scholarly journals Grammatical Processing without Semantics? An Event-related Brain Potential Study of Preschoolers using Jabberwocky Sentences

2007 ◽  
Vol 19 (6) ◽  
pp. 1050-1065 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juan Silva-Pereyra ◽  
Barbara T. Conboy ◽  
Lindsay Klarman ◽  
Patricia K. Kuhl
Keyword(s):  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Semantic Content ◽  
Positive Effects ◽  
Closed Class ◽  
Behavioral Studies ◽  
Syntactic Information ◽  
Distinct Event ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
Open Class ◽  
Child's Brain

Behavioral studies have demonstrated that children develop a nearly adult-like grammar between 36 and 42 months, but few studies have addressed how the child's brain processes semantic versus syntactic information. In previous research, Silva-Pereyra and colleagues showed that distinct event-related potentials (ERPs) are elicited by semantic and syntactic violations in sentences in children as young as 30, 36, and 48 months, following the patterns displayed by adults. In the current study, we examined ERPs to syntactic phrase structure violations in real and jabberwocky sentences in 36-month-old children. Jabberwocky sentences are sentences in which content (open-class) words are replaced by pseudowords while function (closed-class) words are retained. Results showed that syntactically anomalous real sentences elicited two positive ERP effects: left-distributed effects from 500 to 750 msec and 1050 to 1300 msec, whereas syntactically anomalous jabberwocky sentences elicited two negative ERP effects: a left-distributed effect from 750 to 900 msec and a later broadly distributed effect from 950 to 1150 msec. The results indicate that when preschoolers process real English sentences, ERPs resembling the positive effects previously reported for adults are noted, although at longer latencies and with broader scalp distributions. However, when preschoolers process jabberwocky sentences with altered lexical-semantic content, a negative-going ERP component similar to one typically associated with the extraction of meaning is noted.

Semantic Conflict Processing in the Color-Word Stroop and the Emotional Stroop

2013 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 149-164 ◽  
Author(s):  
Montserrat Zurrón ◽  
Marta Ramos-Goicoa ◽  
Fernando Díaz
Keyword(s):  
Stroop Task ◽  
Color Word ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Semantic Content ◽  
Emotional Stroop ◽  
Semantic Equivalence ◽  
Incongruent Color ◽  
Semantic Conflict ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
Temporal Locus

With the aim of establishing the temporal locus of the semantic conflict in color-word Stroop and emotional Stroop phenomena, we analyzed the Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) elicited by nonwords, incongruent and congruent color words, colored words with positive and negative emotional valence, and colored words with neutral valence. The incongruent, positive, negative, and neutral stimuli produced interference in the behavioral response to the color of the stimuli. The P150/N170 amplitude was sensitive to the semantic equivalence of both dimensions of the congruent color words. The P3b amplitude was smaller in response to incongruent color words and to positive, negative, and neutral colored words than in response to the congruent color words and colored nonwords. There were no differences in the ERPs induced in response to colored words with positive, negative, and neutral valence. Therefore, the P3b amplitude was sensitive to interference from the semantic content of the incongruent, positive, negative, and neutral words in the color-response task, independently of the emotional content of the colored words. In addition, the P3b amplitude was smaller in response to colored words with positive, negative, and neutral valence than in response to the incongruent color words. Overall, these data indicate that the temporal locus of the semantic conflict generated by the incongruent color words (in the color-word Stroop task) and by colored words with positive, negative, and neutral valence (in the emotional Stroop task) appears to occur in the range 300–450 ms post-stimulus.

scholarly journals Social Exclusion Down-Regulates Pain Empathy at the Late Stage of Empathic Responses: Electrophysiological Evidence

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Min Fan ◽  
Jing Jie ◽  
Pinchao Luo ◽  
Yu Pang ◽  
Danna Xu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Exclusion ◽  
Social Inclusion ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Body Parts ◽  
Controlled Processing ◽  
Behavioral Studies ◽  
The Social ◽  
Central Regions ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
And Behavior

Social exclusion has a significant impact on cognition, emotion, and behavior. Some behavioral studies investigated how social exclusion affects pain empathy. Conclusions were inconsistent, and there is a lack of clarity in identifying which component of pain empathy is more likely to be affected. To investigate these issues, we used a Cyberball task to manipulate feelings of social exclusion. Two groups (social exclusion and social inclusion) participated in the same pain empathy task while we recorded event-related potentials (ERP) when participants viewed static images of body parts in painful and neutral situations. The results showed early N2 differentiation between painful and neutral pictures in the central regions in both groups. The pattern at the late controlled processing stage was different. Parietal P3 amplitudes for painful pictures were significantly smaller than those for neutral pictures in the social exclusion group; they did not differ in the social inclusion group. We observed a parietal late positive potential (LPP) differentiation between painful and neutral pictures in both groups. LPP amplitudes were significantly smaller in the social exclusion group than those in the social inclusion group for painful stimuli. Our results indicate that social exclusion does not affect empathic responses during the early emotional sharing stage. However, it down-regulates empathic responses at the late cognitive controlled stage, and this modulation is attenuated gradually. The current study provides neuroscientific evidence of how social exclusion dynamically influences pain empathy.

