scholarly journals Auditory Language Comprehension in Children with Developmental Dyslexia: Evidence from Event-related Brain Potentials

2006 ◽  
Vol 18 (10) ◽  
pp. 1676-1695 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. Sabisch ◽  
A. Hahne ◽  
E. Glass ◽  
W. von Suchodoletz ◽  
A. D. Friederici
Keyword(s):  
Developmental Dyslexia ◽  
Sentence Comprehension ◽  
Phrase Structure ◽  
Semantic Integration ◽  
Judgment Task ◽  
Brain Potentials ◽  
N400 Component ◽  
Anterior Negativity ◽  
Bilateral Distribution ◽  
Underlying Processes

In the present study, event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were used to compare auditory sentence comprehension in 16 children with developmental dyslexia (age 9–12 years) and unimpaired controls matched on age, sex, and nonverbal intelligence. Passive sentences were presented, which were either correct or contained a syntactic violation (phrase structure) or a semantic violation (selectional restriction). In an overall sentence correctness judgment task, both control and dyslexic children performed well. In the ERPs, control children and dyslexic children demonstrated a similar N400 component for the semantic violation. For the syntactic violation, control children demonstrated a combined pattern, consisting of an early starting bilaterally distributed anterior negativity and a late centro-parietal positivity (P600). Dyslexic children showed a different pattern that is characterized by a delayed left lateralized anterior negativity, followed by a P600. These data indicate that dyslexic children do not differ from unimpaired controls with respect to semantic integration processes (N400) or controlled processes of syntactic reanalyses (P600) during auditory sentence comprehension. However, early and presumably highly automatic processes of phrase structure building reflected in the anterior negativity are delayed in dyslexic children. Moreover, the differences in hemispheric distribution of the syntactic negativity indicate different underlying processes in dyslexic children and controls. The bilateral distribution in controls suggests an involvement of right hemispherically established prosodic processes in addition to the left hemispherically localized syntactic processes, supporting the view that prosodic information may be used to facilitate syntactic processing during normal comprehension. The left hemispheric distribution observed for dyslexic children, in contrast, suggests that these children do not rely on information about the prosodic contour during auditory sentence comprehension as much as controls do. This finding points toward a phonological impairment in dyslexic children that might hamper the development of syntactic processes.

scholarly journals Anticipating Words and Their Gender: An Event-related Brain Potential Study of Semantic Integration, Gender Expectancy, and Gender Agreement in Spanish Sentence Reading

2004 ◽  
Vol 16 (7) ◽  
pp. 1272-1288 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicole Y. Y. Wicha ◽  
Eva M. Moreno ◽  
Marta Kutas
Keyword(s):  
Time Course ◽  
Sentence Comprehension ◽  
Semantic Integration ◽  
Spanish Speakers ◽  
Gender Agreement ◽  
Brain Potentials ◽  
Preceding Article ◽  
Sentence Reading ◽  
Sentence Meaning ◽  
And Gender

Recent studies indicate that the human brain attends to and uses grammatical gender cues during sentence comprehension. Here, we examine the nature and time course of the effect of gender on word-by-word sentence reading. Event related brain potentials were recorded to an article and noun, while native Spanish speakers read medium to high-constraint Spanish sentences for comprehension. The noun either fit the sentence meaning or not, and matched the preceding article in gender or not; in addition, the preceding article was either expected or unexpected based on prior sentence context. Semantically anomalous nouns elicited an N400. Gender disagreeing nouns elicited a posterior late positivity (P600), replicating previous findings for words. Gender agreement and semantic congruity interacted in both the N400 window—with a larger negativity frontally for double violations—and the P600 window—with a larger positivity for semantic anomalies, relative to the prestimulus baseline. Finally, unexpected articles elicited an enhanced positivity (500–700 msec post onset) relative to expected articles. Overall, our data indicate that readers anticipate and attend to the gender of both articles and nouns, and use gender in real time to maintain agreement and to build sentence meaning.

