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Positron emission tomographic study of the brain during involuntary syntactic processing

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Abstract

A positron emission tomography (PET) method was used to study the human brain for involuntary processing of syntactically organized information. Eight healthy subjects counted a certain letter in a running line presented on a monitor screen. PET scanning was conducted during this task performance. In cases when the running line presented a syntactically coherent text (unlike the cases when the same task was performed during administration of a sequence of incoherent words, pseudowords, or pseudotext), PET scanning revealed activation in the temporal and temporoparietooccipital cortical areas of the left hemisphere and the right temporal pole. The inverse comparison demonstrated activation in the left occipital area probably connected with the purely visual strategy of the task performance. These results show that information presentation in the form of coherent text even without the instruction to read the text is associated with more profound involuntary linguistic stimuli processing than the presentation of incoherent words, pseudowords, or pseudotext. The activation of the polar anterior temporal areas is considered evidence for activation of the system of syntactic processing, which functioned, in this case, in the involuntary (automatic) mode.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of the Human Brain, Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, Russia

    V. A. Vorob’ev, S. V. Medvedev & S. V. Pakhomov

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  1. V. A. Vorob’ev
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  2. S. V. Medvedev
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  3. S. V. Pakhomov
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Vorob’ev, V.A., Medvedev, S.V. & Pakhomov, S.V. Positron emission tomographic study of the brain during involuntary syntactic processing. Hum Physiol 26, 381–387 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02760263

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02760263

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