**6. Cognitive empathy and pragmatic language processing**

The last but not the least, one important goal of neurocognitive study of language processing is to reveal how the brain operates to make pragmatic inference, that is, to derive the broader meaning of a sentence according to world knowledge, discourse, and social context, and to resolve pragmatic incongruence or failure which arises from the conflict between linguistic input and the information derived from pragmatic inference and world knowledge. Studies on nonliteral language processing has revealed that the increased inferential process associated with the derivation of the nonliteral meaning from statements such as ironic remark or indirect requests may activate the regions associated with cognitive empathy (the ability to simulate others in a fictional or real world interactive setting [24, 85, 86]), in particular, in the mPFC and TPJ. Moreover, sentences with meanings incongruent with one's real-world knowledge or other types of contextual information (such as speaker identity, counterfactual context, etc.) activated the left IFG [87–91], and some general executive control networks including right IFG, IPL, medial superior frontal gyrus (mSFG) when pragmatic incongruence between linguistic representations or meanings has to be resolved (e.g., [6, 92]). Among the prefrontal executive control networks that are involved in resolving the pragmatic incongruence, the right IFG may subserve a process that inhibits the irrelevant information to ensure a representation that is congruent with the contextual information whereas the mSFG is more generally involved regardless of contextual type. For example, Nieuwland [91] reported the right IFG only responsible for the world knowledge violation in the counterfactual context (e.g., *If NASA had not developed its Apollo Project, the first country to land on moon would be \*America*) but the mSFG in both counterfactual and real-world context (e.g., *Because NASA developed its Apollo Project, the first country to land on moon has been \*Russia*).

to the increased belief state reasoning during live interaction, or due to an ongoing representation of a social partner that underlies phenomena such as a social resonance, synchrony, and coordination. These findings suggest that the medial prefrontal cortex as a key region to indicate the ongoing mentalizing about social partners, were shaped by social context, and may be crucial for understanding the implication of social context for typical and atypical social processing, especially for neurodevelopmental disorders like autism who suffer more

The studies on language communication should be better fit into the large picture of the emergent contributions to the social brain, especially in the study of brain-to-brain coupling for learning, (re)constructing and using language through multi-participant experiments [2]. An fMRI study scanned the speaker's brain when they produced a 15-min-long real-life narrative and the listener's brain when they listened to the same narrative [83]. The brain regions specific to production and comprehension, and those that are overlapped between the two processes were examined. The left hemisphere and the bilateral temporal networks under the production of the narrative were shared with those under the comprehension system. Moreover, areas in which the neural activity was coupled between the speaker's and the listener's brains in both linguistic and extralinguistic areas during production and comprehension of the same narrative were shown. The narrative production engendered activations in social aspects of the story processing (e.g., mPFC, precuneus, dlPFC, PCC), as well as in motor speech areas (e.g., bilateral premotor cortex, bilateral insula, and basal ganglia), in the bilateral IFG associated with the construction of grammatical structures, and in bilateral STG/ MTG previously linked to speech comprehension. The coupling between the speaker's and the listener's brain responses was found in precuneus and mPFC, bilateral temporal–parietal areas associated with the comprehension, and left IFG, bilateral insula, left premotor cortex associated with the production. The involvement of the medial prefrontal cortex and precuneus in a range of social functions suggests that the ability of a listener to relate to a speaker and to understand the content of a real-world narrative seems to rely on the higher-level social processing, including the reward-based learning and memory, empathy, and ToM (for mPFC), and first-person perspective taking and experience of agency (for precuneus). In particular, the inference of another's intention through verbal cues plays an essential role during exchange of information between the speaker and the listener and is integral to the success of

from social difficulties in live interaction.

74 Prefrontal Cortex

real-world communication [84].

