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Related Experiment Videos

Working memory and syntax interact in Broca's area.

Andrea Santi1, Yosef Grodzinsky

  • 1Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, McGill University, 1085 Docteur Penfield Avenue, Montréal, Québec, Canada H3A 1A7. andrea.santi@mail.mcgill.ca

Neuroimage
|June 15, 2007
PubMed
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Broca's area supports filler-gap dependencies, not general working memory. This brain region shows specific activation for these syntactic structures, supporting the specifist view in language processing.

Area of Science:

  • Neuroscience
  • Psycholinguistics
  • Cognitive Science

Background:

  • Broca's area is implicated in processing filler-gap dependency relations.
  • Two main theories exist: Broca's area has a specific syntactic role (specifist view) or supports domain-general working memory (generalist view).

Purpose of the Study:

  • To test the specifist versus generalist views of Broca's area function in dependency processing.
  • To investigate the neural basis of working memory demands in syntactic comprehension.

Main Methods:

  • fMRI study using a grammaticality judgment task.
  • Presented participants with filler-gap and reflexive binding constructions.
  • Varied the distance between dependent elements to manipulate working memory load.

Related Experiment Videos

Main Results:

  • Broca's area (left inferior frontal gyrus) showed an interaction between distance and dependency type.
  • A positive linear effect of distance was observed specifically for filler-gap relations.
  • Increased activation in bilateral parahippocampal/fusiform gyri was associated with distance across both dependency types.

Conclusions:

  • The findings support the specifist view that Broca's area plays a syntactically specific role.
  • Broca's area's involvement in working memory is not domain-general but specific to filler-gap relations.