Neural mechanisms underlying the processing of Chinese words: An fMRI study
- 作者：Dong ; Y. ; Nakamura ; K. ; Okada ; T. ; Hanakawa ; T. ; Fukuyama ; H. ; Mazziotta ; J.C. ; Shibasaki ; H.
- 关键词：Semantic association ; Phonological matching ; Orthographic judgment ; Inferior frontal region ; PITC ; Broca's area
- 刊名：Neuroscience Research
- 出版年：2005
- 期刊代码：53_01680102
- 类别：neu
- 出版时间：June, 2005
- 卷：52
- 期：2
- 页码：139-145
- 文件大小：295 K
摘要
The present study employed functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate the neural mechanisms underlying orthographic, phonological and semantic processing of single character Chinese words. Twelve right-handed native Chinese speakers participated in the study. Three fundamental linguistic tasks including orthographic judgment, phonological matching and semantic association task were used. Our results demonstrated robust activation in the left posterior inferior temporal cortex (BA 37) for all three tasks. While the phonological matching task produced left-lateralized activation in the inferior frontal and parietal regions, semantic association task showed considerable bilateral activation in the inferior frontal and occipito-parietal regions. Direct comparison between phonological matching and semantic association task yielded semantic related activation in the anterior portion of the left inferior frontal gyrus (BA 47) and the right inferior frontal region (Broca's homology; BA 45). Behaviorally, there was no difference in response time between phonological matching and semantic association task. Our findings suggested that differential neural pathways were involved in the processing of meaning and sound of single-character Chinese words. The present study provided systemic information of the neural substrates underlying the processing of different components of Chinese language.