Overcoming confounds of stimulus blocking: an event-related fMRI design of semantic processing

The way in which meaning is represented and processed in the brain is a key issue in cognitive neuroscience, which can be usefully addressed by functional imaging techniques. In contrast to previous imaging studies of semantic knowledge, which have primarily used blocked designs, in this study we use an event-related fMRI (erfMRI) design, which has the advantage of enabling events to be presented pseudorandomly, thus reducing strategic processes and enabling more direct comparison with psychological behavioral studies. We used a semantic categorization task in which events were words representing either artifact or natural kinds concepts. Significant areas of activation for semantic processing included inferior frontal lobe bilaterally (BA 47) and left temporal regions, both inferior (BA 36 and 20) and middle (BA 21). These are areas that have been identified in previous neuroimaging studies of semantic knowledge. However, there were no significant differences between artifact and natural kinds concepts. These results are consistent with our previous imaging studies using blocked designs and suggest that conceptual knowledge is represented in a unitary, distributed neural system undifferentiated by domain of knowledge. These findings demonstrate that event-related designs can generate activations that are similar to those seen in blocked designs investigating semantics and, moreover, offer a greater capacity for interpretation free from the confounds of block effects.