On the Language Specificity of the Brain Response to Syntactic Anomalies: Is the Syntactic Positive Shift a Member of the P300 Family?

1996 ◽  
Vol 8 (6) ◽  
pp. 507-526 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lee Osterhout ◽  
Richard McKinnon ◽  
Michael Bersick ◽  
Vicka Corey
Keyword(s):  
Brain Response ◽  
Brain Potentials ◽  
Positive Shift ◽  
Scalp Distribution ◽  
Temporal Course ◽  
Grammatical Rule ◽  
Subject Noun ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Brain ◽  
And Task

Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were recorded from 13 scalp electrodes while subjects read sentences, some of which contained either a verb that disagreed in number with the subject noun (syntactic anomaly) or a word in uppercase letters (physical anomaly). Uppercase words elicited the P300 complex of positivities, whereas agreement violations elicited a late positive shift with an onset around 500 msec and a duration of several hundred msec. These effects differed in their morphology, temporal course, amplitude, and scalp distribution. Furthermore, manipulations of the probability-of-occurrence and task relevance of the anomalies had robust effects on the response to uppercase words, but not on the response to agreement violations. Finally, these anomalies had additive effects when agreement-violating uppercase (doubly anomalous) words were presented. These results are taken to be an initial indication that the positive shift elicited by agreement violations is distinct from the P300 response to unexpected, task-relevant anomalies that do not involve the violation of a grammatical rule.

Brain Activity Associated with Syntactic Incongruencies in Words and Pseudo-Words

1997 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 318-329 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas F. Münte ◽  
Mike Matzke ◽  
Sönke Johannes
Keyword(s):  
Brain Activity ◽  
The Other ◽  
Real Word ◽  
Onset Latency ◽  
Word Condition ◽  
Memory Condition ◽  
Brain Potentials ◽  
Positive Shift ◽  
Subject Noun ◽  
The Subject

Event-related brain potentials (EMS) were recorded while normal German subjects read either simple declarative sen- tences made up from real German words, or sentences that contained German pseudo-words instead of nouns and verbs. The verb (pseudo-verb) of the sentences disagreed in number with the subject noun (pseudo-noun) in 50% of the sentences. The subjects had the task either to read the sentences for an interspersed memory test (memory condition, pseudeword sentences only) or to make a syntactic judgment after each real-word/pseudo-word sentence. While in the real-word condition a late and widespread positivity resembling the previously described syntactic positive shift was found for the disagreeing verbs, a negativity with an onset latency of about 300 msec was seen for the disagreeing pseudo-verbs. In the pseudo-word conditions no positivity followed the initial negativity. This dissociation of negative and positive waves occurring in response to morphosyntactic mismatches by the pseudo/real-word manipulation suggests that the positive shift is a concomitant of a recomputation routine initiated to account for the number incongruency. This routine is based upon the semantics of the sentence and therefore is not observed in the pseudo-word conditions. The earlier negativity, on the other hand, appears to be a more direct index of morphosyntactic incongruency.

scholarly journals Children Processing Music: Electric Brain Responses Reveal Musical Competence and Gender Differences

2003 ◽  
Vol 15 (5) ◽  
pp. 683-693 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Koelsch ◽  
Tobias Grossmann ◽  
Thomas C. Gunter ◽  
Anja Hahne ◽  
Erich Schröger ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Gender Differences ◽  
Cognitive Representation ◽  
Brain Response ◽  
Tonal Music ◽  
Brain Potentials ◽  
Music And Language ◽  
Brain Responses ◽  
Process Music ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The Brain

Numerous studies investigated physiological correlates of the processing of musical information in adults. How these correlates develop during childhood is poorly understood. In the present study, we measured event-related electric brain potentials elicited in 5and 9-year-old children while they listened to (major–minor tonal) music. Stimuli were chord sequences, infrequently containing harmonically inappropriate chords. Our results demonstrate that the degree of (in) appropriateness of the chords modified the brain responses in both groups according to music-theoretical principles. This suggests that already 5-year-old children process music according to a well-established cognitive representation of the major–minor tonal system and according to music-syntactic regularities. Moreover, we show that, in contrast to adults, an early negative brain response was left predominant in boys, whereas it was bilateral in girls, indicating a gender difference in children processing music, and revealing that children process music with a hemispheric weighting different from that of adults. Because children process, in contrast to adults, music in the same hemispheres as they process language, results indicate that children process music and language more similarly than adults. This finding might support the notion of a common origin of music and language in the human brain, and concurs with findings that demonstrate the importance of musical features of speech for the acquisition of language.

Phrase Length Matters: The Interplay between Implicit Prosody and Syntax in Korean “Garden Path” Sentences

2011 ◽  
Vol 23 (11) ◽  
pp. 3555-3575 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hyekyung Hwang ◽  
Karsten Steinhauer
Keyword(s):  
Silent Reading ◽  
Brain Response ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
Garden Path ◽  
Linguistic Evidence ◽  
Subject Noun ◽  
On Line ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Implicit Prosody ◽  
Prosodic Boundary

In spoken language comprehension, syntactic parsing decisions interact with prosodic phrasing, which is directly affected by phrase length. Here we used ERPs to examine whether a similar effect holds for the on-line processing of written sentences during silent reading, as suggested by theories of “implicit prosody.” Ambiguous Korean sentence beginnings with two distinct interpretations were manipulated by increasing the length of sentence-initial subject noun phrases (NPs). As expected, only long NPs triggered an additional prosodic boundary reflected by a closure positive shift (CPS) in ERPs. When sentence materials further downstream disambiguated the initially dispreferred interpretation, the resulting P600 component reflecting processing difficulties (“garden path” effects) was smaller in amplitude for sentences with long NPs. Interestingly, additional prosodic revisions required only for the short subject disambiguated condition—the delayed insertion of an implicit prosodic boundary after the subject NP—were reflected by a frontal P600-like positivity, which may be interpreted in terms of a delayed CPS brain response. These data suggest that the subvocally generated prosodic boundary after the long subject NP facilitated the recovery from a garden path, thus primarily supporting one of two competing theoretical frameworks on implicit prosody. Our results underline the prosodic nature of the cognitive processes underlying phrase length effects and contribute cross-linguistic evidence regarding the on-line use of implicit prosody for parsing decisions in silent reading.

scholarly journals Salience-weighted agreement feature hierarchy modulates language comprehension

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Muralikrishnan ◽  
Ali Idrissi
Keyword(s):  
Language Comprehension ◽  
Common Mechanism ◽  
Positivity Effect ◽  
Verb Agreement ◽  
Biphasic Effect ◽  
Subject Noun ◽  
The Subject ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Plural Subjects ◽  
The Brain

AbstractThe brain establishes relations between elements of an unfolding sentence in order to incrementally build a representation of who is doing what based on various linguistic cues. Many languages systematically mark the verb and/or its arguments to imply the manner in which they are related. A common mechanism to this end is subject-verb agreement, whereby the marking on the verb covaries with one or more of the features such as person, number and gender of the subject argument in a sentence. The cross-linguistic variability of these features would suggest that they may modulate language comprehension differentially based on their relative weightings in a given language. To test this, we investigated the processing of subject-verb agreement in simple intransitive Arabic sentences in a visual event-related brain potential (ERP) study. Specifically, we examined the differences, if any, that ensue in the processing of person, number and gender features during online comprehension, employing sentences in which the verb either showed full agreement with the subject noun (singular or plural) or did not agree in one of the features. ERP responses were measured at the post-nominal verb. Results showed a biphasic negativity−late-positivity effect when the verb did not agree with its subject noun in one of the features, in line with similar findings from other languages. Crucially however, the biphasic effect for agreement violations was systematically graded based on the feature that was violated, which is a novel finding in view of results from other languages. Furthermore, this graded effect was qualitatively different for singular and plural subjects based on the differing salience of the features for each subject-type. These results suggest that agreement features, varying in their salience due to their language-specific weightings, differentially modulate language comprehension. We postulate a Salience-weighted Feature Hierarchy based on our findings and argue that this parsimoniously accounts for the diversity of existing cross-linguistic neurophysiological results on verb agreement processing.

Use of the Amplitude–Temporal Parameters Related to the Events of the Brain Potentials as Indicators of Specific Processes of Name (Nomination) and Recognition of the Subject by Name (Denotation)

2020 ◽  
Vol 46 (6) ◽  
pp. 651-662
Author(s):  
S. A. Isaichev ◽  
A. M. Chernorizov ◽  
T. V. Adamovich ◽  
A. V. Pilecheva ◽  
A. A. Skvortsov ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Brain Potentials ◽  
Temporal Parameters ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Brain

scholarly journals The electrophysiological underpinnings of processing gender stereotypes in language

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Siyanova ◽  
F Pesciarelli ◽  
C Cacciari
Keyword(s):  
Gender Stereotypes ◽  
Language Comprehension ◽  
Social Behaviour ◽  
Brain Response ◽  
Brain Potentials ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
Female Stereotypes ◽  
Third Person ◽  
On Line ◽  
The Brain

Despite the widely documented influence of gender stereotypes on social behaviour, little is known about the electrophysiological substrates engaged in the processing of such information when conveyed by language. Using event-related brain potentials (ERPs), we examined the brain response to third-person pronouns (lei "she" and lui "he") that were implicitly primed by definitional (passeggeraFEM "passenger", pensionatoMASC "pensioner"), or stereotypical antecedents (insegnante "teacher", conducente "driver"). An N400-like effect on the pronoun emerged when it was preceded by a definitionally incongruent prime (passeggeraFEM - lui; pensionatoMASC - lei), and a stereotypically incongruent prime for masculine pronouns only (insegnante - lui). In addition, a P300-like effect was found when the pronoun was preceded by definitionally incongruent primes. However, this effect was observed for female, but not male participants. Overall, these results provide further evidence for on-line effects of stereotypical gender in language comprehension. Importantly, our results also suggest a gender stereotype asymmetry in that male and female stereotypes affected the processing of pronouns differently. © 2012 Siyanova-Chanturia et al.

scholarly journals ReSync: Correcting the trial-to-trial asynchrony of event-related brain potentials to improve neural response representation

