How the Brain Processes Causal Inferences in Text: A Theoretical Account of Generation and Integration Component Processes Utilizing Both Cerebral Hemispheres

• Published in: Psychological science Vol. 15; no. 1; pp. 1 - 7
• Main Authors: Mason, Robert A., Just, Marcel Adam
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Los Angeles, CA Blackwell Publishing 01.01.2004; SAGE Publications; SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
• Subjects: Behavior; Behavioural psychology; Brain; Causality; Cerebral hemispheres; Cognition; Cognition & reasoning; Comprehension; Cortex; Functional magnetic resonance imaging; Hemispheres; Imaging; Inference; Language comprehension; Literacy; Magnetic resonance imaging; Memory; Neuroimaging; Psychology; Reading; Reason; Relatedness; Sentence generation; Texts
• ISSN: 0956-7976; 1467-9280
• DOI: 10.1111/j.0963-7214.2004.01501001.x

Theoretical models of text processing, such as the construction-integration framework, pose fundamental questions about causal inference making that are not easily addressed by behavioral studies. In particular, a common result is that causal relatedness has a different effect on text reading times than on memory for the text: Whereas reading times increase linearly as causal relatedness decreases, memory for the text is best for events that are related by a moderate degree of causal relatedness and is poorer for events with low and high relatedness. Our functional magnetic resonance imaging study of the processing of two-sentence passages that varied in their degree of causal relatedness suggests that the inference process can be analyzed into two components, generation and integration, that are subserved by two large-scale cortical networks (a reasoning system in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the right-hemisphere language areas). These two cortical networks, which are distinguishable from the classical left-hemisphere language areas, approximately correspond to the two functional relations observed in the behavioral results.