Neural correlates of metonymy resolution

Metonymies are exemplary models for complex semantic association processes at the sentence level. We investigated processing of metonymies using event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).During an 1.5 Tesla fMRI scan, 14 healthy subjects (12 female) read 124 short German sentences with either literal (like “Africa is arid”), metonymic (“Africa is hungry”), or nonsense (“Africa is woollen”) content. Sentences were constructed so that they obey certain grammatical, semantic, and plausibility conditions and were matched for word frequency, semantic association, length and syntactic structure. We concentrated on metonymies that were not yet fossilised; we also examined a wide variety of metonymic readings.Reading metonymies relative to literal sentences revealed signal changes in a predominantly left-lateralised fronto-temporal network with maxima in the left and right inferior frontal as well as left middle temporal gyri. Left inferior frontal activation may reflect both inference processes and access to world knowledge during metonymy resolution.     

Individual differences in the neural basis of causal inferencing

This study used fMRI to examine individual differences in the neural basis of causal inferencing. Participants with varying language skill levels, as indexed by scores on the vocabulary portion of the Nelson-Denny Reading Test, read four types of two-sentence passages in which causal relatedness (moderate and distant) and presence or absence of explicit clause connectives were orthogonally varied to manipulate coherence and cohesion during inference generation. Skilled readers showed better neural efficiency (less activation) during all context sentences and during all inference conditions. Increased activation in less-skilled readers was most extensively distributed in the right hemisphere (RH) homologues of left hemisphere (LH) language areas, especially in the most difficult passage types. Skilled readers also showed greater sensitivity to coherence (greater activation and synchronization in moderately related than distantly related passages) whereas less-skilled readers showed sensitivity to cohesion (greater activation and synchronization when clause connectives were present than when they were not). These finding support the hypothesis that skilled reading comprehension requires recruitment of the RH on an “as needed” basis. We describe the dynamic spillover hypothesis, a new theoretical framework that outlines the conditions under which RH language contributions are most likely evoked.     

The right hemisphere advantage in visual change detection depends on temporal factors

What accounts for the Right Hemisphere (RH) functional superiority in visual change detection? An original task which combines one-shot and divided visual field paradigms allowed us to direct change information initially to the RH or the Left Hemisphere (LH) by deleting, respectively, an object included in the left or right half of a scene presented centrally. We manipulated the perceptual salience and semantic relevance of the change as well as the duration of the Inter-Stimulus Interval (ISI) between the scenes in order to clarify the role of the RH in memory and attention processes, and to explore whether lengthening the ISI would enhance the contribution of the LH. When analyzing data collapsed over the two levels (high vs. low) of salience and of relevance, changes were better detected in the left visual field (lvf) than in the right visual field (rvf) in the case of a short ISI, while no difference emerged in the case of a long ISI. Moreover, lengthening the ISI resulted in a performance decrement in the lvf, both for accuracy and response speed. The fact that the RH superiority was limited to short intervals indicates that stimulus-driven orienting contributes more than perceptual processing to this hemispheric asymmetry. When considering perceptual and semantic properties of the change, the effect of the ISI duration seemed to specifically emerge in the case of low relevance, with an enhancement of accuracy in the rvf when comparing the long with the short ISI. This suggests that the ISI influence on hemispheric performance operates on different levels.     

Hemispheric asymmetries in auditory distraction

Serial-verbal short-term memory is impaired by irrelevant sound, particularly when the sound changes acoustically (the changing-state effect). In contrast, short-term recall of semantic information is impaired only by the semanticity of irrelevant speech, particularly when it is semantically related to the target memory items (the between-sequence semantic similarity effect). Previous research indicates that the changing-state effect is larger when the sound is presented to the left ear in comparison to the right ear, the left ear disadvantage. In this paper, we report a novel finding whereby the between-sequence semantic similarity effect is larger when the irrelevant speech is presented to the right ear in comparison to the left ear, but this right ear disadvantage is found only when meaning is the basis of recall (Experiments 1 and 3), not when order is the basis of recall (Experiment 2). Our results complement previous research on hemispheric asymmetry effects in cross-modal auditory distraction by demonstrating a role for the left hemisphere in semantic auditory distraction.     

