Journal of Neurolinguistics最新文献

{"title":"Cerebral reorganization patterns predicting language recovery in individuals with post-stroke anomia: Evidence from functional near-infrared spectroscopy","authors":"Meng-Huan Wang ,&nbsp;Jing Gao ,&nbsp;Wei-Wei Dou ,&nbsp;Lily Zihe Yin ,&nbsp;Ya-Ting Sun ,&nbsp;Zhong-Li Jiang ,&nbsp;Feng Lin","doi":"10.1016/j.jneuroling.2025.101280","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jneuroling.2025.101280","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study integrates functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) with network-based statistics (NBS) to investigate the brain functional reorganization patterns in patients with post-stroke anomia (PSA) and their relationship with language recovery. The study included 28 patients with mild to moderate PSA and a matched healthy control group (HC). A parallel controlled trial design was employed to compare neural and behavioral changes before and after language intervention between the normal treatment (NT) and deferred treatment (DT) groups. The results revealed that: (1) in PSA patients, activation of the left hemisphere Broca's area and supramarginal gyrus (SMG) was significantly reduced during an overt naming task, while compensatory activation in the right hemisphere inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) was enhanced; (2) following treatment, the NT group exhibited a significant increase in hemodynamic responses and functional connectivity in the left hemisphere premotor and supplementary motor area (pSMA), Broca's area, and SMG, accompanied by a reduction in right hemisphere activation, whereas the DT group relied primarily on inefficient reorganization within the right hemisphere and visual cortex; (3) graph theory analysis demonstrated a significant positive correlation between node centrality in the left hemisphere Broca's area and SMG, as well as improvements in naming accuracy and language scores. The study confirms that efficient reorganization of the left hemisphere language network is a core mechanism underlying PSA recovery, with targeted language therapy promoting functional compensation through network integration, while spontaneous recovery depends on atypical pathways. This study provides dynamic evidence for the neuroplastic mechanisms of post-stroke language impairment and supports neuroimaging-based evidence for early clinical intervention.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":50118,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Neurolinguistics","volume":"76 ","pages":"Article 101280"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2025-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144549295","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Rapid automatized naming neural networks in children and adults: Connections to reading and arithmetic fluency","authors":"Ningxin Zhao ,&nbsp;Jie Chen ,&nbsp;Yinan Wei ,&nbsp;Jia Zhang ,&nbsp;Guosheng Ding ,&nbsp;George Georgiou ,&nbsp;Xiangzhi Meng ,&nbsp;Xiujie Yang","doi":"10.1016/j.jneuroling.2025.101266","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jneuroling.2025.101266","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Emphasizing the rapid transition from written symbols to phonological information, rapid automatized naming (RAN) serves as a robust predictor of proficiency in both reading and arithmetic. The current study aimed to uncover the neural mechanism underlying RAN from childhood to adulthood and how its maturity contributes to the development of reading and arithmetic. Using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data from 34 children (mean age = 11.82 years, <em>SD</em> = 1.13) and 29 adults (mean age = 23.47 years, <em>SD</em> = 2.41), we examined the relationship between RAN and the intrinsic whole-brain functional connectome. The findings revealed a thalamus-centric RAN network in children, whereas adults exhibited a distinct network dominated by left cortical regions. Additionally, two development-related indices were computed: the ‘adult-like’ network maturity, which assesses the degree of similarity between each child's RAN network pattern and the averaged adult network pattern; the ‘child-unique’ network strength, which measures the strength of connections within the RAN network specific to children. Significant positive correlations were observed between the adult-like maturity index and reading and arithmetic fluency in children, alongside the segregation of the reading and arithmetic networks. Notably, a validation analysis confirmed that these correlations were not attributed to the overall brain maturation. By shedding light on the specific contribution of neural mechanisms underlying RAN, this study offers insightful perspectives on the neural underpinnings of the developmental covariance between reading and arithmetic.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":50118,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Neurolinguistics","volume":"75 ","pages":"Article 101266"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2025-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143942876","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"What's the point of talking? Auditory targets and communicative goals","authors":"Sophie Meekings ,&nbsp;Sophie K. Scott","doi":"10.1016/j.jneuroling.2025.101262","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jneuroling.2025.101262","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Human speech production is a complex action requiring minute control over the articulators and sensitivity to the surrounding environment. Computational and empirical work has attempted to identify the specific neural mechanisms and cognitive processes that allow us to reliably produce speech sounds. This work has established that humans can use their perception of the auditory and somatosensory consequences of their actions to guide subsequent speech movements. However, speech predominantly takes place in a communicative context, and this context is also known to modulate the way that people speak: human voices are highly flexible. In this paper, we try to unite the traditional motor control conception of internally defined acoustic and somatosensory goals with linguistic research showing that talkers respond and entrain to their conversational partners. We provide an overview of the theoretical and empirical work surrounding the use of sensory feedback monitoring in speech production and discuss practical constraints that have limited more naturalistic investigations into dyadic interaction. To conclude, we argue that the variability of results seen in the speech motor control literature reflects a more complex underlying neural architecture, and an overarching communicative goal that supersedes specific phonetic targets.