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d Salience Theory....19
3.1.1 Salience Meaning.........19
3.1.2 Origin of Priming Test .........20
3.2 Graded Salience Theory........22
3.3 Modularity .... 30
3.4 Summary....... 34
Chapter Four Meta-analysis of fMRI Data...... 36
4.1Ameta-analysis of fMRI data....... 36
4.2 Cognitive Foundation of Irony Comprehension........... 43
4.3An Integrative Framework Based on the Graded Salience Theory....... 50
4.4 Prediction on Clinical groups ....... 52
4.5 Summary....... 55
Chapter Five Conclusions ....... 58
5.1 Summary....... 58
5.2 Limitations and Prospects..... 59

Chapter FourMeta-analysis of fMRI Data

4.1AMeta-analysis of fMRI Data

As we have mentioned in the previous chapter that the right hemisphere dominancehypothesis is held by the graded salience theory. Therefore, in order to test thishypothesis, we carried out a meta-analysis by Ginger 2.0 based on 7 studies (we haveintroduced the procedure in 1.4). In the following part, we will first list clusters thathave been activated in both hemispheres, and then list areas that have repeated activatedin those studies.Our result has been illustrated in the following table. All the clusters are those inthe right hemisphere. We have found that among 39 clusters, 15 clusters have beenfound in our analysis. It means that both hemisphere has been involved in the figurativemeaning processing. Among them, 5 clusters are in the frontal lobe, and 5 clusters in thetemporal lobe.In this part, we will discuss the result of meta-analysis in detail, and the discussionis based on the Brodmann area. Brodman area is used to describe the region of cerebralcortex, which is defined by anatomical architecture or historical structure (Brodmann,1925). There are 52 areas in both hemispheres. In the following part, we will discussareas that have been involved in irony comprehension. For example, BA 6 refers toBrodmann area 6, which is part of premotor cortex. We will give informationconcerning coordinate, hemisphere localization, gyrus and BA area in tablesrespectively.

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Conclusions

As a kind of figurative language, irony has been studied more than 40 years bymodern language researchers. By using a coordinate-based meta-analysis method, thisthesis explored the neuro-cognitive foundation of irony comprehension, and also tried todiscuss irony comprehension under the framework based on the graded salience theory.To begin with, by conducting a coordinate-based meta-analysis method, we foundthe left side of hemisphere had been intensively involved in irony comprehension.Besides, we found that BA 9, BA 6, BA 47, BA 39, BA 32, BA 22, and BA 21 had beeninvolved in irony comprehension, and all of them had been activated in bothhemispheres. Those areas have been found to be related to working memory, episodiclong-term memory, divided attention, inhibitory control, mindreading, and so on.Among all those cognitive processes, we found executive functions were important inirony comprehension. Therefore, the following part discusses how working memory,inhibition and cognitive flexibility can be involved in the comprehension. As theprocessing of irony is highly controlled task, working memory offers a dynamic storagethat is used to maintain and process task-relevant information, and inhibitory control isinvolved to resist interferen