Hemispheric specialization and creative thinking: A meta-analytic review of lateralization of creativity

In the last two decades research on the neurophysiological processes of creativity has found contradicting results. Whereas most research suggests right hemisphere dominance in creative thinking, left-hemisphere dominance has also been reported. The present research is a meta-analytic review of the literature to establish how creative thinking relates to relative hemispheric dominance. The analysis was performed on the basis of a non-parametric vote-counting approach and effect-size calculations of Cramer’s phi suggest relative dominance of the right hemisphere during creative thinking. Moderator analyses revealed no difference in predominant right-hemispheric activation for verbal vs. figural tasks, holistic vs. analytical tasks, and context-dependent vs. context-independent tasks. Suggestions for further investigations with the meta-analytic and neuroscience methodologies to answer the questions of left hemispheric activation and further moderation of the effects are discussed.     

比喻性语言加工的脑机制

早期观点认为比喻性语言加工主要依赖右脑, 随着研究的深入, 右脑假说受到许多研究结果的挑战, 左脑参与比喻性语言的加工。同时, 左右脑语言区发挥各自不同的作用, 新的研究证实, 前额前部皮层同样参与比喻性语言的加工。比喻性语言的理解需要左右半球及前额皮层的共同激活, 同时对其加工还依赖左右半球的联合作用, 比喻性语言理解神经网络的建立需要新证据。     

Terror and Collateral Damage: Are they Permissible?*

This article begins by comparing terror and death and then focuses on whether killing combatants and noncombatants as a mere means to create terror, that is in turn a means to winning a war, is ever permissible. The role of intentions and alternative acts one might have done is examined in this regard. The second part of the article begins by criticizing a standard justification for causing collateral (side effect) deaths in war and offers an alternative justification that makes use of the idea of group liability. * This article is a shortened version of my “Failures of Just War Theory: Terror, Harm, and Justice,” Ethics 114 (July 2004), pp. 650–694, with the addition of new material on the use of terror in Section 2.     

Me, myself, and lie: The role of self-awareness in deception

Deception has been studied extensively but still little is known about individual differences in deception ability. We investigated the relationship between self-awareness and deception ability. We enlisted novice actors to portray varying levels of deception. Forty-two undergraduates viewed the videotaped portrayals and rated the actors’ believability. Actors with high private self-awareness were more effective deceivers, suggesting that high self-monitors are more effective at deceiving. Self-awareness may lead to knowledge of another’s mental state (i.e., Theory of Mind), which may improve an individual’s deception ability.     

Divided Visual Attention and Left Hemisphere Activation Among Psychopathic and Nonpsychopathic Offenders

Recent divided attention studies suggest the impulsive antisocial behavior of psychopaths may be related to deficient processing of information under conditions that place substantial demands on left-hemisphere-specific processing resources (left hemisphere activation (LHA) hypothesis; D. S. Kosson [1996, 1998]). To examine performance under conditions constraining eye movements and covert shifts of attention, 26 psychopathic and 46 nonpsychopathic inmates completed a divided attention task in which lateralized stimuli appeared briefly and simultaneously in the left visual field (LVF) and right visual field (RVF) of a monitor. Targets were either presented primarily in the RVF to induce LHA or were equiprobable in LVF and RVF to promote equal activation (EA) of left and right hemisphere resources. Psychopaths were less accurate than nonpsychopaths only under LHA conditions; within-group comparisons also revealed a substantial decrement from EA to LHA only in psychopaths. Thus, psychopaths’ performance deficits were specific to conditions priming left hemisphere resources asymmetrically.     

Interhemispheric interaction in word‐ and color‐matching of Kanji color words1

Abstract: The aim of the present study was to investigate the possibility that a shift toward a within‐hemisphere advantage would emerge when two stimulus items receive, respectively, different processing (vs. when they receive similar processing). Using right‐handed participants, we briefly presented two Kanji color‐word items as either within‐field or across‐fields. Viewers had to match the two items in terms of ink color (a color‐matching task) or word meaning (a name‐matching task). Each Kanji color word was presented with the same (congruent) or different (incongruent) ink color relative to the word meaning. Our results were twofold. First, a within‐field advantage appeared in the relatively easier color‐matching task, whereas an across‐field advantage tended to occur in the relatively harder name‐matching task. Second, in the word‐matching task an across‐field advantage appeared when both Kanji color words appeared in similar processing manners (both congruent or both incongruent), whereas a within‐field advantage occurred when processing of two Kanji items differed (one congruent and one incongruent). These results suggested that a shift toward a within‐hemisphere advantage occurs when two items are processed in respectively different ways.