title: Towards a computational model of actor-based language comprehension.
abstract: Neurophysiological data from a range of typologically diverse languages provide evidence for a cross-linguistically valid, actor-based strategy of understanding sentence-level meaning. This strategy seeks to identify the participant primarily responsible for the state of affairs (the actor) as quickly and unambiguously as possible, thus resulting in competition for the actor role when there are multiple candidates. Due to its applicability across languages with vastly different characteristics, we have proposed that the actor strategy may derive from more basic cognitive or neurobiological organizational principles, though it is also shaped by distributional properties of the linguistic input (e.g. the morphosyntactic coding strategies for actors in a given language). Here, we describe an initial computational model of the actor strategy and how it interacts with language-specific properties. Specifically, we contrast two distance metrics derived from the output of the computational model (one weighted and one unweighted) as potential measures of the degree of competition for actorhood by testing how well they predict modulations of electrophysiological activity engendered by language processing. To this end, we present an EEG study on word order processing in German and use linear mixed-effects models to assess the effect of the various distance metrics. Our results show that a weighted metric, which takes into account the weighting of an actor-identifying feature in the language under consideration outperforms an unweighted distance measure. We conclude that actor competition effects cannot be reduced to feature overlap between multiple sentence participants and thereby to the notion of similarity-based interference, which is prominent in current memory-based models of language processing. Finally, we argue that, in addition to illuminating the underlying neurocognitive mechanisms of actor competition, the present model can form the basis for a more comprehensive, neurobiologically plausible computational model of constructing sentence-level meaning.
authors.affiliation: Department of Germanic Linguistics, University of Marburg, Deutschhausstr. 3, 35032, Marburg, Germany, phillip.alday@staff.uni-marburg.de.
authors.forename: Phillip M
authors.initials: PM
authors.lastname: Alday
authors.forename: Matthias
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Schlesewsky
authors.forename: Ina
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Bornkessel-Schlesewsky
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D032882:Comprehension / Q000502:physiology*; D003198:Computer Simulation; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008297:Male; D008959:Models, Neurological; D055815:Young Adult
references.citation: Psychophysiology. 2004 Jan;41(1):142-51
references.pmid: 14693009
references.citation: Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2007 Oct 16;104(42):16598-603
references.pmid: 17909181
references.citation: Brain Res. 2012 Mar 29;1446:127-43
references.pmid: 22361114
references.citation: Neuroimage. 2003 Nov;20 Suppl 1:S18-29
references.pmid: 14597293
references.citation: Psychon Bull Rev. 2011 Feb;18(1):150-7
references.pmid: 21327361
references.citation: Neuropsychologia. 2011 Nov;49(13):3573-82
references.pmid: 21939678
references.citation: Annu Rev Psychol. 2008;59:193-224
references.pmid: 17854286
references.citation: Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2010 Dec 14;107(50):21767-72
references.pmid: 21118983
references.citation: Psychophysiology. 2007 Jul;44(4):491-505
references.pmid: 17521377
references.citation: Neuroreport. 2001 Oct 29;12(15):3391-4
references.pmid: 11711892
references.citation: Cogn Sci. 2005 May 6;29(3):375-419
references.pmid: 21702779
references.citation: Annu Rev Psychol. 2001;52:369-96
references.pmid: 11148310
references.citation: Brain Res Rev. 2008 Nov;59(1):55-73
references.pmid: 18617270
references.citation: Nat Rev Neurosci. 2008 Dec;9(12):920-33
references.pmid: 19020511
