Decoding the Neural Dynamics of Headed Syntactic Structure Building

Kód výsledku v IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F00216208%3A11320%2F26%3AKEWPAU5A" target="_blank" >RIV/00216208:11320/26:KEWPAU5A - isvavai.cz</a>

Výsledek na webu

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2126-24.2025" target="_blank" >http://dx.doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2126-24.2025</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2126-24.2025" target="_blank" >10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2126-24.2025</a>

Jazyk výsledku

angličtina

Název v původním jazyce

Decoding the Neural Dynamics of Headed Syntactic Structure Building

Popis výsledku v původním jazyce

The brain builds hierarchical phrases during language comprehension; however, the details and dynamics of the phrase-building process remain underspecified. This study directly probes whether the neural code of verb phrases involves reactivating the syntactic property of a key subcomponent (the “head” verb). To this end, we train a part-of-speech sliding–window verb/adverb decoder on EEG signals recorded while 30 participants read sentences in a controlled experiment. The decoder reaches above-chance performance that is spatiotemporally consistent and generalizes to unseen data across sentence positions. Applying the decoder to held-out data yields predicted activation levels for the verbal “head” of a verb phrase at a distant nonhead word (adverb); the critical adverb appeared either at the end of a verb phrase or at a sequentially and lexically matched position with no verb phrase boundary. There is stronger verb activation beginning at ∼600 milliseconds at the critical adverb when it appears at a verb phrase boundary; this effect is not modulated by the strength of conceptual association nor does it reflect word predictability. Time-locked analyses additionally reveal a negativity waveform component and increased beta-delta inter-trial phase coherence, both previously linked to linguistic composition, in a similar time window. With a novel application of neural decoding, our findings delineate the dynamics by which the brain encodes phrasal representations by, in part, reactivating the representation of key subcomponents. We thus establish a link between cognitive accounts of phrasal representations and electrophysiological dynamics. Copyright © 2025 the authors.

Název v anglickém jazyce

Decoding the Neural Dynamics of Headed Syntactic Structure Building

Popis výsledku anglicky

The brain builds hierarchical phrases during language comprehension; however, the details and dynamics of the phrase-building process remain underspecified. This study directly probes whether the neural code of verb phrases involves reactivating the syntactic property of a key subcomponent (the “head” verb). To this end, we train a part-of-speech sliding–window verb/adverb decoder on EEG signals recorded while 30 participants read sentences in a controlled experiment. The decoder reaches above-chance performance that is spatiotemporally consistent and generalizes to unseen data across sentence positions. Applying the decoder to held-out data yields predicted activation levels for the verbal “head” of a verb phrase at a distant nonhead word (adverb); the critical adverb appeared either at the end of a verb phrase or at a sequentially and lexically matched position with no verb phrase boundary. There is stronger verb activation beginning at ∼600 milliseconds at the critical adverb when it appears at a verb phrase boundary; this effect is not modulated by the strength of conceptual association nor does it reflect word predictability. Time-locked analyses additionally reveal a negativity waveform component and increased beta-delta inter-trial phase coherence, both previously linked to linguistic composition, in a similar time window. With a novel application of neural decoding, our findings delineate the dynamics by which the brain encodes phrasal representations by, in part, reactivating the representation of key subcomponents. We thus establish a link between cognitive accounts of phrasal representations and electrophysiological dynamics. Copyright © 2025 the authors.

Druh

J_SC - Článek v periodiku v databázi SCOPUS

CEP obor

—

OECD FORD obor

10201 - Computer sciences, information science, bioinformathics (hardware development to be 2.2, social aspect to be 5.8)

Projekt

—

Návaznosti

—

Rok uplatnění

2025

Kód důvěrnosti údajů

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Název periodika

Journal of Neuroscience

ISSN

0270-6474

e-ISSN

—

Svazek periodika

45

Číslo periodika v rámci svazku

17

Stát vydavatele periodika

US - Spojené státy americké

Počet stran výsledku

1

Strana od-do

e2126242025

Kód UT WoS článku

—

EID výsledku v databázi Scopus

2-s2.0-105003304557