Hierarchical syntactic processing is beyond mere associating: Functional magnetic resonance imaging evidence from a novel artificial grammar.

ABSTRACT: Grammar is central to any natural language. In the past decades, the artificial grammar of the Aⁿ Bⁿ type in which a pair of associated elements can be nested in the other pair was considered as a desirable model to mimic human language syntax without semantic interference. However, such a grammar relies on mere associating mechanisms, thus insufficient to reflect the hierarchical nature of human syntax. Here, we test how the brain imposes syntactic hierarchies according to the category relations on linearized sequences by designing a novel artificial "Hierarchical syntactic structure-building Grammar" (HG), and compare this to the Aⁿ Bⁿ grammar as a "Nested associating Grammar" (NG) based on multilevel associations. Thirty-six healthy German nat

SUBMITTER: Chen L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8193521 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature