A neurological study of emotions in reversed Japanese sentences with NIRS

カテゴリ: 研究会(論文単位)

論文No: IIS15024

グループ名: 【D】産業応用部門 次世代産業システム研究会

発行日: 2015/03/16

タイトル(英語): A neurological study of emotions in reversed Japanese sentences with NIRS

著者名: Rasid Nur Amanina(Shibaura Institute of Technology),Mohd Anuardi Muhammad Nur Adilin(Shibaura Institute of Technology),Yamazaki Atsuko K.(Shibaura Institute of Technology),Shimada Hitomi(Shibaura Institute of Technology)

著者名(英語): Nur Amanina Rasid Muhammad(Shibaura Institute of Technology),Nur Adilin Mohd Anuardi(Shibaura Institute of Technology),Atsuko K. Yamazaki(Shibaura Institute of Technology),Hitomi Shimada(Shibaura Institute of Technology)

キーワード: language learning |NIRS|emotions|Japanese language|communication|brain functions|language learning |NIRS|emotions|Japanese language|communication|brain functions

要約(日本語): Language comprehension that is dependent on the emotional context plays an important role in the establishment of smooth communication and good personal relationship. The emergence of an aging society, with an increase in the number of people requiring care, requires communication methods that can both facilitate communication between patients and caregivers and reduce mutual emotional conflict to improve the quality of life. The objective of this study is to understand whether emotional context in sentences activates the language area of the brain. To examine the effect that the emotional context has on language comprehension, the authors asked 27 participants to listen to a recording of five reversed Japanese sentences and to answer a questionnaire. The questionnaire was tested prior to the experiment to ensure that the recording and questionnaire were suitable for the experiment. In the questionnaire, the participants were required to pick an emotion, out of five choices (happy, surprised, sad, anger, fear), that best represents the sentences in the recording. Relative changes in hemoglobin concentrations of each subject’s brain were then measured and recorded. The change values of hemoglobin concentration rations (oxy-, deoxy- and total-) were measured every 0.1 seconds with a NIRS system were averaged for both the sentences with and without emotions. The result of this study shows that the average values of NIRS signals obtained from channels 6, 17, 27 and 38, which roughly correspond to BA 44 and 45 of the brain area were higher for sentences without emotion than for sentences with emotions. BA 44 and 45 of the brain area are known to be associated with linguistic grammar and sentence comprehension. The results indicated that the subjects’ brain areas related to linguistic tasks tended to be more active while listening to sentences without emotion. This suggests that sentences spoken with too much emotion may not be good for language comprehension. This result contradicts our speculation that language comprehension is dependent on the emotional context in sentences. Language areas of the brain are commonly used to interpret grammar and vocabulary of a language. Since reversed Japanese sentences were used in this experiment, the subjects who are all native speaker of Japanese were able to pick up familiar sounds without having to understand the meaning by using language areas of the brain. On the other hand, the NIRS signals obtained from channel 1, 5, 11 and 14 suggest that the frontal brain areas that are associated with working memory were highly activated when the subjects listened to all five sentences without emotion. Therefore, in this study, we can conclude that in cases of a familiar language, emotional context is not really essential in good language comprehension and working memory performance. The authors aim to apply the results of this study to a population affected by a disease. In our case, the future direction of the current work is to apply this language based NIRS study to elder people with dementia. The results from this experiment can help therapy for elder people in rehabilitation centers.

要約(英語): Language comprehension that is dependent on the emotional context plays an important role in the establishment of smooth communication and good personal relationship. The emergence of an aging society, with an increase in the number of people requiring care, requires communication methods that can both facilitate communication between patients and caregivers and reduce mutual emotional conflict to improve the quality of life. The objective of this study is to understand whether emotional context in sentences activates the language area of the brain. To examine the effect that the emotional context has on language comprehension, the authors asked 27 participants to listen to a recording of five reversed Japanese sentences and to answer a questionnaire. The questionnaire was tested prior to the experiment to ensure that the recording and questionnaire were suitable for the experiment. In the questionnaire, the participants were required to pick an emotion, out of five choices (happy, surprised, sad, anger, fear), that best represents the sentences in the recording. Relative changes in hemoglobin concentrations of each subject’s brain were then measured and recorded. The change values of hemoglobin concentration rations (oxy-, deoxy- and total-) were measured every 0.1 seconds with a NIRS system were averaged for both the sentences with and without emotions. The result of this study shows that the average values of NIRS signals obtained from channels 6, 17, 27 and 38, which roughly correspond to BA 44 and 45 of the brain area were higher for sentences without emotion than for sentences with emotions. BA 44 and 45 of the brain area are known to be associated with linguistic grammar and sentence comprehension. The results indicated that the subjects’ brain areas related to linguistic tasks tended to be more active while listening to sentences without emotion. This suggests that sentences spoken with too much emotion may not be good for language comprehension. This result contradicts our speculation that language comprehension is dependent on the emotional context in sentences. Language areas of the brain are commonly used to interpret grammar and vocabulary of a language. Since reversed Japanese sentences were used in this experiment, the subjects who are all native speaker of Japanese were able to pick up familiar sounds without having to understand the meaning by using language areas of the brain. On the other hand, the NIRS signals obtained from channel 1, 5, 11 and 14 suggest that the frontal brain areas that are associated with working memory were highly activated when the subjects listened to all five sentences without emotion. Therefore, in this study, we can conclude that in cases of a familiar language, emotional context is not really essential in good language comprehension and working memory performance. The authors aim to apply the results of this study to a population affected by a disease. In our case, the future direction of the current work is to apply this language based NIRS study to elder people with dementia. The results from this experiment can help therapy for elder people in rehabilitation centers.

原稿種別: 英語

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