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We tested the hypothesis that lexical-semantic access of inflected words is governed by the word stem. Object drawings overlaid with a dot/arrow marking position/movement were matched with corresponding linguistic expressions like "from the house". To test whether the stem dominates lexical-semantic access irrespective of its position, we used Swedish prepositional phrases (locative information via preposition immediately preceding the stem) or Finnish case-inflected words (locative information via suffix immediately following the stem). Both in monolingual Swedish and in bilingual Finnish-Swedish speakers, correct stems with incorrect prepositions/case-endings were hardest to reject. This finding supports the view that the stem is indeed the dominant unit in meaning access of inflected words.

Picture naming covers the main stages of word production from concept retrieval to articulation. Cortical correlates of picture naming have been characterized with both haemodynamic and neurophysiological methods but the association of specific activation patterns with the hypothesized processing stages remains elusive. Here we used categorization tasks to selectively highlight different components of picture confrontation, from visual analysis (VIS) to semantic (SEM) and phonological access (PHON), and compared these time courses of activation with that obtained during picture naming (NAM). Brain activity was recorded with whole-head magnetoencephalography (MEG). Following the initially similar activation patterns in occipital and parietal areas, task effects (stronger activation in NAM/PHON than in SEM/VIS) emerged after 300 ms, in the sustained activation of the left posterior temporal and bilateral inferior frontal cortex, apparently reflecting enhancement of phonological and phonetic/articulatory processing.

Naming of two semantically impaired aphasic patients was treated with the contextual repetition priming technique, which involves repeated repetition of names of pictures that are related semantically, phonologically, or are unrelated. Our previous studies using this technique have suggested that patients with impaired access to lexical-semantic representations benefit in the short-term from this treatment technique, but show no long-term improvement in naming. In contrast, patients with good access to semantics show short- and long-term benefits from this treatment. Here we report two studies of treatment for two individuals with aphasia affecting access to lexical semantics and anomia but spared access to input and output phonology and spared conceptual semantics. We predicted that they would show short-term facilitation from the contextual priming, but no long-term improvements in naming. The results confirmed the prediction. An account of this pattern is offered within the framework of an interactive activation model of word retrieval. Additionally, we discuss alternative techniques for addressing naming deficits when access to semantics is impaired.

The present case continues the series of anomia treatment studies with contextual priming (CP), being the second in-depth treatment study conducted for an individual suffering from semantically based anomia. Our aim was to acquire further evidence of the facilitation and interference effects of the CP treatment on semantic anomia. Based on the results of the study of , our hypothesis before the treatment was that our participant would show short-term interference and at most modest and short-term benefit from treatment. To acquire such evidence would not only be important for the choice of anomia treatment methods in individual patients, but would also prompt further development of the CP method. The CP technique used for our participant included cycles of repeating and naming items in three contextual conditions (semantic, phonological, and unrelated). As predicted, the overall improvement of naming was modest and short-term. Interestingly, the contextual condition that corresponded with the nature of our patient's underlying naming deficit (semantic) elicited immediate interference in the form of contextual naming errors, as well as short-term improvement of naming. Based on this and a recent study by , it appears that despite short-term positive effects, in its current form the CP treatment is not sufficient for those aphasics who have a semantic deficit underlying their anomia. The possible mechanism and directions for future research are discussed.

We measured brain activation with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while Finnish-Norwegian bilinguals silently translated sentences from Finnish into Norwegian and decided whether a later presented probe sentence was a correct translation of the original sentence. The control task included silent sentence reading and probe sentence decision within a single language, Finnish. The translation minus control task contrast activated the left inferior frontal gyrus (Brodmann's area 47) and the left basal ganglia. The left inferior frontal activation appears to be related to active semantic retrieval and the basal ganglia activation to a general action control function that works by suppressing competing responses.

