Title
Cortical mechanisms involved in the processing of verbs: an fMRI study.
Abstract
In this study, we investigated two aspects of verb processing: first, whether verbs are processed differently from nouns; and second, how verbal morphology is processed. For this purpose, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to compare three types of lexical processing in Japanese: the processing of nouns, unmarked active verbs, and inflected passive verbs. Twenty-eight healthy subjects were shown a lexical item and asked to judge whether the presented item was a legal word. Although all three conditions activated the bilateral inferior frontal, occipital, the left middle, and inferior temporal cortices, we found differences in the degree of activation for each condition. Verbs elicited greater activation in the left middle temporal gyrus than nouns, and inflected verbs showed greater activation in the left inferior frontal gyrus than unmarked verbs. This study demonstrates that although verbs are basically processed in the same cortical network as nouns, nouns and verbs elicit different degrees of activation due to the cognitive demands involved in lexical semantic processing. Furthermore, this study also shows that the left inferior frontal cortex is related to the processing of verbal inflectional morphology.
Year
DOI
Venue
2006
10.1162/jocn.2006.18.8.1304
Cognitive Neuroscience, Journal of
Keywords
Field
DocType
left middle,left inferior frontal gyrus,left middle temporal gyrus,cortical mechanisms,lexical semantic processing,inferior temporal cortex,lexical processing,lexical item,verb processing,greater activation,fmri study,left inferior frontal cortex,lexical semantics,noun
Semantic memory,Verb,Laterality,Functional magnetic resonance imaging,Lexical item,Noun,Psychology,Functional imaging,Cognitive psychology,Cognition
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
18
8
0898-929X
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
8
0.89
3
Authors
10
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Satoru Yokoyama1122.37
Tadao Miyamoto281.57
Jorge J. Riera3202.17
Jungho Kim4212.31
Yuko Akitsuki5496.86
Iwata Kazuki6948.98
Kei Yoshimoto73612.04
Kaoru Horie8506.26
Shigeru Sato9394.73
Ryuta Kawashima1035342.39