PDF(Pubmed)
Abstract：
The language network, comprised of brain regions in the left frontal and temporal cortex, responds robustly and reliably during language comprehension but shows little or no response during many nonlinguistic cognitive tasks (e.g., Fedorenko & Blank, 2020). However, one domain whose relationship with language remains debated is semantics-our conceptual knowledge of the world. Given that the language network responds strongly to meaningful linguistic stimuli, could some of this response be driven by the presence of rich conceptual representations encoded in linguistic inputs? In this study, we used a naturalistic cognition paradigm to test whether the cognitive and neural resources that are responsible for language processing are also recruited for processing semantically rich nonverbal stimuli. To do so, we measured BOLD responses to a set of ∼5-minute-long video and audio clips that consisted of meaningful event sequences but did not contain any linguistic content. We then used the intersubject correlation (ISC) approach (Hasson et al., 2004) to examine the extent to which the language network \"tracks\" these stimuli, that is, exhibits stimulus-related variation. Across all the regions of the language network, meaningful nonverbal stimuli elicited reliable ISCs. These ISCs were higher than the ISCs elicited by semantically impoverished nonverbal stimuli (e.g., a music clip), but substantially lower than the ISCs elicited by linguistic stimuli. Our results complement earlier findings from controlled experiments (e.g., Ivanova et al., 2021) in providing further evidence that the language network shows some sensitivity to semantic content in nonverbal stimuli.
摘要：
语言网络,由左额叶和颞叶皮层的大脑区域组成，在语言理解过程中做出稳健可靠的反应，但在许多非语言认知任务中表现出很少或没有反应(例如，Fedorenko&Blank,2020）。然而,与语言的关系仍然存在争议的一个领域是语义-我们对世界的概念知识。鉴于语言网络对有意义的语言刺激反应强烈，这种反应可能是由语言输入中编码的丰富概念表示的存在所驱动的吗？在这项研究中，我们使用自然主义认知范式来测试负责语言处理的认知和神经资源是否也被用于处理语义丰富的非语言刺激。要做到这一点，我们测量了对一组5分钟长的视频和音频剪辑的BOLD响应，这些视频和音频剪辑由有意义的事件序列组成，但不包含任何语言内容。然后，我们使用了主体间相关性(ISC)方法(Hasson等人。,2004)以检查语言网络“跟踪”这些刺激的程度，也就是说,表现出与刺激相关的变化。在语言网络的所有地区，有意义的非语言刺激引发了可靠的ISC。这些ISC高于语义上贫乏的非语言刺激引起的ISC（例如，音乐剪辑)，但大大低于语言刺激引起的ISC。我们的结果补充了对照实验的早期发现(例如，Ivanova等人。,2021）提供了进一步的证据，表明语言网络对非语言刺激中的语义内容显示出一定的敏感性。
