Brains striving for coherence: Long-term cumulative plot formation in the default mode network
(2015) In NeuroImage 121. p.106-114- Abstract
- Many everyday activities, such as engaging in conversation or listening to a story, require us to sustain attention over a prolonged period of time while integrating and synthesizing complex episodic content into a coherent mental model. Humans are remarkably capable of navigating and keeping track of all the parallel social activities of everyday life even when confronted with interruptions or changes in the environment. However, the underlying cognitive and neurocognitive mechanisms of such long-term integration and profiling of information remain a challenge to neuroscience. While brain activity is generally traceable within the short time frame of working memory (milliseconds to seconds), these integrative processes last for minutes,... (More)
- Many everyday activities, such as engaging in conversation or listening to a story, require us to sustain attention over a prolonged period of time while integrating and synthesizing complex episodic content into a coherent mental model. Humans are remarkably capable of navigating and keeping track of all the parallel social activities of everyday life even when confronted with interruptions or changes in the environment. However, the underlying cognitive and neurocognitive mechanisms of such long-term integration and profiling of information remain a challenge to neuroscience. While brain activity is generally traceable within the short time frame of working memory (milliseconds to seconds), these integrative processes last for minutes, hours or even days. Here we report two experiments on story comprehension. Experiment I establishes a cognitive dissociation between our comprehension of plot and incidental facts in narratives: when episodic material allows for long-term integration in a coherent plot, we recall fewer factual details. However, when plot formation is challenged, we pay more attention to incidental facts. Experiment II investigates the neural underpinnings of plot formation. Results suggest a central role for the brain's default mode network related to comprehension of coherent narratives while incoherent episodes rather activate the frontoparietal control network. Moreover, an analysis of cortical activity as a function of the cumulative integration of narrative material into a coherent story reveals to linear modulations of right hemisphere posterior temporal and parietal regions. Together these findings point to key neural mechanisms involved in the fundamental human capacity for cumulative plot formation. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/7764380
- author
- Tylén, Kristian ; Christensen, Peer LU ; Roepstorff, Andreas ; Lund, Torben ; Østergaard, Svend and Donald, Merlin
- organization
- publishing date
- 2015
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- fMRI, Default mode network, Memory, Narrative
- in
- NeuroImage
- volume
- 121
- pages
- 106 - 114
- publisher
- Elsevier
- external identifiers
-
- pmid:26216276
- wos:000363122000010
- scopus:84938701543
- pmid:26216276
- ISSN
- 1095-9572
- DOI
- 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2015.07.047
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- additional info
- The information about affiliations in this record was updated in December 2015. The record was previously connected to the following departments: Linguistics and Phonetics (015010003)
- id
- 20ed868e-0a4f-4a96-91df-f48e2aea05a2 (old id 7764380)
- date added to LUP
- 2016-04-01 10:12:29
- date last changed
- 2023-11-24 03:21:47
@article{20ed868e-0a4f-4a96-91df-f48e2aea05a2,
abstract = {{Many everyday activities, such as engaging in conversation or listening to a story, require us to sustain attention over a prolonged period of time while integrating and synthesizing complex episodic content into a coherent mental model. Humans are remarkably capable of navigating and keeping track of all the parallel social activities of everyday life even when confronted with interruptions or changes in the environment. However, the underlying cognitive and neurocognitive mechanisms of such long-term integration and profiling of information remain a challenge to neuroscience. While brain activity is generally traceable within the short time frame of working memory (milliseconds to seconds), these integrative processes last for minutes, hours or even days. Here we report two experiments on story comprehension. Experiment I establishes a cognitive dissociation between our comprehension of plot and incidental facts in narratives: when episodic material allows for long-term integration in a coherent plot, we recall fewer factual details. However, when plot formation is challenged, we pay more attention to incidental facts. Experiment II investigates the neural underpinnings of plot formation. Results suggest a central role for the brain's default mode network related to comprehension of coherent narratives while incoherent episodes rather activate the frontoparietal control network. Moreover, an analysis of cortical activity as a function of the cumulative integration of narrative material into a coherent story reveals to linear modulations of right hemisphere posterior temporal and parietal regions. Together these findings point to key neural mechanisms involved in the fundamental human capacity for cumulative plot formation.}},
author = {{Tylén, Kristian and Christensen, Peer and Roepstorff, Andreas and Lund, Torben and Østergaard, Svend and Donald, Merlin}},
issn = {{1095-9572}},
keywords = {{fMRI; Default mode network; Memory; Narrative}},
language = {{eng}},
pages = {{106--114}},
publisher = {{Elsevier}},
series = {{NeuroImage}},
title = {{Brains striving for coherence: Long-term cumulative plot formation in the default mode network}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2015.07.047}},
doi = {{10.1016/j.neuroimage.2015.07.047}},
volume = {{121}},
year = {{2015}},
}