Abstract
Neuroimaging research is providing new types of information and insight about the cortical activity
underlying discourse processing. Knowing the intensity and location of the brain activity during
discourse comprehension adds significantly to the information provided by behavioral measures
alone. The combination of neuroimaging data and behaviorally based discourse theories indicate
that discourse processing is underpinned by a system of several distinguishable cortical networks
that are activated for discourse processing, above and beyond the activation evoked by
comprehension at the word and sentence level. Whereas the multiplicities of the processes in
discourse comprehension are sometimes seen as a drawback to behavioral experiments, it is
something of a benefit in neuroimaging research. Controlled neuroimaging experiments, with their
multidimensional measures, can help determine when each of these components contributes to
discourse processing. By making some assumptions about the cortical regions/network that
underlie this processing, we can begin to determine when an area becomes activated and to what
degree it is activated as a function of the discourse properties.
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