Neuropsychological studies have demonstrated that the production of nouns and verbs can be dissociated in aphasia. These reports have been taken as evidence for separate representations of nouns and verbs in the human brain. We used whole-head magnetoencephalography to record cortical dynamics of action and object naming in 10 healthy adults and in 1 anomic patient with superior naming of verbs compared with nouns due to a left posterior parietal lesion. A single set of 100 line drawings was used for both action and object naming. In normal subjects, the activation sequences in action and object naming were essentially identical, advancing from the occipital to posterior temporoparietal and further to the left frontal cortex, without consistent involvement of the classical left inferior frontal (Broca) and temporal (Wernicke) language areas. In the anomic patient, pronounced differences between action and object naming emerged in the left hemisphere. The activation sequence was disrupted at the level of the damaged parietal cortex and did not reach the left frontal cortex even in the relatively easier action naming. The more severely impaired object naming was associated with exceptionally strong and early activation of the left inferior frontal cortex (Broca) and subsequent pronounced activation of the left middle temporal cortex, silent in action naming. Verb and noun retrieval thus utilized a spatiotemporally similar neuronal network in healthy individuals. A clear dissociation in cortical correlates of verb and noun retrieval only became evident in our anomic patient, in whom damage to the language network has resulted in disproportionately worse performance in object than action naming.

The aim of this study was to examine the neural substrates of multi-object naming by positron emission tomography in normals. Multi-object naming is used in a technique called contextual priming (CP) to elicit contextual effects on picture naming through systematic manipulation of the relatedness of to-be-named pictures in an array. Inhibitory and facilitatory effects of CP on naming have been used both to highlight the inner dynamics of the normal word retrieval system and to treat naming difficulties caused by acquired anomia. Because of the complexity of the CP technique, it is unclear whether it merely reflects lexical retrieval or whether it also recruits general cognitive resources such as attentional control and response selection to a significant degree. When compared with a baseline situation in which colored circles were named, multi-object naming elicited increased blood flow in the occipital lobe and in the left inferior temporal and fusiform gyri. These areas have been related to visual pattern recognition and semantic access, and the pattern of activation is in line with previous functional imaging studies on single picture naming. In conclusion, multi-object naming does not appear to activate brain regions beyond those needed for single object naming. These findings thus provide independent evidence for the claim that CP is a valid paradigm for the study of word production proper.

This Special Issue on Morphological Processing is based on the sixth MOrphological PROcessing Conference (MOPROC), which was kept in June 2009 in Turku, Finland. The issue contains 13 articles by leading scholars in the field of morphological processing. These articles investigate the role morphemes play in language comprehension, production and acquisition. Specific questions relate to the time course with which morphemes come available, what factors facilitate their use, the role of orthographic and semantic transparency in complex word processing and how morphology should be incorporated in models of word processing. The papers in this issue provide a wealth of empirical results in several languages obtained with state-of-the-art experimental paradigms and will be an inspiration for further studies in morphological processing. (Contains 1 table.)

We studied how subjects with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), early Alzheimer's disease (AD) and age-matched controls learned and maintained the names of unfamiliar objects that were trained with or without semantic support (object definitions). Naming performance, phonological cueing, incidental learning of the definitions and recognition of the objects were tested during follow-up. We found that word learning was significantly impaired in MCI and AD patients, whereas forgetting patterns were similar across groups. Semantic support showed a beneficial effect on object name retrieval in the MCI group 8 weeks after training, suggesting that the MCI patients' preserved semantic memory can compensate for impaired episodic memory. The MCI group performed equally well as the controls in the tasks measuring incidental learning and recognition memory, whereas the AD group showed impairment in this respect. Both the MCI and the AD group benefited less from phonological cueing than the controls. Our findings indicate that word learning is compromised in both MCI and AD, whereas long-term retention of newly learned words is not affected to the same extent. Incidental learning and recognition memory seem to be well preserved in MCI. (Contains 4 tables and 3 figures.)

