Biology subjects

Arvidsson, C.

Publications and source records attributed to Arvidsson, C..

3 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2026

Conversation in fMRI: DMN Activates During Live Mentalizing

Although language might have evolved in a conversational setting, neural language processing is rarely studied in this setting. It is also important to delineate the roles of networks interacting with the language network, such as the default mode network and networks subserving social cognition or cognitive control. We studied the fundamental question of how conversational production and comprehension processes may differ. By acquiring fMRI data of participants engaging in conversations on ethical dilemmas with a confederate, we aimed to study extra-linguistic areas during live mentalizing, crucially with long (10 min) conversations. A subject-specific network analysis was used to complement group-averaged whole-brain analysis. The results replicate asymmetries between production and comprehension already observed using short conversations. This included left inferior frontal gyrus preferences for production and superior and middle temporal gyri preferences for comprehension. Activation in the posterior dorsal medial prefrontal cortex was specific to production, a result that is stable across conversational durations. Notably, we found preferential activity of the default mode network (DMN) during comprehension, specifically during longer conversations. The frontoparietal network for control (FPN) showed the same pattern, although it was less robust. This might indicate simultaneous self-reflective, Theory of Mind, and/or situational processing during comprehension, potentially due to lower conversational pressures, compared to production. The subnetwork DN-B was more strongly activated than DN-A, across both comprehension and production, suggesting that Theory of Mind remains continuously active throughout conversation. Our findings thus advance the understanding of how several networks contribute to production vs comprehension during conversation.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2024

Functional segregation of conversational production and comprehension when using word predictability

The extent to which the language production and comprehension systems overlap remains debated. We address this debate using a dataset where participants engaged in unscripted conversations, while scanned with fMRI. Word predictability was hypothesized to rely on different processes, depending on whether the word was uttered or heard. We employed the information-theoretic measure of surprisal (the negative log probability of a word occurring, given the preceding context) as a parametric modulator, controlling for the words overall frequency. The results for production surprisal revealed activation in the left superior and inferior frontal gyri and motor areas. A large bilateral cluster in the posterior part of the medial prefrontal cortex extended from the supplementary motor area to the anterior cingulate cortex. The results for comprehension surprisal replicated findings from non-conversational contexts, showing involvement of the bilateral superior temporal gyrus/sulcus, presumably supporting bottom-up processes for prediction error detection. Importantly, no overlap in the neural infrastructure of production and comprehension was observed, suggesting that word predictability processes in production and comprehension differ. We suggest that while the comprehension system handles prediction errors, the production system minimizes these errors through adaptation, all to achieve successful communication.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2023

Conversational production and comprehension: fMRI-evidence reminiscent of the classic Broca-Wernicke model

A key question in neurolinguistics is whether language production and comprehension share neural infrastructure, but this question has not been addressed in the context of actual conversation. We utilized a public fMRI dataset where participants (N=24) engaged in unscripted conversations with a confederate outside the scanner via an audio-video link. We provide evidence indicating that production and comprehension, in a conversational setting, diverge with respect to how they modulate the recruitment of regions in the left-lateralized perisylvian language network. Activity in the left inferior frontal gyrus was stronger in production than in comprehension. Compared to production, comprehension showed stronger recruitment of the left anterior middle temporal gyrus and superior temporal sulcus, but this was not the case for the posterior aspect of these loci. Although our results are reminiscent of the classic Broca-Wernicke model, the anterior temporal activation is a notable difference from that model. This is one of the findings which may be a consequence of the conversational setting, another being that conversational production activated what we interpret as higher-level socio-pragmatic processes. In conclusion, we present evidence supporting that the above-mentioned frontal vs temporal regions in the language network are functionally segregated during conversation.

neuroscience↗