A Cognitive Neuroscientific Study of a Structural Relation in the Innate Knowledge of Language

2010 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 20320058
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B)
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Linguistics
• Research Institution: Mie University
• Principal Investigator: AYANO Seiki Mie University, 人文学部, 教授 (00222703)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): OTSU Yukio 慶応義塾大学, 言語文化研究所, 教授 (80100410) ; SUGISAKI Koji 三重大学, 人文学科, 准教授 (60362331) ; HATTORI Noriko 三重大学, 人文学部, 教授 (00198764) ; INOKUCHI Yasushi 三重大学, 人文学部, 教授 (90151638) ; YOSHIDA Etsuko 三重大学, 人文学部, 教授 (00240276) ; OGAWA Mariko 三重大学, 人文学部, 教授 (00185513) ; UMEDA Satoshi 慶応義塾大学, 文学部, 准教授 (90317272) ; YAMAMOTO Tetsuro 三重大学, 大学院・医学研究科, 教授 (00127002) ; OKADA Motohiro 三重大学, 大学院・医学系研究科, 教授 (10281916) ; NISHIMURA Yoshihiro 鈴鹿医療科学大学, 薬学部, 教授 (40172704) ; NISHIMURA Yukika 三重大学, 大学院・医学系研究科, リサーチアソシエイト (60456738) ; KOMACHI Masayuki 静岡大学, 大学教育センター, 講師 (70467364)
• Co-Investigator(Renkei-kenkyūsha): TAMARI Kengo 三重大学, 大学院・医学系研究科, 非常勤職員 (90585176)
• Project Period (FY): 2008 – 2010
• Keywords: 生得的言語知識 / 統語的構造条件 / 母語獲得 / 脳科学 / 光トポグラフィー

Research Abstract

The goal of this research project was to investigate the domain specificity and the developmental process of the structural relation, c-command, by conducting a series of psycholinguistic and brain-imaging experiments.
We first conducted an experiment with adults, which crucially makes use of a linguistic phenomenon known as numeral quantifier float. Our findings from NIRS experiments were reported at international conferences held domestically and overseas. In addition, we published two refereed journal articles on our research findings from a series of experiments with adults, using scrambling tasks.
On the basis of the task design used for the adults, we designed an experiment for children. Psycholinguistic experiments were first carried out, which were followed by NIRS experiments. Research findings based on a scrambling task were reported at international conferences. As for the experiments involving floating numeral quantifiers, we conducted a series of psycholinguistic experiments and preliminary NIRS experiments. Currently, we are analyzing the data collected through the NIRS experiments.