Background: In recent years some critical voices have been raised in regard to the significance of cognitive neuropsychology (CNP) to the study of brain and mind. Given the central role of language disorders in CNP research, it is time to consider the relevance of this research approach in aphasiology. Aims: We analyse the main points of criticism raised against the CNP research approach, evaluate the significance of this approach to the study of acquired language disorders, and make some suggestions concerning further development of the field. Main Contribution: The main points of criticism against CNP (reliance on single-case studies; single-minded hunt for dissociations; emptiness of theorising) have been important long-term concerns but do not take into account the fact that, during its history of circa four decades, the CNP approach has diversified. There are thus CNP studies that rely on case series analyses, focus on error analyses rather than mere dissociations, or employ computational modelling rather than the “boxes-and-arrows” models of the mental architecture. The CNP approach to cognition and its disorders is thus applicable to different research questions and theoretical stances, providing experimental rigour to single-case patient studies. With regard to clinical applications in aphasia diagnostics and treatment, the CNP approach provides a richer view on the strengths and weaknesses of a patient's cognitive-linguistic abilities. Conclusions: We believe that CNP case studies continue to be an important source of information for generating hypotheses and providing converging evidence for research on the mind and on the brain. However, there is a need for further research development especially in computational modelling of language processes, their impairments, and recovery. This research is expected to provide further benefit to clinical diagnostics and treatment of aphasia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The study of novel word learning in aphasia can shed light on the functionality of patients' learning mechanisms and potentially help in treatment planning. Previous studies have indicated that persons with aphasia are able to learn some new vocabulary. However, these learning outcomes appear short-lived and evidence for the ability to use the newly learned words in the long term is lacking. Aims: Participants with aphasia and matched controls underwent short training where they were taught to name novel objects with novel names. We studied the participants' word learning and particularly their long-term maintenance. We also examined whether the language and verbal short-term memory impairments of the participants with aphasia related to their ability to acquire and maintain phonological and semantic information on novel words. Methods & Procedures: Two participants with nonfluent aphasia, LL and AR, and two matched controls took part in the experiment. They were taught to name 20 unfamiliar objects by repeating the names in the presence of the object picture. Half of the items carried a definition that was used to probe incidental semantic learning. There were four training sessions, a post-training test, and follow-up tests up to 6 months post-training. Learning measures included recognition of the trained objects, as well as spontaneous and cued recall in visual confrontation naming. Incidental semantic learning was measured by spontaneous recall of the definitions. Outcomes & Results: Combining spontaneous and phonologically cued responses, LL acquired 70% and AR 55% of the novel words. With phonological cueing, LL named 50% of the items correctly up to 6 months post-training (vs 95–100% for the controls) and AR 25% up to 8 weeks post-training. AR's lexical-semantic processing, pseudoword repetition and verbal short-term capacity were inferior to those of LL. In line with this, AR learned fewer words and showed more decline in recognition memory for the trained items, and weaker recall of the semantic definitions. Conclusions: Our results support previous findings that people with aphasia can learn to name novel items. More importantly, the results show for the first time that, with phonological cueing, an individual with aphasia can maintain some of this learning up to 6 months post-training. Moreover the results provide further evidence for the significance of the functional status of lexical-semantic processing on word learning success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Language performance in aphasia can vary depending on several variables such as stimulus characteristics and task demands. This study focuses on the degree of verbal working memory (WM) load inherent in the language task and how this variable affects language performance by individuals with aphasia. Aims: The first aim was to identify the effects of increased verbal WM load on the performance of judgements of semantic similarity (synonymy) and phonological similarity (rhyming). The second aim was to determine if any of the following abilities could modulate the verbal WM load effect: semantic or phonological access, semantic or phonological short-term memory (STM), and any of the following executive processing abilities: inhibition, verbal WM updating, and set shifting. Method & Procedures: A total of 31 individuals with aphasia and 11 controls participated in this study. They were administered a synonymy judgement task and a rhyming judgement task under high and low verbal WM load conditions that were compared to each other. In a second set of analyses multiple regression was used to identify which factors (as noted above) modulated the verbal WM load effect. Outcomes & Results: For participants with aphasia, increased verbal WM load significantly reduced accuracy of performance on synonymy and rhyming judgements. Better performance in the low verbal WM load conditions was evident even after correcting for chance. The synonymy task included concrete and abstract word triplets. When these were examined separately the verbal WM load effect was significant for the abstract words, but not the concrete words. The same pattern was observed in the performance of the control participants. Additionally, the second set of analyses revealed that semantic STM and one executive function, inhibition ability, emerged as the strongest predictors of the verbal WM load effect in these judgement tasks for individuals with aphasia. Conclusions: The results of this study have important implications for diagnosis and treatment of aphasia. As the roles of verbal STM capacity, executive functions and verbal WM load in language processing are better understood, measurements of these variables can be incorporated into our diagnostic protocols. Moreover, if cognitive abilities such as STM and executive functions support language processing and their impairment adversely affects language function, treating them directly in the context of language tasks should translate into improved language function. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Novel word learning of persons with aphasia is little studied, even though a better understanding of learning processes would inform development of effective treatment strategies. Recent evidence suggests some remaining verbal learning capacity in persons with aphasia. Long-term maintenance of newly learned active vocabulary has not been reported previously in persons with aphasia. Aims: To explore learning and long-term maintenance of novel words in persons with aphasia. Methods & Procedures: Two English-speaking males with chronic anomic aphasia and two age-matched controls were taught novel names of 20 unfamiliar objects. Half of the words were taught with semantic information (definition) and half without. Participants were instructed to learn the names. The experiment included four training sessions, one post-training test and four follow-up tests administered 1 week, 4 weeks, 8 weeks, and 6 months post-training. We tested explicit learning of the new names through visual confrontation naming. In addition, incidental learning of semantic information was probed over the follow-up period. Outcomes & Results: The two participants with aphasia learned 6-8 of the 20 novel names during the training. However, this new vocabulary dissipated during the 6-month follow-up. As expected, the controls showed better performance both in acquisition and in maintenance of the new vocabulary over the follow-up period. As regards