THE LEXICAL INTERFACE IOCT 23, 2015 – DAY 24

Brain & LanguageLING 4110-4890-5110-7960NSCI 4110-4891-6110Fall 2015

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Course organization• http://www.tulane.edu/~howard/BrLg/• Fun with https://www.facebook.com/BrLg15/• I am still working on grading.• http://www.tulane.edu/~howard/BrLg/t16-Ventral

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THE VENTRAL PATHWAYReview

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The original

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Saur et al. (2008) diffusion tensor imaging tractography

10/21/15 Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University

Dual pathway network for language. Composite fiber network for repetition (blue) and comprehension (red). Three-dimensional tractography renderings visualize the spatial orientation of both networks to each other. Dashed white line illustrates the bisection of the frontal lobe into a ventral part, which is connected to the postrolandic brain via the ventral pathway and a dorsal part, which is connected to the postrolandic brain via the dorsal pathway.

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My fourth and final revision

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The dorsal pathway: repetition

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What is your name?

What is your name?

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The ventral pathway: comprehension

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my cat

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Review of linguistic notation

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'æ'

[N cat](morpho)syntactic

[kæt]phonetic

⟦cat⟧semantic

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The process as a list

1. ear2. auditory cortex3. STS4. lexical interface5. combinatorial net

16. combinatorial net

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1. [maik̯æt]2. [m][a][i]̯[k][æ][t]3. [mai]̯ [kæt]4. ⟦mai⟧̯ ⟦kæt⟧5. ⟦⟦mai⟧̯ ⟦kæt⟧⟧6. [NP [Poss mai]̯ [N

kæt]]

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The ventral pathway: interaction

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What is your name?

Harry.

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THE LEXICAL INTERFACE

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The lexical interface

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CATEGORY-SPECIFIC SEMANTIC DEFICITS

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Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 1511/01/113

Do you see any difference between (a) and (b)?

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Category-specific semantic impairmentsFigure 11.1

11/01/113

concrete(picture-able)

animate inanimate

animals plants

wild|

lionshark

domestic|

catgoldfish

inedible|

treeflower

fruit & veggie

|apple

banana

? ? tools transport

processedfood

|pizzacider

musicalinstrument

|pianodrum

hammerpencil

carbike

abstract

beliefshame

3:1

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Semantic dementia• Semantic dementia video• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkKrsbwQvrE• Semantic Dementia: Deana Talking about shopping• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYUGzCbNmNA• 14 minutes of a night with my Grandmother who has

dementia. • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFDHic9ZO6M

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Semantic dementia

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Because this disease affects the temporal pole and, with further progression of the disease, the adjacent frontotemporal cortex, the action–perception model predicts that face- and color-related semantic circuits, which reach into these areas, will be impaired more than other semantic networks. The graph presents the performance of patients with semantic dementia (red bars) and healthy control participants (blue bars) in a lexical decision task. … the patients … were found to have more pronounced deficits in processing face- and color-related words than in processing arm- and shape-related words.

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CATEGORY-SPECIFIC SEMANTIC CIRCUITS

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Pulvermüller (2013)Category-specific semantic circuits

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SYMBOLIC VS EMBODIED SEMANTICS

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Areas ~ hubs ~ effects = sensorimotor semantics

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The linguistic sign

Signified Signifier

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• cat• katu • catua • kotka • miu/mau • gat • eesa • bushi

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Ralph, Lowe & Rogers (2007)

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Symbolic semantics ?Sensorimotor semantics

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Final project• Improve a Wikipedia article about any of the topics

mentioned in class or any other topic broadly related to neurolinguistics.

• Write a short essay explaining what you did and why you did it.

• Print the article before you improve it, highlighting any subtractions.

• Print the article after you improve it, highlighting your additions.

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NEXT TIMEQ6More on the lexical interface: word semantics

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