van Ackeren, Markus J, Smaragdi, Areti and Rueschemeyer, Shirley-Ann orcid.org/0000-0001-6432-0917 (2016) Neuronal interactions between mentalizing and action systems during indirect request processing. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience. ISSN 1749-5024
Abstract
Human communication relies on the ability to process linguistic structure and to map words and utterances onto our environment. Furthermore, as what we communicate is often not directly encoded in our language (e.g., in the case of irony, jokes, or indirect requests), we need to extract additional cues to infer the beliefs and desires of our conversational partners. Although the functional interplay between language and the ability to mentalize has been discussed in theoretical accounts in the past, the neurobiological underpinnings of these dynamics are currently not well understood. Here, we address this issue using functional imaging (fMRI). Participants listened to question-reply dialogues. In these dialogues, a reply is interpreted as a direct reply, an indirect reply, or a request for action, depending on the question. We show that inferring meaning from indirect replies engages parts of the mentalizing network (mPFC) while requests for action also activate the cortical motor system (IPL). Subsequent connectivity analysis using Dynamic Causal Modelling (DCM) revealed that this pattern of activation is best explained by an increase in effective connectivity from the mentalizing network (mPFC) to the action system (IPL). These results are an important step towards a more integrative understanding of the neurobiological basis of indirect speech processing.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2016, The authors. This is an author-produced version of the published paper. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher’s self-archiving policy. Further copying may not be permitted; contact the publisher for details |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of York |
Academic Units: | The University of York > Faculty of Sciences (York) > Psychology (York) |
Depositing User: | Pure (York) |
Date Deposited: | 07 Jun 2016 14:15 |
Last Modified: | 15 Feb 2025 00:07 |
Published Version: | https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsw062 |
Status: | Published online |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1093/scan/nsw062 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:100147 |