the accuracy of semantic information, the aphasic participant with semantic impairment demonstrated worse incidental learning of semantic information than controls and the participant with intact lexical semantics. Conclusions: Some new vocabulary can be acquired even in chronic aphasia but the ability to spontaneously retrieve the newly learned words gradually dissipates over the weeks following learning. Our results also indicate an interaction between the level of lexical-semantic processing skills and incidental learning of new lexical-semantic knowledge in aphasia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study discusses psycholinguistic evidence for a difference between paradigmatic and extraparadigmatic morphology by investigating the processing of Finnish inflected and cliticized words. The data are derived from three sources of Finnish: from single-word reading performance in an agrammatic deep dyslectic speaker, as well as from visual lexical decision and wordness/learnability ratings of cliticized vs. inflected items by normal Finnish speakers. The agrammatic speaker showed awareness of the suffixes in multimorphemic words, including clitics, since he attempted to fill in this slot with morphological material. However, he never produced a clitic — either as the correct response or as an error — in any morphological configuration (simplex, derived, inflected, compound). Moreover, he produced more nominative singular errors for case-inflected nouns than he did for the cliticized words, a pattern that is expected if case-inflected forms were closely associated with their lexical heads, i.e., if they were paradigmatic and cliticized words were not. Furthermore, a visual lexical decision task with normal speakers of Finnish, showed an additional processing cost (longer latencies and more errors on cliticized than on case-inflected noun forms). Finally, a rating task indicated no difference in relative wordness between these two types of words. However, the same cliticized words were judged harder to learn as L2 items than the inflected words, most probably due to their conceptual/semantic properties, in other words due to their lack of word-level translation equivalents in SAVE languages. Taken together, the present results suggest that the distinction between paradigmatic and extraparadigmatic morphology is psychologically real. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: We present an anomia treatment study using a modified contextual priming (CP) technique for two anomic participants. The reason for the modification attempt is that the most recent studies have indicated that the CP procedure is less effective in the case of impairment to lexical-semantic processes than in the case of phonological deficits (see Martin, Fink, & Laine, 2004a; Martin, Fink, Laine, & Ayala, 2004b; Renvall, Laine, & Martin, 2005). Aims: Our aim is to study the within- and post-treatment effects of a modified CP procedure and especially whether additional semantic tasks can increase benefits from the CP treatment. Methods & Procedures: The treatment was conducted for two participants with acquired anomia: LV has primarily a semantic component underlying her anomia, while JP suffers primarily from a phoneme-sequencing deficit. The CP procedure encompassed repeated cycles of spontaneous naming attempts and repetition of target names using arrays of multiple pictures where the targets were either semantically related or unrelated. Our modification was to add picture-to-word matching and phonological "rhyming syllable identification" with the targets to the training sequence. The treatment was carried out in a single-subject multiple-baseline design consisting of several baseline measurements, treatment sessions along with within-treatment measurements, and a post-treatment measurement 1.5 months later. Outcomes & Results: Both participants showed short-term facilitation of naming target items in all treatment conditions. For LV, post-treatment improvement of naming was statistically significant in the semantic condition irrespective of additional task type, even though the improvement was strongest when the semantic condition was coupled with the additional semantic tasks. In the case of JP, post-treatment improvement was observed in the semantic condition coupled with additional semantic tasks, and in the unrelated condition with both semantic and phonological tasks. No strong evidence of generalisation to untreated items was observed for either of the participants. Conclusions: The modified CP procedure can provide longer-term improvement of naming target items than the CP training without additional tasks in the face of a lexical-semantic deficit. With lexical-semantic disturbance, the semantic context provided the best results. However, the nature of the additional tasks (semantic vs phonological) appeared to be less important for the treatment of target naming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of our research is to computationally model word production and its disorders by means of artificial neural networks. In the current study we develop and analyze an algorithm that generates a distributed semantic coding from a given semantic tree-structure classification of words. With the algorithm it is possible to generate semantic representations that are compact and easy to modify. This renders the coding method suitable for our multilayer perceptron-based neural network model of word production. The model is shown to be able to account for a variety of performance patterns observed in four Finnish aphasia patients suffering from word-finding difficulties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Repetition priming is often a component of treatments for word-finding disorders. It can facilitate or interfere with naming success depending on a number of factors. Here we investigate the effectiveness of massed priming coupled with semantic or phonological context as a treatment for naming impairments arising from semantic and phono- logical deficits. Aims: We aimed to determine whether (1) this procedure, used previously in a short-term facilitation study, would effectively improve word retrieval in a treatment study, and (2) the pattern of facilitation or interference observed in the facilitation study would carry over to the treatment programme. Methods & Procedures: We used a single subject multiple baseline design. There were two participants: LP with a phonological encoding deficit and AS with both semantic and phonological deficits, Treatment involved identifying and repeating the names of words that were related semantically or phonologically, or unrelated. Pm and post measures of naming were used to assess overall effectiveness of the treatment. Acquisition, maintenance, and generalisation were measured with baseline tests at the start of each session. Correct responses and errors on within-training naming probes were used to measure sensitivity to priming in a particular context. Outcomes & Results: LP benefited from this procedure regardless of the training context AS showed interference in the semantic context during training and only modest short-term gains. These outcomes were predicted by theft performance on an earlier facilitation study. Conclusions: Contextual repetition priming has different effects on naming and these differences appear to be related to the context of training (semantic or phonological) and the primary source of an individual's naming impairment (semantic or phonological). This procedure is most effective when semantic processing of words is relatively spared. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To study neural correlates of category-specific processing, we measured relative cerebral blood flow changes by PET (oxygen-15) in young healthy subjects while they produced exemplars of animals or artefacts to written subcategory prompts. In comparison to a baseline (word reading), production of animal names elicited increased rCBF in the right inferior temporal region. This fits to recent lesion data on semantic impairment with animals, as well as imaging data on object recognition and semantic retrieval. In our study, it may represent an involvement of visual imagery in generation of animal names. In contrast, production of artefact names elicited increased rCBF in frontoparietal regions previously related to attention and mental effort. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

