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Left but Not Right Temporal Involvement in Opaque Idiom Comprehension: a Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Study

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Left but Not Right Temporal Involvement in Opaque Idiom Comprehension: a Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Study Left But Not Right Temporal Involvement in Opaque Idiom Comprehension: A Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Study Massimiliano Oliveri1, Leonor Romero2, and Costanza Papagno2 Downloaded from http://mitprc.silverchair.com/jocn/article-pdf/16/5/848/1758174/089892904970717.pdf by guest on 18 May 2021 Abstract & It has been suggested that figurative language, which subject was presented with a written sentence, which includes idioms, is controlled by the right hemisphere. We appeared on the screen for 2000 msec, followed by a pair of tested the right hemisphere hypothesis by using repetitive pictures for 2500 msec, one of which corresponded to the transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) to transiently disrupt sentence. The alternative corresponded to the literal meaning the function of the frontal and temporal areas of the right for idioms and to a sentence differing in a detail in the versus left hemisphere in a group of normal participants case of literal sentences. The subject had to press a button involved in a task of opaque idiom versus literal sentence corresponding to the picture matching the string. Reaction comprehension. Forty opaque, nonambiguous idioms were times increased following left temporal rTMS, whereas they selected. Fifteen young healthy participants underwent rTMS were unaffected by right hemisphere rTMS, with no difference in two sessions. The experiment was run in five blocks, between idiomatic and literal sentences. Left temporal rTMS corresponding to the four stimulated scalp positions (left also reduced accuracy without differences between the two frontal and temporal and right frontal and temporal) and types of sentences. These data suggest that opaque idiom a baseline. Each block consisted of 16 trials—8 trials with and literal sentence comprehension depends on the left tem- idioms and 8 trials with literal sentences. In each trial, the poral cortex. & INTRODUCTION Eberhard, 2001). They range from expressions that are In our speech, we make use of expressions that are not almost like long words (e.g., ‘‘by and large’’) to expres- necessarily interpreted on a literal ground: Idioms are sions that are like metaphors (e.g., ‘‘take the bull by the among the most common forms of figurative language horns’’) (Glucksberg, 2001). In between, there is the (Gibbs, 1999). Although differing in many respects, majority of idioms, in particular verbal idioms, which these expressions share a semantic eccentricity: Their are syntactically and semantically processed, and accord- meaning is not a direct function of the meanings of their ingly can undergo syntactic and semantic variations. component words. Idioms can vary along a number of dimensions. The There are two main theories to explain idiom compre- main characteristic of idioms is conventionality, which hension. The ‘‘lexical representation hypothesis’’ (Swin- means that the meaning of an idiom cannot be predicted ney & Cutler, 1979) suggests that idioms are mentally based on knowledge of the rules that determine the represented and processed as lexical items, that is, par- meaning or use of its parts when they occur in isolation ticularly long words. Alternatively, the ‘‘configurational from one another. hypothesis’’ (Tabossi & Zardon, 1995; Cacciari & Tabossi, A second feature is their opacity/transparency, which 1988) proposes that idiomatic expressions may be men- means the ease with which the motivation for their use tally represented and processed as configurations of can be recovered. Idioms can involve figuration and can words and their meaning becomes activated after a word be originally metaphorical (‘‘take the bull by the horns’’), in a key position has been found. even if speakers may not always perceive the precise Idioms may exhibit a certain degree of lexical flexibility motive for the figure involved (Nunberg, Sag, & Wasow, and productivity (Gibbs, Nayak, & Cutting, 1989) and 1994), but there are some idioms that do not involve undergo syntactic processing even after their figurative figuration. In transparent expressions, speakers can meaning has been retrieved (Peterson, Burgess, Dell, & wholly recover the rationale for the figuration involved, although this is not the case for opaque idioms. Another dimension of idioms is compositionality, 1Fondazione ‘‘Santa Lucia’’ IRCCS, 2Universita` di Milano- which refers to the fact that although idioms have Bicocca conventional meanings, at least some of them are D 2004 Massachusetts Institute of Technology Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 16:5, pp. 848–855 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/089892904970717 