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":50118,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Neurolinguistics","volume":"75 ","pages":"Article 101262"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2025-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143828964","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The dissociation of grammatical category from multiple levels in the neural representation of words: stress typicality effect among Chinese EFL learners","authors":"Yaxuan Meng ,&nbsp;Juan Zhang","doi":"10.1016/j.jneuroling.2025.101265","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jneuroling.2025.101265","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study aimed to dissociate grammatical category from multiple levels during the processing of stress typicality, with a focus on understanding how class information is represented among Chinese speakers who learn English as a foreign language (EFL). Disyllabic English words were used as stimuli and three event-related potentials (ERPs) components, including P200, N400, and LPC (late positive component), were analyzed across two tasks that varied in their direct utilization of grammatical cue: lexical decision task in Experiment 1 and grammatical classification task in Experiment 2. Our findings indicate differences between words exhibiting distinct stress and grammatical patterns, suggesting that prosodic and grammatical cues are dissociated early around 200 ms, and continue to influence lexical access into later time windows. Additionally, the direct tapping of grammatical cues appears to impact how classes are processed, as differences between tasks were observed. In summary, our results reveal that grammatical class could be represented at the orthographic level and dissociated from prosody at an early stage. Furthermore, the representation of grammatical class among Chinese EFL learners may be independent of semantics.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":50118,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Neurolinguistics","volume":"75 ","pages":"Article 101265"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2025-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143922818","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Consonant intelligibility in individuals with Parkinson's disease in noise: Pre-specified secondary outcome variables from a randomized control trial (RCT) comparing two intensive speech treatments (LSVT LOUD vs. LSVT ARTIC)","authors":"Geralyn Schulz ,&nbsp;Angela Halpern ,&nbsp;Jennifer Speilman ,&nbsp;Lorraine Ramig ,&nbsp;Ira Panzer ,&nbsp;Alan Sharpley ,&nbsp;Katherine Freeman","doi":"10.1016/j.jneuroling.2025.101251","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jneuroling.2025.101251","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The majority of people with Parkinson's disease (PD) experience changes in speech production, most notably reduced vocal volume and imprecise articulation, that limit speech intelligibility and may contribute to significant declines in quality of life. We previously conducted a randomized control trial comparing two intensive treatments, voice (LSVT LOUD) or articulation (LSVT ARTIC) to assess single word intelligibility in the presence of background noise (babble and mall). Participants (64 PD and 20 Healthy) read words from the diagnostic rhyme test (DRT), an ANSI Standard for measuring intelligibility of speech, before and after one month (treatment or no treatment). Teams of trained listeners blindly rated the data. Previously we found that single word intelligibility in the presence of both noise conditions improved in PD participants who had LSVT LOUD compared to the groups that had LSVT ARTIC or no treatment. The current study analyzed the distinctive features (Compactness, Graveness, Sustention, Sibilation, Nasality, Voicing), of the initial consonants of words in the DRT test to determine what in particular is contributing to the differences in word intelligibility that we previously identified. The distinctive features of the DRT assess the valving nature of consonant production. Intensive treatment targeting vocal loudness (LSVT LOUD) had a greater positive effect on consonant intelligibility than treatment targeting articulation (LSVT ARTIC) for all distinctive features in background Babble noise and for 5/6 distinctive features in background Mall noise. Due to the definition of the distinctive features, we can conclude that the intelligibility gains seen following LSVT LOUD treatment are due to improved vocal tract valving.