We welcome this opportunity to discuss further our study (Koivisto & Laine, 2000, this issue) and the theoretical conclusions we presented as a model on hemispheric mechanisms in semantic processing. The model put forth claims that when semantic priming occurs within the left visual field/right hemisphere (LVF/RH), it is attributable to postlexical semantic integration, and when priming can be attributed to automatic semantic activation, it only occurs within the right visual field/left hemisphere (RVF/LH). Chiarello (2000, this issue) argues in her commentary that (1) our data supporting this account are weak, (2) our model cannot accommodate the data, and (3) the support for our account from prior literature is not as strong as we claimed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: We studied how subjects with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), early Alzheimer''s disease (AD) and age-matched controls learned and maintained the names of unfamiliar objects that were trained with or without semantic support (object definitions). Naming performance, phonological cueing, incidental learning of the definitions and recognition of the objects were tested during follow-up. We found that word learning was significantly impaired in MCI and AD patients, whereas forgetting patterns were similar across groups. Semantic support showed a beneficial effect on object name retrieval in the MCI group 8 weeks after training, suggesting that the MCI patients’ preserved semantic memory can compensate for impaired episodic memory. The MCI group performed equally well as the controls in the tasks measuring incidental learning and recognition memory, whereas the AD group showed impairment in this respect. Both the MCI and the AD group benefited less from phonological cueing than the controls. Our findings indicate that word learning is compromised in both MCI and AD, whereas long-term retention of newly learned words is not affected to the same extent. Incidental learning and recognition memory seem to be well preserved in MCI. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Learning a new language requires the identification of word units from continuous speech (the speech segmentation problem) and mapping them onto conceptual representation (the word to world mapping problem). Recent behavioral studies have revealed that the statistical properties found within and across modalities can serve as cues for both processes. However, segmentation and mapping have been largely studied separately, and thus it remains unclear whether both processes can be accomplished at the same time and if they share common neurophysiological features. To address this question, we recorded EEG of 20 adult participants during both an audio alone speech segmentation task and an audiovisual word-to-picture association task. The participants were tested for both the implicit detection of online mismatches (structural auditory and visual semantic violations) as well as for the explicit recognition of words and word-to-picture associations. The ERP results from the learning phase revealed a delayed learning-related fronto-central negativity (FN400) in the audiovisual condition compared to the audio alone condition. Interestingly, while online structural auditory violations elicited clear MMN/N200 components in the audio alone condition, visual-semantic violations induced meaning-related N400 modulations in the audiovisual condition. The present results support the idea that speech segmentation and meaning mapping can take place in parallel and act in synergy to enhance novel word learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The aim of the study was to investigate how the input modality affects the processing of a morphologically complex word. The processing of Finnish inflected vs. monomorphemic words and pseudowords was examined during a lexical decision task, using behavioral responses and event-related potentials. The stimuli were presented in two modalities, visually and auditorily, to two groups of participants. Half of the words and pseudowords carried a case-inflection. At the behavioral level, the inflected words elicited a processing cost with longer decision latencies and higher error rates. At the neural level, pseudowords elicited an N400 effect, which was more pronounced in the visual modality. Inflected words elicited an N400 effect in both modalities, which, however, differed in topography and latency. The N400 effect for inflected words most probably reflects access and possible integration of the stem and suffix. The results suggest that the inflectional processing cost stems from the later, lexical-semantic stage of processing in both modalities. The ERP responses to inflected pseudowords did not differ from the ERP responses to monomorphemic pseudowords in either modality, suggesting that combinatorial case-inflection processing requires a real word stem in order to proceed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: By employing visual lexical decision and functional MRI, we studied the neural correlates of morphological decomposition in a highly inflected language (Finnish) where most inflected noun forms elicit a consistent processing cost during word recognition. This behavioral effect could reflect suffix stripping at the visual word form level and/or subsequent meaning integration at the semantic-syntactic level. The first alternative predicts increased activation for inflected vs. monomorphemic words in the left occipitotemporal cortex while the second alternative predicts left inferior frontal gyrus and/or left posterior temporal activation increases. The results show significant activation effects in the latter areas. This provides support for the second alternative, i.e., that the morphological processing cost stems from the semantic-syntactic level. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

