We explored the neural basis of reversible sentence comprehension in a large group of aphasic patients (n = 79). Voxel-based lesion symptom mapping revealed a significant association between damage in temporo-parietal cortex and impaired sentence comprehension. This association remained after we controlled for phonological working memory. We hypothesize that this region plays an important role ...

A number of recent studies have demonstrated variants of the action-sentence compatibility effect (ACE), wherein the execution of a motor response is facilitated by the comprehension of sentences that describe actions taking place in the same direction as the motor response (e.g., a sentence about action towards one's body facilitates the execution of an arm movement towards the body). This pap...

Listeners can use speakers’ gaze to anticipate upcoming referents. We examined whether this listener benefit is affected by different comprehension subtasks. A video-taped speaker referred to depicted characters, using either a subject-verb-object or a non-canonical object-verb-subject German sentence. She shifted gaze once from the pre-verbal to the post-verbal referent, a behavior that could ...

English is a language that relies extensively on word order to signal grammatical roles and meaning of sentences. Although studies have heavily emphasized the role of word order for children learning English, there is little information regarding children learning languages that rely less on word order and more on inflections and particles. Such data would be essential in formulating a language...

This study examines agrammatic comprehension of object-subject-verb (OSV) and object-verb-subject (OVS) structures in Hebrew. These structures are syntactically identical to the basic order subject-verb-object (SVO) sentence except for the movement of the object to the beginning of the sentence, and thus enable empirical examination of syntactic movement in agrammatic comprehension. Seven indiv...

This study investigated the nature of the underlying working memory system supporting sentence processing through examining individual differences in sensitivity to retrieval interference effects during sentence comprehension. Interference effects occur when readers incorrectly retrieve sentence constituents which are similar to those required during integrative processes. We examined interfere...

Empirical evidence suggests that perceptual-motor simulations are often constitutively involved in language comprehension. Call this “the simulation view of comprehension”. This article applies the to illuminate much-discussed phenomenon copredication, where a noun permits multiple predications which seem select different senses simultaneously. On proposed account, (in)felicitousness copredicat...

We present an on-line study showing different sources of lexical activation during sentence comprehension, distinguishing in this respect between reflexive syntactic and less temporarily constrained nonsyntactic sources. Specifically, we show that both the syntactic process of gap filling and a nonsyntactic end-of-sentence effect can be measurable in real time and can be temporally separated. T...

This study examined the influence of phonological working memory on sentence comprehension in children with specific language impairment (SLI). Fourteen children with SLI and 13 with normal language (NL) participated in two tasks. In the first, a nonsense word repetition task (index of phonological working memory), subjects repeated nonsense words varying in length from one syllable to four. In...