Search results for "N400"
showing 10 items of 56 documents
The time course of the lowercase advantage in visual word recognition: An ERP investigation
2020
Previous word identification and sentence reading experiments have consistently shown faster reading for lowercase than for uppercase words (e.g., table faster than TABLE). A theoretically relevant question for neural models of word recognition is whether the effect of letter-case only affects the early prelexical stages of visual word recognition or whether it also influences lexical-semantic processing. To examine the locus and nature of the lowercase advantage in visual word recognition, we conducted an event-related potential (ERP) lexical decision experiment. ERPs were recorded to words and pseudowords presented in lowercase or uppercase. Words also varied in lexical frequency, thus al…
Electrophysiological correlates of cross-linguistic semantic integration in hearing signers : N400 and LPC
2014
We explored semantic integration mechanisms in native and non-native hearing users of sign language and non-signing controls. Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were recorded while participants performed a semantic decision task for priming lexeme pairs. Pairs were presented either within speech or across speech and sign language. Target-related ERP responses were subjected to principal component analyses (PCA), and neurocognitive basis of semantic integration processes were assessed by analyzing the N400 and the late positive complex (LPC) components in response to spoken (auditory) and signed (visual) antonymic and unrelated targets. Semantically-related effects triggered across modali…
The role of animacy in the real time comprehension of Mandarin Chinese: Evidence from auditory event-related brain potentials.
2007
Two auditory ERP studies examined the role of animacy in sentence comprehension in Mandarin Chinese by comparing active and passive sentences in simple verb-final (Experiment 1) and relative clause constructions (Experiment 2). In addition to the voice manipulation (which modulated the assignment of actor and undergoer roles to the arguments), both arguments were either animate or inanimate. This allowed us to examine the interplay of animacy with thematic interpretation. In Experiment 1, we observed no effect of animacy at NP1, but N400 effects for inanimate actor arguments in second position. This result mirrors previous findings in German, thus suggesting that an initial undergoer univer…
The neural mechanisms of word order processing revisited: electrophysiological evidence from Japanese.
2008
We present two ERP studies on the processing of word order variations in Japanese, a language that is suited to shedding further light on the implications of word order freedom for neurocognitive approaches to sentence comprehension. Experiment 1 used auditory presentation and revealed that initial accusative objects elicit increased processing costs in comparison to initial subjects (in the form of a transient negativity) only when followed by a prosodic boundary. A similar effect was observed using visual presentation in Experiment 2, however only for accusative but not for dative objects. These results support a relational account of word order processing, in which the costs of comprehen…
Event-related potentials reflecting the processing of phonological constraint violations
2009
How are violations of phonological constraints processed in word comprehension? The present article reports the results of an event-related potentials (ERP) study on a phonological constraint of German that disallows identical segments within a syllable or word (CC(i)VC(i)). We examined three types of monosyllabic late positive CCVC words: (a) existing words [see text], (b) wellformed novel words [see text] and component (c) illformed novel words [see text] as instances of Obligatory Contour Principle non-word (OCP) violations. Wellformed and illformed novel words evoked an N400 effect processing in comparison to existing words. In addition, illformed words produced an enhanced late posteri…
(De-)Accentuation and the Processing of Information Status: Evidence from Event-Related Brain Potentials
2012
The paper reports on a perception experiment in German that investigated the neuro-cognitive processing of information structural concepts and their prosodic marking using event-related brain potentials (ERPs). Experimental conditions controlled the information status (given vs. new) of referring and non-referring target expressions (nouns vs. adjectives) and were elicited via context sentences, which did not – unlike most previous ERP studies in the field – trigger an explicit focus expectation. Target utterances displayed prosodic realizations of the critical words which differed in accent position and accent type. Electrophysiological results showed an effect of information status, maxi…
The P600-as-P3 hypothesis revisited: single-trial analyses reveal that the late EEG positivity following linguistically deviant material is reaction …
2014
The P600, a late positive ERP component following linguistically deviant stimuli, is commonly seen as indexing structural, high-level processes, e.g. of linguistic (re)analysis. It has also been identified with the P3 (P600-as-P3 hypothesis), which is thought to reflect a systemic neuromodulator release facilitating behavioural shifts and is usually response time aligned. We investigated single-trial alignment of the P600 to response, a critical prediction of the P600-as-P3 hypothesis. Participants heard sentences containing morphosyntactic and semantic violations and responded via a button press. The elicited P600 was perfectly response aligned, while an N400 following semantic deviations …
Reversibility in Chinese word formation influences target identification.
2011
We recorded event-related brain potentials during the processing of visually presented compound words in Mandarin Chinese. We capitalized on a particular characteristic of Chinese word formation, where two constituents can be combined in two different orders (A+B or B+A), yielding distinct meanings-so-called "reversible words". By investigating the impact of structural reversibility on the processing of compounds in Chinese during a lexical decision task, the present study revealed a pronounced difference between reversible and non-reversible words. Analyses revealed a more enhanced negativity (N400) for reversible words, reflecting demands during semantic processing, followed by a P300-lik…
The N400 as a correlate of interpretively relevant linguistic rules: evidence from Hindi.
2009
Classical views on the electrophysiology of language assume that different event-related potential (ERP) components index distinct linguistic subdomains. Hence, left-anterior negativities are often viewed as correlates of rule-based linguistic knowledge, whereas centro-parietal negativities (N400s) are taken to reflect (non-rule-based) semantic memory or aspects of lexical-semantic predictability. The present ERP study of case marking in Hindi challenges this clear-cut dichotomy. Though determined by a grammatical rule, the choice of subject case in Hindi is also interpretively relevant as it constrains the range of possible interpretations of the subject. For incorrect subject cases, we ob…
Parafoveal versus foveal N400s dissociate spreading activation from contextual fit.
2009
Using concurrent electroencephalogram and eye movement measures to track natural reading, this study shows that N400 effects reflecting predictability are dissociable from those owing to spreading activation. In comparing predicted sentence endings with related and unrelated unpredicted endings in antonym constructions ('the opposite of black is white/yellow/nice'), fixation-related potentials at the critical word revealed a predictability-based N400 effect (unpredicted vs. predicted words). By contrast, event-related potentials time locked to the last fixation before the critical word showed an N400 only for the nonrelated unpredicted condition (nice). This effect is attributed to a parafo…