title: Readers select a comprehension mode independent of pronoun: Evidence from fMRI during narrative comprehension.
abstract: Perspective is a crucial feature for communicating about events. Yet it is unclear how linguistically encoded perspective relates to cognitive perspective taking. Here, we tested the effect of perspective taking with short literary stories. Participants listened to stories with 1st or 3rd person pronouns referring to the protagonist, while undergoing fMRI. When comparing action events with 1st and 3rd person pronouns, we found no evidence for a neural dissociation depending on the pronoun. A split sample approach based on the self-reported experience of perspective taking revealed 3 comprehension preferences. One group showed a strong 1st person preference, another a strong 3rd person preference, while a third group engaged in 1st and 3rd person perspective taking simultaneously. Comparing brain activations of the groups revealed different neural networks. Our results suggest that comprehension is perspective dependent, but not on the perspective suggested by the text, but on the reader's (situational) preference.
authors.affiliation: Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and Behaviour, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands; Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, The Netherlands. Electronic address: franziska.hartung@mpi.nl.
authors.forename: Franziska
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Hartung
authors.affiliation: Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and Behaviour, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands; Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Hagoort
authors.affiliation: Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and Behaviour, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands; Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, The Netherlands; Centre for Language Studies, Faculty of Humanities, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Roel M
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Willems
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001307:Auditory Perception; D032882:Comprehension / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008037:Linguistics; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D033262:Narration; D009415:Nerve Net; D011932:Reading; D057566:Self Report; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Comprehension; Language; Narrative; Personal pronouns; Perspective taking; Simulation; Situation model; fMRI