (C) 2004 Wiley-Liss. Inc.
引用
收藏
页码:79 / 91
页数:13
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