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guang Ouyang
Keyword(s):  
Brain Research ◽  
Real Data ◽  
Eeg Signals ◽  
Brain Response ◽  
Brain Potentials ◽  
Simple Method ◽  
Timing Errors ◽  
Latency Jitter ◽  
Technical Details ◽  
The Brain

For various reasons, the brain response activities in EEG signals are not perfectly synchronized from trial to trial with respect to event markers – a problem commonly referred to as ERP latency jitter. EEG experimental technologies have been greatly advanced to reduce technical timing errors so as to reduce the jitter. However, there are intrinsic sources of jitter that are difficult, if not impossible, to remove. The problem becomes more complicated when facing multiple sub-components with different jitter. The jitter issue renders trial-averaged ERP inaccurate at best and misleading at worst. Effectively correcting the jitter has profound significance in brain research. I present a simple method and easy-to-use toolbox ReSync for correcting ERP jitters based on signal processing theories and techniques. ReSync can be used to correct multiple overlapping ERP sub-components with different degrees of jitter without affecting each other (including the static one). The theories, principles, technical details, and limitations of ReSync were presented in this paper, along with a series of simulation and real data examples for evaluating and validating the method.

scholarly journals The electrophysiological underpinnings of processing gender stereotypes in language

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Siyanova ◽  
F Pesciarelli ◽  
C Cacciari
Keyword(s):  
Gender Stereotypes ◽  
Language Comprehension ◽  
Social Behaviour ◽  
Brain Response ◽  
Brain Potentials ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
Female Stereotypes ◽  
Third Person ◽  
On Line ◽  
The Brain

Despite the widely documented influence of gender stereotypes on social behaviour, little is known about the electrophysiological substrates engaged in the processing of such information when conveyed by language. Using event-related brain potentials (ERPs), we examined the brain response to third-person pronouns (lei "she" and lui "he") that were implicitly primed by definitional (passeggeraFEM "passenger", pensionatoMASC "pensioner"), or stereotypical antecedents (insegnante "teacher", conducente "driver"). An N400-like effect on the pronoun emerged when it was preceded by a definitionally incongruent prime (passeggeraFEM - lui; pensionatoMASC - lei), and a stereotypically incongruent prime for masculine pronouns only (insegnante - lui). In addition, a P300-like effect was found when the pronoun was preceded by definitionally incongruent primes. However, this effect was observed for female, but not male participants. Overall, these results provide further evidence for on-line effects of stereotypical gender in language comprehension. Importantly, our results also suggest a gender stereotype asymmetry in that male and female stereotypes affected the processing of pronouns differently. © 2012 Siyanova-Chanturia et al.

A neurolinguistic study of South Swedish word accents: Electrical brain potentials in nouns and verbs

2015 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 149-162 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mikael Roll
Keyword(s):  
Electric Potential ◽  
Response Pattern ◽  
Mirror Image ◽  
Acoustic Features ◽  
Brain Response ◽  
Processing Load ◽  
Compound Words ◽  
Brain Potentials ◽  
The Brain

The brain response to words with correct and incorrect word accent–suffix combinations in South Swedish was investigated using electroencephalography (EEG). Accent 1 yielded an increased brain response (‘preactivation negativity’) that has previously been interpreted as reflecting preactivation of suffixes. Preactivation is greater for accent 1 due to its association with a limited set of suffixes, whereas accent 2 is default for compound words. The tonal realization of the word accent opposition in South Swedish is practically the mirror image of that in Central Swedish, where a similar preactivation negativity has been found. Therefore, the brain response is unlikely to result from a difference in acoustic features between the word accents. Invalidly cued suffixes yielded brain response pattern showing increased processing load of the unexpected suffix (negative electric potential) followed by its reprocessing (positivity ‘P600’).

scholarly journals Conditional Entropy: A Potential Digital Marker for Stress

Entropy ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 286
Author(s):  
Soheil Keshmiri
Keyword(s):  
Resting State ◽  
Nearest Neighbor ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Solution Concept ◽  
Conditional Entropy ◽  
K Nearest Neighbor ◽  
Brain Response ◽  
Substantial Progress ◽  
Eeg Recordings ◽  
The Brain

Recent decades have witnessed a substantial progress in the utilization of brain activity for the identification of stress digital markers. In particular, the success of entropic measures for this purpose is very appealing, considering (1) their suitability for capturing both linear and non-linear characteristics of brain activity recordings and (2) their direct association with the brain signal variability. These findings rely on external stimuli to induce the brain stress response. On the other hand, research suggests that the use of different types of experimentally induced psychological and physical stressors could potentially yield differential impacts on the brain response to stress and therefore should be dissociated from more general patterns. The present study takes a step toward addressing this issue by introducing conditional entropy (CE) as a potential electroencephalography (EEG)-based resting-state digital marker of stress. For this purpose, we use the resting-state multi-channel EEG recordings of 20 individuals whose responses to stress-related questionnaires show significantly higher and lower level of stress. Through the application of representational similarity analysis (RSA) and K-nearest-neighbor (KNN) classification, we verify the potential that the use of CE can offer to the solution concept of finding an effective digital marker for stress.

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