Andreas Højlund Nielsen

Amygdala and heart rate variability responses from listening to emotionally intense parts of a story

Emotions are often understood in relation to conditioned responses. Narrative emotions, however, cannot be reduced to a simple associative relationship between emotion words and their experienced counterparts. Intensity in stories may arise without any overt emotion depicting words and vice versa. In this fMRI study we investigated BOLD responses to naturally fluctuating emotions evoked by listening to a story. The emotional intensity profile of the text was found through a rating study. The validity of this profile was supported by heart rate variability (HRV) data showing a significant correspondence across participants between intensity ratings and HRV measurements obtained during fMRI. With this ecologically valid stimulus we found that narrative intensity was accompanied by activation in temporal cortices, medial geniculate nuclei in the thalamus and amygdala, brain regions that are all part of the system for processing conditioned emotional responses to auditory stimuli. These findings suggest that this system also underpins narrative emotions in spite of their complex nature. Traditional language regions and premotor cortices were also activated during intense parts of the story whereas orbitofrontal cortex was found linked to emotion with positive valence, regardless of level of intensity.

The influence of context on word order processing - An fMRI study

Abstract In languages that have subject-before-object as their canonical word order, e.g. German, English and Danish, behavioral experiments have shown more processing difficulties for object-initial clauses (OCs) than for subject-initial clauses (SCs). For processing of OCs in such languages, neuroimaging experiments have shown more activation in the left inferior frontal gyrus (L-IFG) compared to SCs. The increased activation in L-IFG has been explained in terms of syntactic transformation demands, increased argument hierarchization demands, and increased load on working memory. Behavioral findings have indicated that context may facilitate syntactic processing, but it has not been investigated whether a supportive context can decrease the activity in L-IFG. With L-IFG as a region of interest (ROI), the present fMRI study of 21 Danish participants investigated how a supportive linguistic context would affect the processing of Danish main clauses with either an initial subject or an initial object. We found more activity in BA 44, BA 45 and BA 47 for OCs compared to SCs. The processing of Danish OCs is thereby seen to elicit effects in L-IFG comparable to previously investigated languages. The context manipulation showed reduced activity in BA 47 for SCs and OCs occurring after a supportive linguistic context, suggesting less pragmatic processing difficulties for sentence processing in a supportive context. Outside the ROI, the lack of context affected several regions in both the frontal, temporal and parietal lobes.

Intensive Foreign Language Learning Reveals Effects on Categorical Perception of Sibilant Voicing After Only 3 Weeks

Models of speech learning suggest that adaptations to foreign language sound categories take place within 6 to 12 months of exposure to a foreign language. Results from laboratory language training show effects of very targeted training on nonnative speech contrasts within only 1 to 4 weeks of training. Results from immersion studies are inconclusive, but some suggest continued effects on nonnative speech perception after 6 to 8 years of experience. We investigated this apparent discrepancy in the timing of adaptation to foreign speech sounds in a longitudinal study of foreign language learning. We examined two groups of Danish language officer cadets learning either Arabic (Modern Standard Arabic and Egyptian Arabic) or Dari (Afghan Farsi) through intensive multifaceted language training. We conducted two experiments (identification and discrimination) with the cadets who were tested four times: at the start (T0), after 3 weeks (T1), 6 months (T2), and 19 months (T3). We used a phonemic Arabic contrast (pharyngeal vs. glottal frication) and a phonemic Dari contrast (sibilant voicing) as stimuli. We observed an effect of learning on the Dari learners’ identification of the Dari stimuli already after 3 weeks of language training, which was sustained, but not improved, after 6 and 19 months. The changes in the Dari learners’ identification functions were positively correlated with their grades after 6 months. We observed no other learning effects at the group level. We discuss the results in the light of predictions from speech learning models.