Preschoolers' brains rely on semantic cues prior to the mastery of syntax during sentence comprehension.

ABSTRACT: Sentence comprehension requires the integration of both syntactic and semantic information, the acquisition of which seems to have different trajectories in the developing brain. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we examined the neural correlates underlying syntactic and semantic processing during auditory sentence comprehension as well as its development in preschool children by manipulating case marking and animacy hierarchy cues, respectively. A functional segregation was observed within Broca's area in the left inferior frontal gyrus for adults, where the pars opercularis was involved in syntactic processing and the pars triangularis in semantic processing. By contrast, five-year-old children sensitive to animacy hierarchy cues showed diffuse activation for semantic processi

SUBMITTER: Wu CY 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4739511 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature