Development of a Neurolinguistic Testing Technique to Identify Brain Self-Referential Processes

Neuroimaging technologies allow for the assessment of brain localization and temporal dynamics of physiological processes associated with different stages of information processing in the human brain. These technologies can be used both to study signal processing in healthy individuals and to identify markers of neurological or psychiatric pathologies. Electroencephalography is one of the main methods on which neuroimaging technologies are based. In our research, we developed and applied a method of neurolinguistic electroencephalogram testing to identify correlates of self-referential information processing in healthy people of different ages. Self-reference refers to the attribution of any information to oneself [Northoff et al, 2006]. Neurophysiological markers of self-reference remain understudied. In our study, 70 participants of different ages searched for grammatical errors in sentences with varying emotional tones, attributed either to themselves or to other people. The peaks of evoked potentials associated with attention to the stimulus, processing of semantic and syntactic information considered as markers of brain activity. It was found that the neurophysiological markers of the emotional tone of sentences differ from those of their subjective attribution. Additionally, differences in cortical topography of self-referential processes were observed between adults and adolescents. In conclusion, the methodology proposed by us may further be used to study self-referential language information processes in normal conditions and in cases of speech development pathologies.