scholarly journals Multisensory Input Modulates P200 and L2 Sentence Comprehension: A One-Week Consolidation Phase

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nasim Boustani ◽  
Reza Pishghadam ◽  
Shaghayegh Shayesteh
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Processing ◽  
Language Comprehension ◽  
Neural Activity ◽  
Sentence Comprehension ◽  
Judgment Task ◽  
Consolidation Phase ◽  
N400 Component ◽  
Five Senses ◽  
Multisensory Input ◽  
P200 Amplitude

Multisensory input is an aid to language comprehension; however, it remains to be seen to what extent various combinations of senses may affect the P200 component and attention-related cognitive processing associated with L2 sentence comprehension along with the N400 as a later component. To this aim, we provided some multisensory input (enriched with data from three (i.e., exvolvement) and five senses (i.e., involvement)) for a list of unfamiliar words to 18 subjects. Subsequently, the words were embedded in an acceptability judgment task with 360 pragmatically correct and incorrect sentences. The task, along with the ERP recording, was conducted after a 1-week consolidation period to track any possible behavioral and electrophysiological distinctions in the retrieval of information with various sense combinations. According to the behavioral results, we found that the combination of five senses leads to more accurate and quicker responses. Based on the electrophysiological results, the combination of five senses induced a larger P200 amplitude compared to the three-sense combination. The implication is that as the sensory weight of the input increases, vocabulary retrieval is facilitated and more attention is directed to the overall comprehension of L2 sentences which leads to more accurate and quicker responses. This finding was not, however, reflected in the neural activity of the N400 component.

scholarly journals Isn't It Ironic? An Electrophysiological Exploration of Figurative Language Processing

2011 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 277-293 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefanie Regel ◽  
Thomas C. Gunter ◽  
Angela D. Friederici
Keyword(s):  
Language Processing ◽  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Time Course ◽  
Figurative Language ◽  
Semantic Integration ◽  
Task Demands ◽  
Brain Potentials ◽  
Late Positivity ◽  
Figurative Language Processing ◽  
N400 Component

Although the neurocognitive processes underlying the comprehension of figurative language, especially metaphors and idioms, have been studied extensively, less is known about the processing of irony. In two experiments using event-related brain potentials (ERPs), we examined the types of cognitive processes involved in the comprehension of ironic and literal sentences and their relative time course. The experiments varied in modality (auditory, visual), task demands (comprehension task vs. passive reading), and probability of stimulus occurrence. ERPs consistently revealed a large late positivity (i.e., P600 component) in the absence of an N400 component for irony compared to equivalent literal sentences independent of modality. This P600 was shown to be unaffected by the factors task demands and probability of occurrence. Taken together, the findings suggest that the observed P600 is related to irony processing, and might be a reflection of pragmatic interpretation processes. During the comprehension of irony, no semantic integration difficulty arises (absence of N400), but late inferential processes appear to be necessary for understanding ironic meanings (presence of P600). This finding calls for a revision of current models of figurative language processing.

Brain Signatures of Syntactic and Semantic Processes during Children's Language Development

2004 ◽  
Vol 16 (7) ◽  
pp. 1302-1318 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anja Hahne ◽  
Korinna Eckstein ◽  
Angela D. Friederici
Keyword(s):  
Sentence Comprehension ◽  
Time Window ◽  
Early Time ◽  
Late Childhood ◽  
Brain Potentials ◽  
Late Positivity ◽  
Automatic Structure ◽  
Anterior Negativity ◽  
Neurophysiological Basis ◽  
Semantic Processes

