Investigation of Information Processing Mechanisms in the Human Brain During Reading Tanka Poetry

Anna Sato, Junichi Chikazoe, Shotaro Funai, Daichi Mochihashi, Yutaka Shikano, Masayuki Asahara, Satoshi Iso, Ichiro Kobayashi

Abstract: Recent advances in non-invasive brain function measurement technologies, such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and magnetoencephalography (MEG), and the development of machine learning techniques, including deep learning, have led to increased research on the elucidation and quantitative understanding of information processing processes in the human brain. Since the emergence of word2vec, which represents the meaning of natural language words as vectors, features of language stimuli given to the human brain have been represented using large language models in natural language processing and used to estimate brain states. In this study, we used GPT-2, which is known to perform well as a feature for predicting brain states, and investigated the information processing processes in the human brain when reading Japanese short poems, i.e., tanka poetry. In particular, we investigated the hubness of the regions of interest in the brain by applying the PageRank algorithm. As a result, we have found that the cingulate cortex and the insula, which are said to be related to emotion, have hubness in brain regions, while occipital lobe, which are not said to be related to emotion, have also hubness.