The Role Of The Left And Right Hemispheres Of The Brain In Processing Semantic Features Of Chinese Words

Objective: Contemporary neuroimaging studies have revealed that language processing is underpinned by a fronto-temporo-parietal neural network,in which both left and right hemispheres are critically involved.However,the specific roles of each hemisphere and their interactions remain unclear.To address this issue,here we adopts the divided visual field paradigm and manipulates the richness of semantic features of Chinese words(abstract words,concrete words)in an f MRI study to explore the interactive mechanisms of the two hemispheres.Methods: Thirty college students(aged 18-25,mean age = 22.13,half male and half female)took part in this study,and were instructed to make a judgement whether each visually presented stimulus was a real word or nonword.A divided visual field paradigm was used to manipulate the field of view positions of different semantic feature words(abstract words,concrete words),which affecting the lateralization processing of the left and right hemispheres.This experiment is a 2(abstract words,concrete words)X 2(left vision field,right vision field)factorial design,using functional magnetic resonance imaging(f MRI)event-related design.The SPM and CONN software was used for data analysis.Results: SPM canonical analysis results: Compared with the right visual field conditions,the right fusiform gyrus(BA 19)and left lingual gyrus(BA 18)are more activated when the stimulus appears in the left visual field;Compared with the left visual field,when the stimulus appears in the right visual field,the right lingual gyrus,calcarine(BA 18)and left middle temporal gyrus,occipital gyrus(BA 37)show stronger activation.There is no significant difference in other conditional comparisons(analysis of variance,p>0.05).CONN functional connection analysis results: Taking the above four activation regions as the regions of interest(ROI),we performed further analysis and found that:Compared with concrete words processing(regardless of the left or right visual fields),the processing of abstract words in the left visual field is more dependent on the functional connection of the left middle temporal gyrus,occipital gyrus(BA 37)and right fusiform gyrus(BA 19)(p<0.05).Conclusions: When words were presented in lateralized visual fields,the contralateral lingual gyrus were significantly activated,which is consistent with previous studies that the lingual gyrus is responsible for visual word processing.2.Compared with concrete words,no matter whether abstract words appear in the left or right visual field,stronger functional connections and interplay between the left and right hemispheres are needed in abstract word processing.