Developmental aspects of language comprehension were investigated using event-related brain potentials. Children between the ages of 6 and 13 listened to passive sentences that were correct, semantically incorrect, or syntactically incorrect, and data in each condition were compared with those of adults. For semantic violations, adults demonstrated a negativity (N400), as did children, but the latency decreased with age. For syntactic violations, adults displayed an early left anterior negativity (ELAN) and a late centro-parietal positivity (P600). A syntactic negativity and a late positivity were also present for children between 7 and 13 years, again with latency decreasing with age. Six-year-olds, in contrast, did not demonstrate an ELAN effect, but a late, reduced P600 pattern for the syntactic violation condition. In the early time window, the 6-year-olds displayed a widely distributed negativity that was larger for the correct than for the syntactically incorrect condition. These data indicate that the neurophysiological basis for semantic processes during auditory sentence comprehension does not change dramatically between early childhood and adulthood. Syntactic processes for passive sentences appear to differ between early and late childhood, at least with respect to those processes reflected in the ELAN component. As there is evidence that the ELAN reflects highly automatic structure building processes, we conclude that these processes are not yet established at age 7, but gradually develop toward adult-like processing during late childhood.

scholarly journals Two Neurocognitive Mechanisms of Semantic Integration during the Comprehension of Visual Real-world Events

2008 ◽  
Vol 20 (11) ◽  
pp. 2037-2057 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tatiana Sitnikova ◽  
Phillip J. Holcomb ◽  
Kristi A. Kiyonaga ◽  
Gina R. Kuperberg
Keyword(s):  
Real World ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Semantic Integration ◽  
Semantic Relationship ◽  
Late Positivity ◽  
Incoming Information ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
Integration Mechanisms ◽  
N400 Component ◽  
Anterior Negativity

How do comprehenders build up overall meaning representations of visual real-world events? This question was examined by recording event-related potentials (ERPs) while participants viewed short, silent movie clips depicting everyday events. In two experiments, it was demonstrated that presentation of the contextually inappropriate information in the movie endings evoked an anterior negativity. This effect was similar to the N400 component whose amplitude has been previously reported to inversely correlate with the strength of semantic relationship between the context and the eliciting stimulus in word and static picture paradigms. However, a second, somewhat later, ERP component—a posterior late positivity—was evoked specifically when target objects presented in the movie endings violated goal-related requirements of the action constrained by the scenario context (e.g., an electric iron that does not have a sharp-enough edge was used in place of a knife in a cutting bread scenario context). These findings suggest that comprehension of the visual real world might be mediated by two neurophysiologically distinct semantic integration mechanisms. The first mechanism, reflected by the anterior N400-like negativity, maps the incoming information onto the connections of various strengths between concepts in semantic memory. The second mechanism, reflected by the posterior late positivity, evaluates the incoming information against the discrete requirements of real-world actions. We suggest that there may be a tradeoff between these mechanisms in their utility for integrating across people, objects, and actions during event comprehension, in which the first mechanism is better suited for familiar situations, and the second mechanism is better suited for novel situations.

Processing a second language: late learners' comprehension mechanisms as revealed by event-related brain potentials

2001 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 123-141 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anja Hahne ◽  
Angela D. Friederici
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Sentence Comprehension ◽  
N400 Effect ◽  
Brain Potentials ◽  
Native Japanese Speakers ◽  
Brain Responses ◽  
L2 Learners ◽  
Overall Performance ◽  
Anterior Negativity

Sentence comprehension in second language (L2) learners was examined using event-related brain potentials (ERPs). Native Japanese speakers who had learned German as a second language after puberty listened to German sentences which were either correct, semantically incorrect, syntactically incorrect or both semantically and syntactically incorrect. Brain responses were registered while participants listened to these sentences. Grammaticality judgments required after each sentence revealed that their overall performance was not perfect but clearly above chance. When comparing the L2-learners' brain responses to those of native listeners, a variety of differences were observed. Whereas semantically incorrect sentences showed an ERP pattern similar to that of native listeners (a centro-parietal N400-effect), correct sentences elicited a greater positivity in L2-learners than in native listeners, possibly in reflection of greater difficulties in syntactic integration. For sentences containing a phrase structure violation, L2-learners did not show significant modulations of the syntax-related ERP components usually seen in native listeners (i.e. the early anterior negativity and the P600). Furthermore, sentences containing a pure semantic or a combined syntactic and semantic violation elicited a late right anterior-central negativity, an effect which has not been observed for native language processing. The topography of the effect may suggest that these additional processes are based on conceptual-semantic rather than on lexical-semantic aspects.

