Knoll, L. J. , Brauer, J. & Friederici, A. D.
Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences. Leipzig, Germany
We used functional neuroimaging to investigate the acquisition of case marking information for argument interpretation. Short sentences with manipulated word order (subject-initial or object-initial) were presented acoustically to children aged 5 to 6 years. The fMRI results showed increased activation within the posterior superior temporal gyrus (pSTG) and the temporoparietal junction in object-initial sentences compared to subject-initial sentences. Post-hoc analysis revealed different activation patterns at the single subject level. A subgroup of the children showed increased bilateral activation within the inferior frontal gyrus (BA 47), dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (BA 46), premotor cortex (BA 6), and pSTG in object-initial sentences compared to sentences with subject-initial construction. The other subgroup showed the effect in the reverse contrast; an increased activation within the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and bilateral within the premotor cortex. The neural distinctions between the subgroups are mirrored in significant performance differences in a grammar test (TROG-D). Our data suggests a broad heterogeneity within the tested children related to sentence processing. Different strategies seemed to be employed when it comes to use case marking information for sentences processing. The use of the particular strategy is not dependent on age within this age-group but rather on the children’s individual grammatical knowledge.