POWRE: The Cognitive and Neural Architectures of Word Meaning: A Combined Functional Imaging and Electrophysiology Approach

Duke University, Durham NC

Investigators

Abstract

This research will investigate the nature and organization of semantic (meaning) representations. Specifically, the research will employ physiological approaches to test whether the brain's organization of conceptual knowledge supports models that propose multiple semantic systems. The approach will combine functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and event-related potentials (ERPs) to investigate the cognitive-neural organization of semantic knowledge representations and to test the role of the right hemisphere in lexical-semantic processing. In this regard, the research will address two main questions. The first is whether specific and separable brain regions (and therefore perhaps cognitive architectures) are involved in the processing of verbal-based and image-based representations of words. The second is whether specific and separable brain regions are involved in the processing of close semantic relations versus more distant semantic relations between words. Swaab's career goals are to develop an active, extramurally-funded research program in language and brain in an academic environment that includes teaching and training at the undergraduate, graduate and postdoctoral levels. This POWRE award will allow her to obtain training and to develop expertise in the use of modern brain-imaging tools for pursuing the cognitive mechanisms and brain organization that underlie normal language processes. She already has expertise in the use of ERPs to study language comprehension processes and semantic representations both in neurologically normal persons and in brain-damaged patients with and without aphasia. Because these tools are rapidly becoming essential to studies of normal human language, Swaab will obtain training and experience in the use of fMRI to study the neural instantiation of models that propose non-unitary semantic knowledge representations. Importantly, this award will allow her to integrate fMRI and ERP in language research. This integration of neuroimaging and electrophysiological methods is a recent development in cognitive research and will elucidate both the time course and the functional anatomy of brain systems involved in language. At present, few laboratories have the tools and specialized knowledge to integrate electrophysiology and neuroimaging in the study of human language. Hence, this POWRE award will provide Swaab with a significant opportunity to take her work to the cutting edge of the cognitive neuroscience of language.