Negative correlation between word-level surprisal and intersubject neural synchronization during narrative listening

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Psycholinguistics
• Cognitive Science

Background:

• Linguistic prediction, measured by surprisal, is crucial for language comprehension.
• Neural dynamics of prediction can vary individually, even during shared experiences like listening to a narrative.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate how word surprisal relates to intersubject phase synchronization (ISPS) during narrative comprehension.
• To explore individual differences in neural processing using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI).

Main Methods:

• Re-analyzed fMRI data from 27 participants listening to an audiobook forward and backward.
• Estimated ISPS and correlated it with lexical-only and semantics-weighted surprisal models.
• Compared ISPS between forward and backward listening conditions.

Main Results:

• Mean ISPS was significantly higher during forward than backward listening across frontal, temporal, and parietal areas.
• Negative correlations between ISPS and word surprisal were found in language-related brain regions.
• Higher surprisal levels were associated with decreased group synchronization, indicating divergent neural dynamics.

Conclusions:

• Word surprisal influences neural synchronization during narrative comprehension.
• Individual differences in processing unpredictable words lead to lower group synchronization.
• Surprisal measures effectively explain neural processes and predictive mechanisms in language comprehension.