Neurobiology of Language and Bilingualism

Modality-Specific and Amodal Language Processing by Single Neurons

The paper identifies modality-specific and amodal language processing by single neurons using neural recordings from patients during sentence comprehension.

Semantic predictability selectively modulates delta-band syntax tracking: evidence for good-enough parsing

The paper shows semantic predictability selectively affects delta-band neural responses to syntactic constructs during speech comprehension, indicating graded reliance on syntax.

Linguistic and Affective Prosody. A Unifying Perspective:A Systematic Review and ALE Meta-Analysis of the Cortical Organization of Prosody

This paper reviews linguistic and affective prosody, finding shared and distinct neural activations and proposing a unified prosodic blending hypothesis.

The language network ages well: Preserved topography, lateralization, selectivity, and within-network functional connectivity in older brains

The paper examines age-related changes in the language and executive function networks using fMRI, finding preserved language network function in older adults compared to decline in the executive network.

The spatiotemporal dynamics of bottom-up and top-down processing during at-a-glance reading

The paper investigates how the brain detects and corrects grammatical errors in sentences during rapid visual processing, showing that syntax influences neural activity quickly after visual input.

The Structure and Statistics of Language Jointly Shape Cross-frequency Neural Dynamics During Spoken Language Comprehension

This study shows that both linguistic structure and statistical properties shape neural dynamics during spoken language comprehension through cross-frequency coupling.

Enhanced efficiency in the bilingual brain through the inter-hemispheric cortico-cerebellar pathway in early second language acquisition

This study shows that early second language acquisition enhances global brain network efficiency through the inter-hemispheric cortico-cerebellar pathway.

Neurophysiological measures of covert semantic processing in neurotypical adolescents actively ignoring spoken sentence inputs: A high-density event-related potential (ERP) study.

This study investigates whether semantic processing occurs covertly in adolescents ignoring spoken sentences, finding robust N400 and LPC/P600 responses despite reduced amplitudes and delayed latencies.

Mental Effort and Counterfactuals Modulate Language Understanding: ERP Evidence in Older Adults

This study examines how mental effort and counterfactual language affect language understanding in older adults using ERP data, finding that both factors modulate processing with distinct temporal dynamics.

Pronouns reactivate conceptual representations in human hippocampal neurons

The paper shows that pronouns reactivate noun-specific neurons in the human hippocampus during reading, linking memory and language at the single-cell level.

Subthalamic nucleus neurons encode syllable sequence and phonetic characteristics during speech

The paper investigates how subthalamic nucleus neurons encode phoneme and sequence features of speech in Parkinson's patients during deep brain stimulation.

Congruent brain signatures specific to phonology in fronto-temporal cortex during language production and understanding.

This study uses fMRI to show that phoneme-specific brain networks are similar during language production and comprehension in fronto-temporal cortex.

Le Petit Prince Hong Kong (LPPHK): Naturalistic fMRI and EEG data from older Cantonese speakers

The paper presents a multimodal database of neuroimaging and EEG data from older Cantonese speakers listening to The Little Prince, aiming to study language comprehension and healthy aging effects.

Enhanced generalization and specialization of brain representations of semantic knowledge in healthy aging

This study examines how brain representations of semantic knowledge change with healthy aging, finding increased generalization and specialization that may optimize neural resources.

Information-making processes in the speaker's brain drive human conversations forward

This study shows that speakers' brains generate information-rich words through extra neural computation, evidenced by stronger neural activity before articulation, and that LLMs similarly require deeper computation for improbable words.

Neural populations in the language network differ in the size of their temporal receptive windows

The paper identifies three distinct temporal receptive window sizes in neural populations of the language network using intracranial recordings.

No Electrophysiological Evidence for Semantic Processing During Inattentional Blindness

The paper investigates whether semantic processing occurs during inattentional blindness by examining N400 event-related potentials and finds no evidence of semantic processing when participants are inattentionally blind.

Scaling, but not instruction tuning, increases large language models' alignment with language processing in the human brain

This study shows that scaling large language models improves their alignment with human brain activity during reading more than instruction tuning.

Rapid Parallel Visual Presentation Provides a New Perspective on Relative Clause Processing in Mandarin Chinese

This paper uses parallel visual presentation in an EEG experiment to study relative clause processing in Mandarin Chinese, finding distinct behavioral and neural responses for subject- and object-extracted clauses.

Second language learning in older adults modulates Stroop task performance and brain activation

This study shows that language learning in older adults improves Stroop task performance and alters brain activation in prefrontal and parietal regions, with more engagement leading to greater changes.

A shared linguistic space for transmitting our thoughts from brain to brain in natural conversations

The paper shows that linguistic embedding spaces can capture neural alignment during conversations, revealing shared meaning between speakers and listeners.

The primacy of experience in language processing: Semantic priming is driven primarily by experiential similarity

This paper uses semantic priming and representational similarity analysis to show that experiential similarity, not distributional or taxonomic similarity, primarily drives semantic priming in word meaning representation.

Brain and grammar: revealing electrophysiological basic structures with competing statistical models

The paper compares statistical models to distinguish lexical and syntactic processing in EEG data from language comprehension.

Domain-general cognitive control processes in bilingual switching: evidence from midfrontal theta oscillations

This study examines midfrontal theta oscillations in bilingual switching tasks to assess whether cognitive control processes are domain-general or domain-specific.

Structural and sequential regularities modulate phrase-rate neural tracking

This study investigates whether neural tracking at the phrase rate in speech is driven by syntactic structure or sequential repetition, finding both factors influence tracking.

Animacy semantic network supports implicit causal inferences about illness

The paper investigates how implicit causal inferences about illness are supported by the animacy semantic network using fMRI and finds that illness causality engages a specific part of the precuneus.

Functional integration and segregation during semantic cognition: Evidence across age groups

This study examines how semantic cognition involves dynamic functional connectivity between core semantic brain regions across different age groups.

Shared functional specialization in transformer-based language models and the human brain

This paper analyzes the functional specialization of transformer-based language models and finds similarities with the human brain's cortical language network.

Registered report: Age-preserved semantic memory and the CRUNCH effect manifested as differential semantic control networks: an fMRI study

This study tests the CRUNCH hypothesis in aging by comparing neural activation and behavior in semantic tasks across young and older adults, finding no support for the predicted compensatory effects.

Linguistic inputs must be syntactically parsable to fully engage the language network

The paper tests whether syntactic parsing is necessary for language comprehension by analyzing brain responses to syntactically ill-formed but semantically plausible and grammatically correct but semantically implausible sentences.