Life sciences · the experiment
Decode The Little Prince in three languages
You take over the 227 recordings reanalysed in Shenzhen. Four questions, from beginner to expert, to check what the shared map of meaning really shows.
1 · Compare two listeners
For the sentence "Something had broken in my engine", the fMRI image of a Chinese listener looks nothing like that of a French listener.
Beginner
Does this contradict the shared map of meaning?
2 · Score the Chinese decoder
In the 97 French speakers, the decoder trained on Chinese brains had to recognise the passage heard among 12. Its score: the share of the 11 other passages ranked below the right one. Chance gives 0.5.
Intermediate
The right passage comes 3rd out of 12. What is the score?
3 · Cross the two rankings
The shared-geometry gradient follows the principal axis of the cortex, with a correlation of 0.80 over 400 regions. The authors split each ranking into thirds and crossed them.
Expert
Among the regions in the top third of the principal axis, what share also falls in the top third of shared geometry?
4 · Climb to the top of the gradient
The authors confronted the top 5% of regions of each gradient with Neurosynth, a meta-analysis that links regions to functions.
Expert
What sets the apex of shared geometry apart from that of the principal axis?
Meaning decoded
—