Frenzel, S. 1 , Schlesewsky, M. 2 , Primus, B. 3 & Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, I. 1
1 Philipps-Universität Marburg
2 Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz
3 Universität zu Köln
The present fMRI study investigated the linguistic actor features volition and sentience and their neural underpinnings in social cognition. In contrast to the traditional notion of Agent, which is based on volition, more recent approaches to generalized semantic roles have also included sentience as a proto-agent property (Dowty, 1991; Primus, 1999). Primus (2010) explicitly links this assumption to neuroscientific research on the self-regulation of emotions (e.g. Ochsner & Gross, 2005). Here, we aimed to examine whether volition and sentience indeed show comparable neural correlates during sentence comprehension. Stimulus materials comprised German sentences that described a volitional event [+volition] (Ich / Er zerbrach die Vase. ‘I / He broke the vase.’), an anti-causative event [-volition] (Mir / Ihm zerbrach die Vase. ‘~The vase broke on me/him.’) or an event describing a psychological state [+sentience] (Mir / Ihm gefiel die Vase. ‘I / He found the vase pleasing.’). In accordance with our hypotheses, our results revealed a network of regions within which +volition and +sentience clustered against -volition. Specifically, -volition sentences showed increased activation in comparison to +volition/+sentience in the left superior temporal gyrus (STG) extending to the left insula. For sentences with a first person subject / actor, a similar activation pattern was also observable in the posterior right STG / temporo-parietal junction and in bilateral middle frontal gyri. These results are consistent with previous findings of a fronto-temporo-parietal network that is sensitive to causal attributions and internal vs. external causation (e.g. Seidel et al., 2010). We conclude that there is indeed compelling neural evidence for +sentience as an actor feature and that the similar status of +sentience and +volition is grounded within a network of cortical regions that is known to engage in causal attributions in social situations.