A little more conversation - The influence of communicative context on syntactic priming in brain and behavior

摘要: We report on an fMRI syntactic priming experiment in which we measure brain activity for participants who communicate with another participant outside the scanner. investigated whether processing during overt language production and comprehension is influenced by having a (shared) goal to communicate. Although theory suggests this true, nature of influence remains unclear. Two hypotheses are tested: i. effects (fMRI RT) stronger communicative context than doing same non-communicative context, ii. magnitude (RT) correlated speaker’s partner. Results showed that across conditions, were faster produce sentences repeated syntax, relative novel syntax. This behavioral result converged data: found repetition suppression left insula extending into inferior frontal gyrus (BA 47/45), middle temporal 21), parietal cortex 40), precentral 6), bilateral precuneus 7), supplementary motor 32/8) right 47). did not find support first hypothesis: intention does increase (either or behavior) per se. second if speaker A strongly/weakly primed B, then B similar extent. conclude being bi-directional: speakers each other.