A dissociation between linguistic and communicative abilities in the human brain.
Although language is an effective vehicle for communication, it is unclear how linguistic and communicative abilities relate to each other. Some researchers have argued that communicative message generation involves perspective taking (mentalizing), and-crucially-that mentalizing depends on language. We employed a verbal communication paradigm to directly test whether the generation of a communicative action relies on mentalizing and whether the cerebral bases of communicative message generation are distinct from parts of cortex sensitive to linguistic variables. We found that dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, a brain area consistently associated with mentalizing, was sensitive to the communicative intent of utterances, irrespective of linguistic difficulty. In contrast, left inferior frontal cortex, an area known to be involved in language, was sensitive to the linguistic demands of utterances, but not to communicative intent. These findings show that communicative and linguistic abilities rely on cerebrally (and computationally) distinct mechanisms.
Willems
Roel M
RM
Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen. roelwillems@berkeley.edu
de Boer
Miriam
M
de Ruiter
Jan Peter
JP
Noordzij
Matthijs L
ML
Hagoort
Peter
P
Toni
Ivan
I
D000328:Adult; D001076:Aptitude / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D003142:Communication; D004292:Dominance, Cerebral / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D005625:Frontal Lobe / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D033182:Intention; D007802:Language; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D017397:Prefrontal Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D012660:Semantics; D056345:Theory of Mind; D014705:Verbal Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult