TY - JOUR
T1 - Amplification of local changes along the timescale processing hierarchy
AU - Yeshurun, Yaara
AU - Nguyen, Mai
AU - Hasson, Uri
N1 - Funding Information:
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. We thank Gideon Dishon for his help in creating experimental materials, Prof. Anat Ninio for her help in the analysis of the stimuli grammatical structure, Chris Honey for helpful comments on the analysis, and Amy Price for helpful comments on the paper. This work was supported by NIH Grant R01MH112357 (to U.H, M.N., and Y.Y.), The Rothschild Foundation (Y.Y.), and The Israel National Postdoctoral Program for Advancing Women in Science (Y.Y.).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2017, National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
PY - 2017/8/29
Y1 - 2017/8/29
N2 - Small changes in word choice can lead to dramatically different interpretations of narratives. How does the brain accumulate and integrate such local changes to construct unique neural representations for different stories? In this study, we created two distinct narratives by changing only a few words in each sentence (e.g., “he” to “she” or “sobbing” to “laughing”) while preserving the grammatical structure across stories. We then measured changes in neural responses between the two stories. We found that differences in neural responses between the two stories gradually increased along the hierarchy of processing timescales. For areas with short integration windows, such as early auditory cortex, the differences in neural responses between the two stories were relatively small. In contrast, in areas with the longest integration windows at the top of the hierarchy, such as the precuneus, temporal parietal junction, and medial frontal cortices, there were large differences in neural responses between stories. Furthermore, this gradual increase in neural differences between the stories was highly correlated with an area’s ability to integrate information over time. Amplification of neural differences did not occur when changes in words did not alter the interpretation of the story (e.g., sobbing to “crying”). Our results demonstrate how subtle differences in words are gradually accumulated and amplified along the cortical hierarchy as the brain constructs a narrative over time.
AB - Small changes in word choice can lead to dramatically different interpretations of narratives. How does the brain accumulate and integrate such local changes to construct unique neural representations for different stories? In this study, we created two distinct narratives by changing only a few words in each sentence (e.g., “he” to “she” or “sobbing” to “laughing”) while preserving the grammatical structure across stories. We then measured changes in neural responses between the two stories. We found that differences in neural responses between the two stories gradually increased along the hierarchy of processing timescales. For areas with short integration windows, such as early auditory cortex, the differences in neural responses between the two stories were relatively small. In contrast, in areas with the longest integration windows at the top of the hierarchy, such as the precuneus, temporal parietal junction, and medial frontal cortices, there were large differences in neural responses between stories. Furthermore, this gradual increase in neural differences between the stories was highly correlated with an area’s ability to integrate information over time. Amplification of neural differences did not occur when changes in words did not alter the interpretation of the story (e.g., sobbing to “crying”). Our results demonstrate how subtle differences in words are gradually accumulated and amplified along the cortical hierarchy as the brain constructs a narrative over time.
KW - Amplification
KW - Hierarchy
KW - Narrative
KW - Timescale
KW - fMRI
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U2 - 10.1073/pnas.1701652114
DO - 10.1073/pnas.1701652114
M3 - Article
C2 - 28811367
AN - SCOPUS:85028575053
SN - 0027-8424
VL - 114
SP - 9475
EP - 9480
JO - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
JF - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
IS - 35
ER -