Neural Correlates of Syntactic Processing in Two-Year-Olds

2005 ◽  
Vol 17 (10) ◽  
pp. 1667-1678 ◽  
Author(s):  
Regine Oberecker ◽  
Manuela Friedrich ◽  
Angela D. Friederici
Keyword(s):  
Sentence Processing ◽  
Phrase Structure ◽  
Neural Correlates ◽  
Neural Mechanisms ◽  
Syntactic Processing ◽  
Early Language ◽  
Late Positivity ◽  
Early Language Development ◽  
First Pass ◽  
Anterior Negativity

Event-related brain potential (ERP) studies of sentence processing in adults have shown that phrase-structure violations are associated with two ERP components: an early left anterior negativity (ELAN) and a late, centro-parietal positivity (P600). Although the ELAN reflects highly automatic first-pass sentence parsing, the P600 has been interpreted to reflect later, more controlled processes. The present ERP study investigates the processing of phrase-structure violations in children below three years of age. Both children (mean age of 2.8 years) and adults passively listened to short active sentences that were either correct or syntactically incorrect. Adults displayed an ELAN that was followed by a P600 to the syntactic violation. Children also demonstrated a biphasic ERP pattern consisting of an early left hemispheric negativity and a late positivity. Both components, however, started later and persisted longer than those observed in adults. The left lateralization of the children's negativity suggests that this component can be interpreted as a child-specific precursor to the ELAN observed in adults. The appearance of the early negativity indicates that the neural mechanisms of syntactic parsing are present, in principle, during early language development.

Syntactically Based Sentence Processing Classes: Evidence from Event-Related Brain Potentials

1991 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 151-165 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helen Neville ◽  
Janet L. Nicol ◽  
Andrew Barss ◽  
Kenneth I. Forster ◽  
Merrill F. Garrett
Keyword(s):  
Left Hemisphere ◽  
Sentence Processing ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Phrase Structure ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Negative Potential ◽  
Developmental Studies ◽  
Brain Potentials ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
Theoretical Considerations

Theoretical considerations and diverse empirical data from clinical, psycholinguistic, and developmental studies suggest that language comprehension processes are decomposable into separate subsystems, including distinct systems for semantic and grammatical processing. Here we report that event-related potentials (ERPs) to syntactically well-formed but semantically anomalous sentences produced a pattern of brain activity that is distinct in timing and distribution from the patterns elicited by syntactically deviant sentences, and further, that different types of syntactic deviance produced distinct ERP patterns. Forty right-handed young adults read sentences presented at 2 words/sec while ERPs were recorded from over several positions between and within the hemispheres. Half of the sentences were semantically and grammatically acceptable and were controls for the remainder, which contained sentence medial words that violated (1) semantic expectations, (2) phrase structure rules, or (3) WH-movement constraints on Specificity and (4) Subjacency. As in prior research, the semantic anomalies produced a negative potential, N400, that was bilaterally distributed and was largest over posterior regions. The phrase structure violations enhanced the N125 response over anterior regions of the left hemisphere, and elicited a negative response (300-500 msec) over temporal and parietal regions of the left hemisphere. Violations of Specificity constraints produced a slow negative potential, evident by 125 msec, that was also largest over anterior regions of the left hemisphere. Violations of Subjacency constraints elicited a broadly and symmetrically distributed positivity that onset around 200 msec. The distinct timing and distribution of these effects provide biological support for theories that distinguish between these types of grammatical rules and constraints and more generally for the proposal that semantic and grammatical processes are distinct subsystems within the language faculty.

