Neural Mechanisms Underlying the Processing of Complex Sentences: An fMRI Study.

ABSTRACT: Previous research has shown effects of syntactic complexity on sentence processing. In linguistics, syntactic complexity (caused by different word orders) is traditionally explained by distinct linguistic operations. This study investigates whether different complex word orders indeed result in distinct patterns of neural activity, as would be expected when distinct linguistic operations are applied. Twenty-two older adults performed an auditory sentence processing paradigm in German with and without increased cognitive load. The results show that without increased cognitive load, complex sentences show distinct activation patterns compared with less complex, canonical sentences: complex object-initial sentences show increased activity in the left inferior frontal and temporal regions, whe

SUBMITTER: Vogelzang M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10158620 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature