Concrete spatial language: see what I mean?
Conveying complex mental scenarios is at the heart of human language. Advances in cognitive linguistics suggest this is mediated by an ability to activate cognitive systems involved in non-linguistic processing of spatial information. In this fMRI-study, we compare sentences with a concrete spatial meaning to sentences with an abstract meaning. Using this contrast, we demonstrate that sentence meaning involving motion in a concrete topographical context, whether linked to animate or inanimate subjects nouns, yield more activation in a bilateral posterior network, including fusiform/parahippocampal, and retrosplenial regions, and the temporal-occipital-parietal junction. These areas have previously been shown to be involved in mental navigation and spatial memory tasks. Sentences with an abstract setting activate an extended largely left-lateralised network in the anterior temporal, and inferior and superior prefrontal cortices, previously found activated by comprehension of complex semantics such as narratives. These findings support a model of language, where the understanding of spatial semantic content emerges from the recruitment of brain regions involved in non-linguistic spatial processing.
Wallentin
Mikkel
M
Centre for Semiotics, University of Aarhus, Niels Juels Gade 84, 8200 Aarhus N, Denmark. mikkel@pet.auh.dk
Ostergaard
Svend
S
Lund
Torben Ellegaard
TE
Ostergaard
Leif
L
Roepstorff
Andreas
A
D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000328:Adult; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D020534:Parahippocampal Gyrus / Q000502:physiology; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D012660:Semantics; D013028:Space Perception / Q000502:physiology*