Morphosyntax, Prosody, and Linking Elements: The Auditory Processing of German Nominal Compounds

2004 ◽  
Vol 16 (9) ◽  
pp. 1647-1668 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dirk Koester ◽  
Th. C. Gunter ◽  
S. Wagner ◽  
A. D. Friederici
Keyword(s):  
Auditory Processing ◽  
Potential Effect ◽  
Event Related Potential ◽  
Gender Agreement ◽  
Brain Potentials ◽  
Prosodic Cues ◽  
Linking Elements ◽  
Nominal Compounds ◽  
Dual Route Model ◽  
Anterior Negativity

The morphosyntactic decomposition of German compound words and a proposed function of linking elements were examined during auditory processing using event-related brain potentials. In Experiment 1, the syntactic gender agreement was manipulated between a determiner and the initial compound constituent (the “nonhead” constituent), and between a determiner and the last constituent (“head”). Although only the head is (morpho)syntactically relevant in German, both constituents elicited a left-anterior negativity if its gender was incongruent. This strongly suggests that compounds are morphosyntactically decomposed. Experiment 2 tested the function of those linking elements which are homophonous to plural morphemes. It has been previously suggested that these indicate the number of nonhead constituents. The number agreement was manipulated for both constituents analogous to Experiment 1. Number-incongruent heads, but not nonhead constituents, elicited an N400 and a subsequent broad negativity, suggesting that linking elements are not processed as plural morphemes. Experiment 3 showed that prosodic cues (duration and fundamental frequency) are employed to differentiate between compounds and single nouns and, thereby, betwen linking elements and plural morphemes. Number-incongruent words elicited a broad negativity if they were produced with a single noun prosody; the same words elicited no event-related potential effect if produced with a compound prosody. A dual-route model can account for the influence of prosody on morphosyntactic processing.

scholarly journals Developmental Dyslexia, Reading Acquisition, and Statistical Learning: A Sceptic’s Guide

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (9) ◽  
pp. 1143
Author(s):  
Xenia Schmalz ◽  
Barbara Treccani ◽  
Claudio Mulatti
Keyword(s):  
Statistical Learning ◽  
Developmental Dyslexia ◽  
Individual Variation ◽  
Reading Ability ◽  
Causal Chain ◽  
Learning Ability ◽  
Learning Skills ◽  
Low Level ◽  
Underlying Processes ◽  
Theoretical Issues

Many theories have been put forward that propose that developmental dyslexia is caused by low-level neural, cognitive, or perceptual deficits. For example, statistical learning is a cognitive mechanism that allows the learner to detect a probabilistic pattern in a stream of stimuli and to generalise the knowledge of this pattern to similar stimuli. The link between statistical learning and reading ability is indirect, with intermediate skills, such as knowledge of frequently co-occurring letters, likely being causally dependent on statistical learning skills and, in turn, causing individual variation in reading ability. We discuss theoretical issues regarding what a link between statistical learning and reading ability actually means and review the evidence for such a deficit. We then describe and simulate the “noisy chain hypothesis”, where each intermediary link between a proposed cause and the end-state of reading ability reduces the correlation coefficient between the low-level deficit and the end-state outcome of reading. We draw the following conclusions: (1) Empirically, there is evidence for a correlation between statistical learning ability and reading ability, but there is no evidence to suggest that this relationship is causal, (2) theoretically, focussing on a complete causal chain between a distal cause and developmental dyslexia, rather than the two endpoints of the distal cause and reading ability only, is necessary for understanding the underlying processes, (3) statistically, the indirect nature of the link between statistical learning and reading ability means that the magnitude of the correlation is diluted by other influencing variables, yielding most studies to date underpowered, and (4) practically, it is unclear what can be gained from invoking the concept of statistical learning in teaching children to read.

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