Document Type

Honors Thesis

Semester of Graduation

Spring 2026

Abstract

Semantic control is the ability to manage our knowledge about the world to ensure that the information produced is appropriate to a given context (Lamdon Ralph et al., 2017). While the left inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG) has been found to be significantly involved in semantic control (Jackson, 2021), it remains unclear if there is a region of the LIFG that is specific to semantic control and is not involved in any other executive tasks. To investigate this, we employed an activation likelihood estimate (ALE) meta-analysis of prior PET and fMRI research including strong-weak association and feature selection tasks. Based on previous findings, we hypothesized that there would be greater activation in the anterior vlPFC for strong-weak association tasks and in the posterior vlPFC for feature selection tasks. Results showed greater activation in the IFG pars triangularis for feature selection tasks; there were no peaks of greater activation for the strong-weak association tasks.

Awardee Name

Francesca Thomassee

Academic Major

Psychology

Project Mentor

Christopher Cox

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