Grid-like and distance codes for representing word meaning in the human brain

Description: Unthresholded whole-brain t-maps across subjects for the study by Viganò, Rubino, Di Soccio, Buiatti, Piazza (XXX) Grid-like and distance codes for representing word meaning in the human brain, XXX, XXX:XXX. In the study we tested the hypothesis that two representational codes typically recruited by the human brain to represent relations between locations in space (the grid-like code (e.g., Doeller et al. 2010) and the distance code (e.g., Morgan et al. 2011)) are also recruited when we assess and compare the meaning of words in memory. We created a novel word set comprising 9 pseudowords (e.g., KER, GAL, MOS) referring to 9 novel audiovisual objects organized in a 3x3 structure, where size and pitch where orthogonally manipulated. Participants learned for 3 days the name of each object, and during an fMRI scanning session they were asked to compare the meaning of two subsequently presented names (e.g., KER --> MOS). We conceived this presentation as a movement in the underlying feature space of our concepts, and we applied MVPa and fMRI adaptation to look for signatures of both a grid-like and a distance code. Details on the study che be found at [DOI].

Related article: http://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2021.117876