Neural Correlates of Processing Syntax in Music and ... - PubMan

Language Perception 71
The activation of the IFG (specifically Broca’s area, BA 44/45) has been reported in
many studies of both syntactic comprehension and production (e.g., Caplan et al., 1998;
Dapretto & Bookheimer, 1999; Embick, Marantz, Miyashita, O'Neil, & Sakai, 2000;
Friederici, Bahlmann et al., 2006 [for a review]; Friederici, Fiebach, Schlesewsky,
Bornkessel, & von Cramon, 2006; Friederici, Meyer et al., 2000; Grewe et al., 2005;
Homae, Hashimoto, Nakajima, Miyashita, & Sakai, 2002; Indefrey, Hagoort, Herzog,
Seitz, & Brown, 2001; Just et al., 1996; Kaan & Swaab, 2002; Kang, Constable, Gore,
& Avrutin, 1999; M. Meyer et al., 2000; Moro et al., 2001; Newman et al., 2003; Ni et
al., 2000; Stromswold et al., 1996). From this evidence, it has been concluded that this
area has a privileged status with respect to syntax processing. Early studies by Caplan et
al. (1998) and Just et al. (1996) already found increased activity in the IFG during additional
resource allocation to syntactic complexity.
Friederici, Meyer, and von Cramon (2000) concurrently varied the semanticity (words
vs. pseudowords) and the syntacticity (sentences vs. word lists) of their stimuli and
found frontal activation in response to semantic as well as to syntactic violations. An
increase of activation bilaterally in the planum polare, and in the left deep frontal operculum
was exclusively found for syntactic processing. Meyer, Friederici, and von
Cramon (2000) extended these findings, demonstrating a stronger involvement of the
right peri-sylvian cortex, in particular, when task demands required an on-line repair of
ungrammatical sentences: while left hemisphere activation varied as a function of a
sentence’s grammaticality, the right IFG (pars opercularis and pars triangularis), the
right temporal transverse gyrus (Heschl’s gyrus) and the anterior portion of the STG
bilaterally (planum polare) were more strongly affected by a grammatical repair task.
Friederici et al., (2003) found distinct areas specialized for semantic and syntactic processes:
Processing of semantic violations relied primarily on the mid-portion of the superior
temporal region bilaterally and the insular cortex bilaterally, whereas processing of
syntactic violations specifically involved the anterior portion of the left STG, the left
posterior frontal operculum and the putamen in the left basal ganglia. Grewe (2005)
demonstrated an activation of the left IFG (pars opercularis) that extended into the deep
frontal operculum when processing complex (permuted) sentences. They suggest that
the pars opercularis is selectively sensitive to the language-specific linearization of
hierarchical linguistic dependencies while the deep frontal operculum is crucial for the
detection of ungrammaticality. Likewise, Friederici, Fiebach et al. (2006) demonstrated
a dissociation within the left inferior frontal cortex between the deep frontal operculum
– responding to syntactic violations – and the inferior portion of the left pars opercularis
(BA 44) – modulated by the complexity of well-formed sentences. The authors
claimed, BA 44/45’s function is to support the hierarchical reconstruction of the syntac-