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":50118,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Neurolinguistics","volume":"75 ","pages":"Article 101251"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2025-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143628730","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"N400 signatures of presupposition and assertion correlate with pragmatic mismatches, not with epistemic vigilance","authors":"Edoardo Lombardi Vallauri ,&nbsp;Giulia Giunta ,&nbsp;Viviana Masia ,&nbsp;Emanuele Maiorana ,&nbsp;Patrizio Campisi","doi":"10.1016/j.jneuroling.2025.101268","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jneuroling.2025.101268","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study investigates the N400 component, first identified in response to the presupposition of unshared information compared to the presupposition of shared information and the assertion of unshared information. Two hypotheses were tested: (i) the N400 only represents a pragmatic mismatch due to a less predicted informational packaging associated with some content, or (ii) it reflects variations in critical attention under different packaging conditions. Our findings support the first hypothesis. The N400 correlates with pragmatic mismatches between the linguistic encoding of content and its previous cognitive status, namely (1a) presupposition vs assertion of unshared information and (1b) presupposition of shared vs unshared information; and (2a) assertion vs presupposition of shared information and (2b) assertion of shared vs unshared information. The N400 is absent in equally matching conditions, i.e., the presupposition of shared content vs the assertion of unshared content (both matching) and the presupposition of unshared content vs the assertion of shared content (both mismatching). These conclusions offer insights into one of the key ERP components of language processing.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":50118,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Neurolinguistics","volume":"75 ","pages":"Article 101268"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2025-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144124129","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"No evidence for dissociation of Turkish nouns and verbs in Broca's and Wernicke's areas: A transcranial magnetic stimulation study","authors":"Gülkader Temiz ,&nbsp;İrem Bağçeci ,&nbsp;N. Evra Günhan Şenol ,&nbsp;Talat Bulut","doi":"10.1016/j.jneuroling.2025.101260","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jneuroling.2025.101260","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>It is not clear whether the grammatical distinction between nouns and verbs serves as an organizational principle for representation of the lexicon in the brain, or whether semantic differences between the two categories such as imageability account for any cortical segregation between them. In this study, we used repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) and lexical decision tasks to test whether Broca's area would be associated with verbs and Wernicke's area with nouns, and whether imageability and lexical status (real words versus pseudowords) would modulate representation of nouns and verbs in Broca's area and Wernicke's area. We assumed that if nouns and verbs are dissociated in these regions then their suppression would lead to a selective slowdown in lexical decision times for one or the other word category, which may be modulated by imageability and lexical status. On two different days, Broca's area and Wernicke's area were suppressed using low-frequency rTMS, and lexical decision times on Turkish nouns and verbs were collected before and immediately after the stimulation sessions. Using linear mixed-effects models with item- and trial-level predictors and covariates (imageability, lemma frequency, length in letters and presentation order), we failed to find any evidence for dissociation of nouns and verbs in Broca's area and Wernicke's area, or for an effect of imageability and lexical status on such purported dissociation. The analyses revealed a significant interaction between stimulation session and lexical status (real words versus pseudowords) in Broca's area, but not in Wernicke's area, implicating Broca's area with real words more than pseudowords. In addition, several behavioral effects were observed including the word frequency effect (faster RTs for frequent than infrequent words), word superiority effect (faster RTs for real words than pseudowords) and word category effect (faster RTs for nouns than verbs). In conclusion, our findings on Turkish nouns and verbs do not provide any evidence that grammatical category is a lexical organizational principle in Broca's or Wernicke's areas.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":50118,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Neurolinguistics","volume":"75 ","pages":"Article 101260"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2025-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143704602","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"ERP evidence on the regulation of negative emotions by verbal humor in subthreshold depression individuals","authors":"Xueyan Li ,&nbsp;Bo Zhao ,&nbsp;Han Wang ,&nbsp;Huili Wang ,&nbsp;Yue Hu ,&nbsp;Bin Long ,&nbsp;Xiao Yang","doi":"10.1016/j.jneuroling.2025.101263","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jneuroling.2025.101263","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Verbal humor, which integrates both cognitive and affective aspects, has been shown to effectively regulate negative emotions. However, there is limited temporal evidence regarding the underlying mechanisms of this regulation in individuals with subthreshold depression. In light of the three stages involved in verbal-humor processing, this study aims to explore group differences in the neural mechanisms of negative emotion regulation through verbal humor between individuals with subthreshold depression and healthy controls. Thirty-nine participants provided two emotion ratings after exposure to negative priming words and after viewing either humorous or neutral regulating stimuli. Behavioral results indicated distinct differences in emotion ratings between conditions in both groups, with larger differences observed in the humorous condition, suggesting that verbal humor plays a significant role in regulating negative emotions. The ERP results revealed that activation of the N400 and LPP components was significantly enhanced under humorous conditions, reflecting the joint regulation of cognitive and affective aspects in verbal-humor processing. Compared to healthy controls, the subthreshold depression group exhibited overall less N400 activation