Differences in spatiotemporal dynamics for processing specific semantic categories: An EEG study

Semantic processing is an essential mechanism in human language comprehension and has profound implications for speech brain-computer interface technologies. Despite recent advances in brain imaging techniques and data analysis algorithms, the mechanisms underlying human brain semantic representations remain a topic of debate, specifically whether this occurs through the activation of selectively separated cortical regions or via a network of distributed and overlapping regions. This study investigates spatiotemporal neural representation during the perception of semantic words related to faces, numbers, and animals using electroencephalography. Source-level analysis focuses on contrasting neural responses to different semantic categories. Critical intervals used in the source contrast analysis are defined using the peak duration of global field power. Effective connectivity, determined through a causality analysis of brain regions activated for semantic processing, is explored. The findings reveal the necessity of a distributed network of regions for processing specific semantic categories and provide evidence suggesting the existence of a neural substrate for semantic representations.