**6. Cognitive empathy and pragmatic language processing**

The last but not the least, one important goal of neurocognitive study of language processing is to reveal how the brain operates to make pragmatic inference, that is, to derive the broader meaning of a sentence according to world knowledge, discourse, and social context, and to resolve pragmatic incongruence or failure which arises from the conflict between linguistic input and the information derived from pragmatic inference and world knowledge. Studies on nonliteral language processing has revealed that the increased inferential process associated with the derivation of the nonliteral meaning from statements such as ironic remark or In an fMRI study, Li et al. [4] demonstrated that the cognitive empathy of readers (as measured by the interpersonal reactivity index, IRI [93]) predict the neural activations when they read sentences in which the language use failed the pragmatic constraint. In a sentence with "even" which constrained an event of low expectedness, the neutral or highly likely events were embedded, creating the underspecified (e.g., *Even such a sound can be heard by Zhang, he has a sharp hearing*) and incongruent sentences (e.g., *Even such a \*loud sound can be heard by Zhang, he has a sharp hearing*). They demonstrated that when the underspecified sentences were read, the activity in the ventral mPFC was associated with the reader's fantasizing ability (an individual's trait to transpose him or herself to the character of a fictional situations, e.g., novel). The observation of mPFC and its individual differences may indicate that participants may engage an action-related fantasizing or imaging process when making inferences for the underspecified scalar implicature. When the incongruent sentences were encountered, the mSFG extending to ACC was activated and bilateral IFG was correlated with their perspective taking ability (an individual's tendency to adopt the perspectives of others and see things from their point of view). The bilateral IFG was further connected with a number of prefrontal regions such as bilateral mSFG, SMA and ACC (for the left IFG) and right dlPFC and left IPL (for the right IFG) during the processing of incongruent versus congruent sentences. These conflict control networks were involved to unify information from different sources and select the appropriate representation (inhibit the inappropriate representation) for the incongruent sentences. Most importantly, these findings suggest that the cognitive empathy (including those that involve the shift of one's perspective to the fictional character and to another's perspective) supports the neurocognitive mechanisms in making pragmatic inference and in resolving pragmatic failure.

The involvement of prefrontal cortex in pragmatic processing is also supported by evidence in individual differences in autistic-like traits during language comprehension. Individuals with autism spectrum disorders demonstrated reduced neural activities in the mPFC when they inferred pragmatic meanings from metaphors or ironic remarks [94]. Using structural neuroimaging, Banissy et al. [95] demonstrated that an individual cognitive empathy was related with the gray matter volume of the prefrontal cortex. In particular, the volume of the dlPFC was positively correlated with one's fantasy scores and the volume of ACC was positively associated with one's perspective taking scores. The functional neuroimaging further demonstrated that the activation in mPFC for fiction reading relative to nonfiction reading, positively correlated with reader's fantasizing scores [96]. Neurophysiological studies (such as electroencephalograms (EEG)/event-related potentials (ERPs)) showed that the words embedded in sentences with under-informative use of scalar quantifiers (e.g., *some people have neck*s) elicited an increased N400 [97], an ERP effect which are considered to be the product of the underlying sources in inferior frontal cortex, than the words informative use of some [87]. This N400 enhancement was only observed in those showing higher pragmatic abilities (measured by Autism-Spectrum Quotient Questionnaire) but not in those with lower abilities [97]. Other studies also observed that those with higher empathic ability demonstrated larger N400 response in spoken sentences which contained words mismatching the speaker identity (e.g., *I want a teddy bear* in a man's voice) or larger late positivity effect in sentences that required the resolution of ambiguous referential representations based on a social context (e.g., a respectful second-person pronoun that is used in a directly quoted utterance that was addressed by a lower-status speaker to two potential addressees one of whom was of higher status [98, 99]). These neural mechanisms associated with pragmatic processing were either absent or altered in those with lower empathic ability.

special populations such as autism and schizophrenia, with a particular interest in the various types of pragmatic and social language processing as the medium for indexing their social interactive ability. These new proposals (with some of them being currently undertaken) will undoubtedly instigate more new endeavors to address the mediating role of prefrontal cortex

Prefrontal Cortex: Role in Language Communication during Social Interaction

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.79255

77

Dr. Xiaoming Jiang is supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central

in the relationship between language and social cognition.

Address all correspondence to: xiaoming.jiang@tongji.edu.cn Department of Psychology, Tongji University, Shanghai, China

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience. 2012;**24**:2237-2247

[1] de Saussure F. Cours de Linguistique Générale. Paris: Payot; 1916/1972

[2] García A, Ibáñez A. Two-person neuroscience and naturalistic social communication: The role of language and linguistic variables in brain-coupling research. Frontiers in

[3] Basnáková J, Weber K, Petersson KM, van Berkum J, Hagoort P. Beyond the language given: The neural correlates of inferring speaker meaning. Cerebral Cortex.

[4] Li S, Jiang X, Yu H, Zhou X. Cognitive empathy modulates the processing of pragmatic constraints during sentence comprehension. Social, Cognitive & Affective Neuroscience.

[5] Van Ackeren MJ, Casasanto D, Bekkering H, Hagoort P, Rüschemer SA. Pragmatics in action: Indirect requests engage theory of mind areas and the cortical motor network.

**Acknowledgements**

**Conflict of interest**

**Author details**

Xiaoming Jiang

**References**

Universities from Tongji University.

The author declares no conflict of interest.

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