Research Products

• [Journal Article] Revisiting beautiful dancers and complete fools in Japanese (2010)
  • Author(s): Ayano, S.
  • Journal Title: MIT Working Papers in Linguistics 61.要旨 Pages: 97-111.
  • Peer Reviewed
• [Journal Article] ドイツ語話法詞と心態詞の多機能性について-Vielleicht habenSie ja Recht.の例に関して- (2010)
  • Author(s): 井口靖
  • Journal Title: 三重大学文化学科『人文論叢』 27号 Pages: 47-58.
• [Journal Article] Reconstruction availability in the parasitic gap constructions and the nature of islands.In Movement and clitics : Adult and child grammar, eds.V.Torrens et al (2010)
  • Author(s): Komachi, M.
  • Journal Title: Newcastle upon Tyne : Cambridge Scholars Publishing Pages: 28-38.
  • Peer Reviewed
• [Journal Article] String-Vacuous NP-Movement in Japanese Unacusatives : a Processing Study. (2010)
  • Author(s): Komachi, M., Y Otsu, T.Monou.
  • Journal Title: Studies in Language Sciences 9. Pages: 51-61.
  • Peer Reviewed
• [Journal Article] An Event-Related fNIRS Investigation of Japanese Word Order (2010)
  • Author(s): Nishimura, Y., K.Sugisaki, N.Hattori, Y.Inokuchi, M.Komachi, Y.Nishimura, M.Ogawa, M.Okada, Y.Okazaki, W.Taki, T.Yamamoto, E.Yoshida, S.Ayano.
  • Journal Title: Experimental Brain Research 202(1). Pages: 239-246.
  • Peer Reviewed
• [Journal Article] Validation criteria for genetic animal models of epilepsy. (2010)
  • Author(s): Okada, M., G.Zhu, S.Yoshida, S.Kaneko.
  • Journal Title: Epilepsy, Seizure 3. Pages: 109-120.
  • Peer Reviewed
• [Journal Article] Effects of cocaine hydrochloride on ionic currents of olfactory receptor cells. (2010)
  • Author(s): Tamari, K., H.Takeuchi, M.Kobayashi,T. Kurahashi, T.Yamamoto.
  • Journal Title: JPS 60.要旨 Pages: S142.
  • Peer Reviewed
• [Journal Article] Disfluency patterns in dialogue processing (2010)
  • Author(s): Yoshida, E., R.Lickley.
  • Journal Title: The Proceedings of DiSS-LPSS JointWorkshop 要旨 Pages: 115-118.
  • Peer Reviewed
• [Journal Article] Relationship between the prefrontal function during a cognitive task and the severity of the symptoms in patients with panic disorder : a multi-channel NIRS study. (2009)
  • Author(s): Nishimura, Y, H.Tanii, N.Hara, K.Inoue, H.Kaiya, A.Nishida, M.Okada, Y.Okazaki.
  • Journal Title: Psychiatry Res : Neuroimaging. 172(2) Pages: 168-172.
  • Peer Reviewed
• [Journal Article] Functional neuroanatomy of advanced emotion learning. (2009)
  • Author(s): Umeda, S.
  • Journal Title: CARLS Series ofAdvanced Study of Logic and Sensibility. 2. Pages: 27-36.
  • Peer Reviewed
• [Journal Article] A functional near-infrared spectroscopy study on the basic word order in Japanese (2008)
  • Author(s): Nishimura, Y., K.Sugisaki, N.Hattori, Y.Inokuchi, Y.Nishimura, M.Ogawa, M.Okada, Y.Okazaki, W.Taki, T.Yamamoto, E.Yoshida, S.Ayano.
  • Journal Title: NeuroReport 19. Pages: 915-919.
  • Peer Reviewed
• [Journal Article] Early acquisition of basic word order in Japanese. (2008)
  • Author(s): Sugisaki, K.
  • Journal Title: Language Acquisition 15 Pages: 183-191.
  • Peer Reviewed
• [Presentation] Prefrontal Development and Processing of Various Word Orders in Child Japanese. (2010)
  • Author(s): Yamamoto, T., Y.Nishimura, K.Sugisaki, N.Hattori, Y.Inokuchi, S.Kojima, M.Komachi, Y.Nishimura, Y.Otsu, M.Ogawa, M.Okada, K.Tamari, S.Umeda, E.Yoshida, S.Ayano.
  • Organizer: Society for Neuroscience 2010.
  • Place of Presentation: San Diego Convention Center, San Diego.
  • Year and Date: 2010-11-15
• [Presentation] A NIRS Study on Children's Processing of Word Order Variations in Japanese. (2010)
  • Author(s): Ayano, S., Y.Nishimura, K.Sugisaki, N.Hattori, Y.Inokuchi, S.Kojima, M.Komachi, Y.Nishimura, Y.Otsu, M.Ogawa, M.Okada, K.Tamari, S.Umeda, T.Yamamoto, E.Yoshida.
  • Organizer: Neurobiology of Language Conference2010.
  • Place of Presentation: Rancho Bernardo, San Diego.
  • Year and Date: 2010-11-12
• [Presentation] Children's Processing of Scrambled Sentences in Japanese : A NIRS Study. (2010)
  • Author(s): Ayano, S., K.Sugisaki, N.Hattori, Y.Inokuchi, S.Kojima, M.Komachi, Y.Nishimura, Y.Nishimura, Y.Otsu, M.Ogawa, M.Okada, K.Tamari, S.Umeda, T.Yamamoto, E.Yoshida.
  • Organizer: 第33回日本神経科学大会
  • Place of Presentation: 神戸国際会議場.
  • Year and Date: 2010-09-04
• [Presentation] On the Modularity of Linguistic Knowledge : The View from a NIRS Experiment. (2009)
  • Author(s): Yamamoto, T., Y.Nishimura, K.Sugisaki, N.Hattori, Y.Inokuchi, S.Kojima, M.Komachi, Y.Nishimura, Y.Otsu, M.Ogawa, M.Okada, S.Umeda, E.Yoshida, S.Ayano.
  • Organizer: Society for Neuroscience 2009.
  • Place of Presentation: Chicago McCormick Place.
  • Year and Date: 2009-10-21
• [Presentation] Cortical Activations Related to Syntactic and Semantic Violations in Japanese : An fNIRS Study. (2009)
  • Author(s): Ayano, S., Y.Nishimura, K.Sugisaki, N.Hattori, Y.Inokuchi, S.Kojima, M.Komachi, Y.Nishimura, Y.Otsu, M.Ogawa, M.Okada, S.Umeda, T.Yamamoto, E.Yoshida.
  • Organizer: Neurobiology of Language Conference2009.
  • Place of Presentation: Chicago Marriott Downtown Magnificent Mile.
  • Year and Date: 2009-10-15
• [Presentation] Cortical Activation by Syntactic Violations in Japanese : An fNIRS Study. (2009)
  • Author(s): Ayano, S., Y.Nishimura, K.Sugisaki, N.Hattori, Y.Inokuchi, S.Kojima, M.Komachi, Y.Nishimura, Y.Otsu, M.Ogawa, M.Okada, S.Umeda, T.Yamamoto, E.Yoshida.
  • Organizer: 第32回日本神経科学大会
  • Place of Presentation: 名古屋国際会議場
  • Year and Date: 2009-09-18
• [Book] ことばの力を育む (2008)
  • Author(s): 大津由紀雄・窪薗晴夫.(著)
  • Total Pages: 200
  • Publisher: 慶應義塾大学出版会