in the right central region. The LPP evoked in individuals with subthreshold depression was significantly lower compared to controls in neutral conditions, with no significant difference observed in the humorous condition. ERO results further demonstrated the effect of subthreshold depression on oscillatory changes in the regulation of negative emotions through verbal humor, showing that the subthreshold depression group exhibited lower activation in the theta and beta bands. Collectively, these results affirm that verbal humor can regulate negative emotions in individuals with subthreshold depression, albeit to a somewhat lesser extent within this group. Regarding the cognitive aspect of verbal humor, individuals with subthreshold depression exhibited a diminished ability to detect incongruities. Additionally, concerning the affective aspect of verbal humor, individuals with subthreshold depression showed a reduced tendency to engage with positive emotions. Future research could further explore the neural mechanisms by which individuals with subthreshold depression utilize verbal humor to regulate negative emotions.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":50118,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Neurolinguistics","volume":"75 ","pages":"Article 101263"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2025-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143922820","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The lexicon constrains grammar, grammar constrains composition: ERP evidence for sequential processing of morphological agreement and sentence meaning","authors":"Viktoriia Afoian,&nbsp;Mila Vulchanova,&nbsp;Giosuè Baggio","doi":"10.1016/j.jneuroling.2025.101261","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jneuroling.2025.101261","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In neurolinguistics and the neurobiology of language, processing models that parallelize meaning and grammar have acquired theoretical and empirical support over more modular theories. Yet, parallel models too should account for serial, sequential, or blocking effects of one type of representation on others. In this study, we used ERPs to assess whether and how the mental lexicon restricts the applicability of morphosyntactic operations, and how those, in turn, constrain on-line meaning composition. The stimuli were Norwegian sentences with the form ‘N V Adj’. The adjective was either correctly or incorrectly inflected for gender or number relative to the noun, and the noun was either a real word or a pseudoword built around a pseudoroot. ERPs show that agreement only applies between an adjective and a noun that contains a real lexical root, and that lexical meanings are only composed for correctly inflected words. We could not find agreement effects for pseudonouns or differences between gender and number features. Our results suggest that some grammatical processes may draw from and depend on lexical storage, in particular of lexical roots, and that compositional semantic processes may depend on the well-formedness of the outputs of such grammatical processes.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":50118,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Neurolinguistics","volume":"75 ","pages":"Article 101261"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2025-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143687665","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Attention moderates the AoA effect on second language vowel perception","authors":"Yuanyuan Li ,&nbsp;Jing Lu ,&nbsp;Haibo Zhang ,&nbsp;Cuicui Wang ,&nbsp;Vesa Putkinen ,&nbsp;Sha Tao","doi":"10.1016/j.jneuroling.2025.101264","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jneuroling.2025.101264","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Age of acquisition (AoA) may have long-lasting effects on second language learning, such as vowel perception, especially in immersion contexts. However, it's important to note that an earlier start of second language learning may not be equally important for all learners. Identifying the key individual characteristics that moderate the AoA effect is essential to elucidate the nature of the AoA effect. This study aimed to investigate the significance of the AoA effect in a non-immersion second language learning context and examine whether individual characteristics, such as second language proficiency, general auditory processing, and attention switching abilities may moderate this effect. Fifty-eight native Chinese-speaking university students, with over ten years of non-immersion English learning, participated in tasks assessing English vowel perception, non-linguistic sound perception, and attention switching ability. The results showed that the AoA effect remained significant among non-immersion Chinese English learners. Moreover, stronger individual attention switching and higher English listening proficiency, but not auditory processing ability, buffered the AoA effect. The moderating effect of attention switching remained significant even after controlling for the moderating effect of English listening proficiency. Earlier start of second language learning may be particularly important for learners with a slower attention switch (indicated by a longer P3 latency) to learn speech perception, while not so much for those with a quicker attention switch (indicated by a shorter P3 latency). The findings were the first empirical evidence highlighting that the AoA effect on second language learning in non-immersive contexts may differ by learners' cognitive ability. The present study expanded the knowledge of the complexity of the AoA effect to more specific individual characteristics.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":50118,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Neurolinguistics","volume":"75 ","pages":"Article 101264"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2025-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143935160","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}