references.citation: Cognition. 2008 Jan;106(1):484-500
references.pmid: 17336956
references.citation: Nat Neurosci. 2009 Jun;12(6):718-24
references.pmid: 19471271
references.citation: Brain Lang. 2011 Jun;117(3):133-52
references.pmid: 20970843
references.citation: Cereb Cortex. 1991 Jan-Feb;1(1):1-47
references.pmid: 1822724
references.citation: Neuroreport. 2004 Mar 1;15(3):409-12
references.pmid: 15094493
references.citation: Neurosci Lett. 2005 Mar 29;377(2):91-6
references.pmid: 15740843
references.citation: Neuroimage. 2009 Aug 1;47(1):360-6
references.pmid: 19376237
references.citation: Nature. 2004 Oct 14;431(7010):859-62
references.pmid: 15483614
references.citation: Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2012 Feb 21;109(8):E505-14
references.pmid: 22308358
references.citation: Psychophysiology. 1999 Sep;36(5):559-70
references.pmid: 10442024
references.citation: Brain Lang. 2003 Apr;85(1):1-36
references.pmid: 12681346
references.citation: Nature. 1973 Aug 24;244(5417):522-3
references.pmid: 4621131
references.citation: Cognition. 2000 May 15;75(2):105-43
references.pmid: 10771275
references.citation: J Mem Lang. 2013 Apr;68(3):
references.pmid: 24403724
references.citation: Brain Lang. 2012 Sep;122(3):179-89
references.pmid: 22694997
references.citation: Trends Cogn Sci. 2006 Oct;10(10):447-54
references.pmid: 16949330
references.citation: Brain Res. 2007 May 18;1146:23-49
references.pmid: 17400197
references.citation: Brain Lang. 2008 Nov;107(2):133-57
references.pmid: 18667231
references.citation: Psychol Bull. 2005 Jul;131(4):510-32
references.pmid: 16060800
references.citation: Curr Opin Neurobiol. 1998 Aug;8(4):516-21
references.pmid: 9751652
references.citation: Prog Neurobiol. 2009 May;88(1):1-16
references.pmid: 19428958
references.citation: Neuroimage. 2006 Sep;32(3):1395-402
references.pmid: 16769225
references.citation: Psychol Rev. 2006 Oct;113(4):787-821
references.pmid: 17014303
references.citation: Brain Lang. 2008 May;105(2):112-33
references.pmid: 17996287
references.citation: Brain Lang. 2013 Apr;125(1):60-76
references.pmid: 23454075
references.citation: Brain Res Cogn Brain Res. 2004 Sep;21(1):11-21
references.pmid: 15325409
references.citation: Cogn Neurodyn. 2009 Dec;3(4):331-46
references.pmid: 19784798
references.citation: Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2010 Jan 12;365(1537):165-76
references.pmid: 20008394
references.citation: Cognition. 1982 May;11(3):245-99
references.pmid: 7199413
references.citation: Neuroimage. 2005 May 15;26(1):221-33
references.pmid: 15862222
references.citation: Science. 1980 Jan 11;207(4427):203-5
references.pmid: 7350657
references.citation: J Cogn Neurosci. 2007 Aug;19(8):1259-74
references.pmid: 17651001
references.citation: Prog Neurobiol. 2013 Apr;103:194-213
references.pmid: 22326926
references.citation: Brain Lang. 2012 Feb;120(2):108-26
references.pmid: 21377198
references.citation: Hum Brain Mapp. 2013 Oct;34(10):2715-23
references.pmid: 22522937
references.citation: J Neurosci Methods. 2007 Aug 15;164(1):177-90
references.pmid: 17517438
references.citation: Brain Res Cogn Brain Res. 2002 May;13(3):339-56
references.pmid: 11918999
references.citation: Neuropsychologia. 2011 Feb;49(3):574-9
references.pmid: 21145903
references.citation: Nat Neurosci. 2005 Aug;8(8):1117-21
references.pmid: 16007080
references.citation: Trends Cogn Sci. 2002 Feb 1;6(2):78-84
references.pmid: 15866191
references.citation: Neuropsychologia. 1971 Mar;9(1):97-113
references.pmid: 5146491
references.citation: J Cogn Neurosci. 2010 Jan;22(1):67-82
references.pmid: 19199401
references.citation: Brain Res. 2006 Aug 23;1106(1):150-163
references.pmid: 16843443
references.citation: Trends Cogn Sci. 2005 Sep;9(9):416-23
references.pmid: 16054419
references.citation: Nat Rev Neurosci. 2008 Dec;9(12):934-46
references.pmid: 19020512
references.citation: Front Psychol. 2010 Oct 15;1:162
references.pmid: 21833227
references.citation: Trends Cogn Sci. 2000 Dec 1;4(12):463-470
references.pmid: 11115760
references.citation: Neuroinformatics. 2014 Jan;12(1):209-25
references.pmid: 24234916