by guest on 24 September 2021 combining expressions, and idiomatic interpretation larly to normal controls on this task, although the can be distributed over their parts. In contrast, non- pathological group fared poorly by comparison on an decomposable idioms must be entered in the lexicon off-line idiom-definition measure. The authors con- as complete phrases. cluded that adults with unilateral brain damage can Finally, idioms can differ in the extent to which they activate and retrieve familiar idiomatic forms, and that can be syntactically transformed and still retain their their idiom interpretation deficits most likely reflect an idiomatic meaning (Gibbs & Gonzales, 1985): This de- impairment at some later stage of information pro- pends on the degree of their syntactic frozenness. cessing. Therefore, they stressed the role of idiom In summary, idioms are not a unitary class of expres- interpretation tasks in determining results. sions. These properties make hard to believe that exactly To further test the contribution of specific regions of Downloaded from http://mitprc.silverchair.com/jocn/article-pdf/16/5/848/1758174/089892904970717.pdf by guest on 18 May 2021 the same processes are involved in the interpretation of the right and the left hemisphere in idiomatic language all kinds of idioms and suggest that it is more sensible to processing (Kempler et al., 1999), in the present study, study them separately, according to their features. we decided to use an interference approach by All these lexical and syntactic properties suggest that means of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation left hemisphere injuries, resulting in aphasic impair- (rTMS). TMS can be used to disrupt, reversibly and ments, ought to damage, along with other linguistic abi- transiently, the normal activity of a brain area (Siebner lities, patients’ ability to comprehend idioms. However, & Rothwell, 2003; Pascual-Leone, Walsh, & Rothwell, a widely accepted view in neuropsychology assumes 2000). Because it is an interference technique, an that a left brain damage has no major consequences, advantage of TMS is that it can be used to demonstrate and it is the right hemisphere that is important for the not only that a brain region is active while a given processing of idiomatic expressions (see Burgess & task is performed, but also that the area is actually Chiarello, 1996; Kempler & Van Lancker, 1993; Van essential for task performance. In addition, it allows Lancker & Kempler, 1987; Foldi, Cicone, & Gardner, studying healthy subjects, eliminating the confounding 1983), although psycholinguistic models all stress the effects of the diffuse impairment and compensatory importance of lexical knowledge (Tabossi & Zardon, cortical plasticity associated with brain lesions, and 1995; Swinney & Cutler, 1979), and increasing evidence thus complementing neuropsychological studies. We indicates the involvement of syntactic processing (Pe- used trains of pulses at 1 Hz frequency, which are terson et al., 2001) in the comprehension of idioms. known to reduce the excitability of the targeted region, There are, however, many limits in neuropsychologi- and so to interfere with cognitive processing beyond cal studies on idioms. First of all, items are not chosen the duration of the train itself (Koch, Oliveri, Torriero, considering their intrinsic, linguistic features, and are & Caltagirone, 2003; Hilgetag, Theoret, & Pascual-Le- examined together with proverbs and courtesy phrases one, 2001; Shapiro, Pascual-Leone, Mottaghy, Gangitano, as ‘‘familiar language’’ (Kempler, Van Lancker, & Bates, & Caramazza, 2001; Maeda, Keenan, Tormos, Topka, & 1999; Van Lancker & Kempler, 1987). The severity Pascual-Leone, 2000; Pascual-Leone et al., 2000; Chen of aphasia and the modalities of assessment are not et al., 1997). always described in detail; time of testing with respect Given the fact that idioms are not homogeneous, we to the time of onset of aphasia is variable and it is chose a particular class of idioms, opaque idioms. The not clear whether patients underwent language rehabi- meaning of these expressions must once have been litation; other neuropsychological deficits are not re- learned and their comprehension requires, among other ported; the number of stimuli is limited. Moreover, in things, their identification and retrieval from memory one of these studies (Van Lancker & Kempler, 1987), (Papagno, 2001). Different processes could be involved the performance of aphasic patients cannot be con- in interpreting transparent idioms. sidered normal since the score is around 72% correct for idioms, compared with a controls’ performance of RESULTS 97.3%. The same aphasic subjects scored 90% correct on word comprehension. All participants tolerated rTMS well and did not report Although some authors (Tompkins, Boada, & any adverse effects. The average motor threshold was McGarry, 1992) challenge
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