• fMRI and multivariate pattern analysis elucidate attention to lifelike AV speech. • Attention in cocktail-party settings strongly modulates cortical activity patterns • Semantics affect attention-related activity patterns in primary auditory cortex. • Dynamics of attention to speech are context-dependent. Recent studies utilizing electrophysiological speech envelope reconstruction have sparked renewed interest in the cocktail party effect by showing that auditory neurons entrain to selectively attended speech. Yet, the neural networks of attention to speech in naturalistic audiovisual settings with multiple sound sources remain poorly understood. We collected functional brain imaging data while participants viewed audiovisual video clips of lifelike dialogues with concurrent distracting speech in the background. Dialogues were presented in a full-factorial design, comprising task (listen to the dialogues vs. ignore them), audiovisual quality and semantic predictability. We used univariate analyses in combination with multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA) to study modulations of brain activity related to attentive processing of audiovisual speech. We found attentive speech processing to cause distinct spatiotemporal modulation profiles in distributed cortical areas including sensory and frontal-control networks. Semantic coherence modulated attention-related activation patterns in the earliest stages of auditory cortical processing, suggesting that the auditory cortex is involved in high-level speech processing. Our results corroborate views that emphasize the dynamic nature of attention, with task-specificity and context as cornerstones of the underlying neuro-cognitive mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]