MISSION OF THE TEAM
Almost all aspect of our cognitive skills relates to language because most of our thoughts are linguistically structured. The work in our team thus aims at the understanding of the mutual relations between language and other cognitive domains, including sensory and motor functions. To learn more about our research see “Members” or “Projects”. contact:(our name)@isc.cnrs.fr

MEMBERS
Permanent: Tatjana A. Nazir, Yves Paulignan, Alice Roy, Marc Jeannerod
Non-permanent: Aghathe Laurent (postdoc), Raphaël Fargier (M2), Domintie Daublan (M2)
Former members: Nadia Benboutayab (PhD), Veronique Boulenger (PhD), Qing Cai (PhD), Nathalie Decoppet (PhD), Clara Martin (PhD), Cristina Rosazza (Postdoc RTN-LAB), Beata Silber (Postdoc RTN-LAB).


RESEARCH PROJECTS

Monitoring the emergence of shared circuits between action, perception and language
Recent studies on cerebral language processes point to the involvement of sensory and motor cortex in the understanding of words. However, despite evidence for shared neural networks between perception, action and language structures, little is known about how they emerge. Based on the hypothesis that such shared circuits could result from Hebbien learning the present project addresses this question by monitoring the impact of acquiring arbitrary associations between novel verbal stimuli and motor actions on electroencephalographic mu rhythm ((8-12 Hz rhytmths generated by sensorimotor cortex at rest but suppressed during execution or observation of motor action). If such shared circuits develop rapidly, coupling language with action may be useful for rehabilitation of language deficits.

Electrophysiological markers of communicating brains
The mirror neurons system has been depicted as responsible for understanding other’s actions. Accordingly, many brain-imaging experiments have shown that the same cortical regions are involved in executing or observing a movement. Indeed, observing a movement increases activity in the mirror system to a point that it can perturb our own movement production, as we have demonstrated in Kilner, Paulignan & Blakemore (2003). To better understand this “action execution-observation” system, our aim is to determine if observer’s brain activity is synchronized on movement parameters of the actor (such as velocity peak), in a real face-to-face interaction. We also aim to determine how the amplitude of evoked potentials is influenced by observation of a congruent or incongruent movement. This project will allow elucidating up to what point the perception of actions in our visual environment influences our brain activity.

Motor syntax and syntax for language
Studies using brain imaging techniques or dual task paradigm have provided solid evidence of a clear link between lexical semantics and the motor system. However, language is not reduced to its semantic aspects and is also characterized by the computational processes of syntax. Thus the question of the possible embodiement of syntactic processes in the motor system naturally arises. We directly address this question using two approaches: first by investigating if acquired and developemental syntactic deficit goes with an impairment in the ability to perform nested actions; second by exploring the electrophysiological processes that underlie detection of structural anomaly pertaining to the motor and the language domain.

Atypical brain lateralization for language and reading
This project, which is conducted in collaboration with Qing Cai (one of our former doctoral student) and Marc Brysbaert from the University of Ghent in Belgium, seeks to understand the influence cortical language processes on visual processes involved in the perception of print. The sensitivity of a region in the left ventral occipito-temporal cortex, vOT (also referred to as the Visual Word Form Area, VWFA) to visual words has triggered considerable debates about the role of this region in reading. One popular view is that this region is the basis of a form of perceptual expertise that characterizes rapid skilled reading. We suggest that reading-related vOT activity results from the integration of general form recognition mechanisms with lateralized anterior language processes and does not reflect perceptual expertise. To test this hypothesis we work with healthy readers with atypical lateralization of brain structures for language production (developed in the right hemisphere instead of the left).

Autism and the understanding of intention (with Anne Reboul)


A semantic atlas of the brain (a collaboration with Sabine Ploux)
The goal of the present project is the development of a tool that will allow more detailed insights into how semantic knowledge is represented in the brain. Previous research has shown that electro-encephalogram (EEG) and magneto-encephalogram (MEG) can distinguish and localize processes that underlie the perception of words, which belong to different semantic classes (e.g., action related words vs. words that describe concrete entities). Here we develop on this discovery by proposing a method that allows describing semantic relations between single words using EEG. This approach relies on techniques that has been previously developed at the L2C2 to extract semantic representations from large corpora of text (i.e., the Sematic Atlas (SA); Ploux, 1997, Ploux & Victorri 1998, Ploux & Ji 2003). By applying these techniques to evoked response potentials while participants perceive word-stimuli that belong to different semantic classes, we will link processes that describe semantic relations to neuro-anatomical and computational factors in the brain. If successful, this will be the basis for an atlas of semantic relations as perceived by the brain.

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