※ 清大語言所104學年度第一學期專題演講一 （新001）※

演講者： Prof. J. Grodzinsky
講者介紹：http://grodzinskylab.linguistics.mcgill.ca/
9/21 清華大學 （人社院C310，中午12：30，）
題目：Quantifier Polarity, Numerosity, and Verification Procedures: Experimental Explorations

Abstract
I will describe a series of multi-modal experiments - in healthy adult subjects as well as patients with Broca’s aphasia – that was carried out with 2 goals: 1. to study the relation between linguistic and numerical processes in the brain (anatomical localization). 2. to use experimental results in order to distinguish between semantic analyses (theoretical adjudication). At issue are sentences with upward or downward monotone quantifiers, verified against numerosity depicting images with varying spatial and numerical properties.
Our experiments manipulated the linguistic properties of instruction probes for a parameterized numerical comparison task, which enabled us to test of the relation between behavioral and brain reflexes of linguistic and numerical processes, with unprecedented resolution.
Behavioral experiments aimed at dissociating numerical from linguistic processes. Healthy participants performed speeded numerical comparisons between visually displayed discrete quantities, guided by auditory instruction sentences with complex quantifiers that contrasted in Polarity (e.g., more- and less-than-half), and with analogous non-verbal instructions with arithmetical inequality symbols (<, >). The results demonstrate the distinctness (modularity) of linguistic and numerical processes: core temporal parameters of numerical comparison (abiding by Weber’s Law) remain constant across a range of verbal and non-verbal instruction probes, as well as across various levels of perceptual difficulty of a visual numerosity task. However, performance parameters are affected by the manipulation of quantifier polarity.
Healthy participants were tested with similar materials in fMRI. Numerosity related operations activated bi-lateral parietal regions, very much in keeping with the extant experimental record. The linguistic Polarity contrast activated Broca’s region.
Patients with Broca’s aphasia were also tested. They exhibited a strikingly refined breakdown pattern, highly consistent with the above results: high performance levels with instructions containing upward monotone quantifiers (e.g., more-than-half, many), but failure with downward monotone ones (e.g., less-than-half, few). They were very good with arithmetical inequality symbols.
In my talk, I will discuss these results. I will argue that they support a cognitive architecture in which language and numerical cognition constitute separate processing modules in the brain. I will then show how they are consistent with the syntactic theory of Broca’s region (Trace Deletion Hypothesis). Finally, I will discuss the implications of these results to the analysis of polar quantifiers, and present a remaining puzzle.

建議閱讀之相關文獻：
For the linguistics lecture:
Deschamps, I, Agmon G, Loewenstein Y, Grodzinsky Y. 2015. The Processing of Polar Quantifiers, and Numerosity Perception. Cognition. 143:115-128.
Nouwen, Rick. 2010. What’s in a quantifier? In T. Lentz, H. De Mulder, Ø. Nilsen & A. Zondervan (eds), Theoretical Validity and Psychological Reality. Benjamins.
Manuela Piazza et al. (2004). Tuning Curves for Approximate Numerosity in the Human Intraparietal Sulcus. Neuron,
For the Neuro lecture:
Grodzinsky, Y, Santi A. 2008. The battle for Broca’s region. Trends in Cognitive Sciences. 12(12):474-480.
Zilles K Amunts K. 2010. Centenary of Brodmann's map--conception and fate. Nat Rev Neurosci. 2010 Feb;11(2):139-45.