Categorical Perception of Happiness and Fear Facial Expressions: An ERP Study

2002 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 210-227 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Campanella ◽  
P. Quinet ◽  
R. Bruyer ◽  
M. Crommelinck ◽  
J.-M. Guerit
Keyword(s):  
Facial Expressions ◽  
Emotional Expression ◽  
Categorical Perception ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Matching Task ◽  
Emotional Expressions ◽  
Behavioral Studies ◽  
Temporal Course ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
Repetition Priming Effect

Behavioral studies have shown that two different morphed faces perceived as reflecting the same emotional expression are harder to discriminate than two faces considered as two different ones. This advantage of between-categorical differences compared with within-categorical ones is classically referred as the categorical perception effect. The temporal course of this effect on fear and happiness facial expressions has been explored through event-related potentials (ERPs). Three kinds of pairs were presented in a delayed same–different matching task: (1) two different morphed faces perceived as the same emotional expression (within-categorical differences), (2) two other ones reflecting two different emotions (between-categorical differences), and (3) two identical morphed faces (same faces for methodological purpose). Following the second face onset in the pair, the amplitude of the bilateral occipito-temporal negativities (N170) and of the vertex positive potential (P150 or VPP) was reduced for within and same pairs relative to between pairs. This suggests a repetition priming effect. We also observed a modulation of the P3b wave, as the amplitude of the responses for the between pairs was higher than for the within and same pairs. These results indicate that the categorical perception of human facial emotional expressions has a perceptual origin in the bilateral occipito-temporal regions, while typical prior studies found emotion-modulated ERP components considerably later.

Two-Component Processes in Switching Attention: A Study of Event-Related Potentials

2002 ◽  
Vol 94 (3_suppl) ◽  
pp. 1168-1176 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shulan Hsieh
Keyword(s):  
Switch Cost ◽  
Reaction Times ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Random Order ◽  
Behavioral Studies ◽  
Two Component ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
Component Processes ◽  
Fixed Order ◽  
Switching Attention

When participants are asked either to repeat the task from the previous trial or switch to the other task, their reaction times are larger for switched than repeated tasks. This “switch cost” has been repeatedly demonstrated in behavioral studies. In this study, event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded from 12 healthy college students to assess whether this switch cost reflects component processes of preparation and interference. Analyses of ERPs showed that following the cue, there was greater positivity for a switched relative to a repeated trial when the tasks occurred in a fixed-order rather than in a random-order condition. Following the onset of the stimulus-pair, there was greater negativity for switched relative to repeated trials when the task stimulus consisted of both letters and digits but not when it consisted of either a letter or a digit paired with a neutral character. The data provide neurophysiological evidence for the two component processes.

scholarly journals Electrophysiology Echoes Brain Dynamics in Children and Adolescents With Tourette Syndrome—A Developmental Perspective

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aribert Rothenberger ◽  
Hartmut Heinrich
Keyword(s):  
Children And Adolescents ◽  
Tourette Syndrome ◽  
Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Brain Dynamics ◽  
High Time Resolution ◽  
Sleep Behavior ◽  
Pilot Studies ◽  
Positive Effects ◽  
Related Potentials

The development of the complex clinical picture of motor and vocal tics in children and adolescents with Tourette syndrome (TS) must be paralleled by changes in the underlying pathophysiology. Electrophysiological methods such as EEG and event-related potentials (ERPs) are non-invasive, safe and easy to apply and thus seem to provide an adequate means to investigate brain dynamics during this brain maturational period. Also, electrophysiology is characterized by a high time resolution and can reflect motor, sensory and cognitive aspects as well as sleep behavior. Hence, this narrative review focuses on how electrophysiology echoes brain dynamics during development of youngsters with TS and might be useful for the treatment of tics. A comprehensive picture of developmental brain dynamics could be revealed showing that electrophysiological parameters evolve concurrently with clinical characteristics of TS. Specifically, evidence for a maturational delay of motor inhibition related to cortico-spinal hyper-excitability and brain mechanisms for its cognitive compensation could be shown. Moreover, deviant sleep parameters and probably a stronger perception-action binding were reported. For neuromodulatory treatments (e.g., neurofeedback; repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation, rTMS/transcranial direct current stimulation, tDCS) targeting neuronal deficits and/or strengthening compensatory brain mechanisms, pilot studies support the possibility of positive effects regarding tic reduction. Finally, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), as a highly frequent co-existing disorder with TS, has to be considered when using and interpreting electrophysiological measures in TS. In conclusion, application of electrophysiology seems to be promising regarding clinical and research aspects in youngsters with TS.

scholarly journals Discourse, Syntax, and Prosody: The Brain Reveals an Immediate Interaction

2007 ◽  
Vol 19 (9) ◽  
pp. 1421-1434 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roel Kerkhofs ◽  
Wietske Vonk ◽  
Herbert Schriefers ◽  
Dorothee J. Chwilla
Keyword(s):  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Discourse Context ◽  
Positive Shift ◽  
Syntactic Information ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
Closure Positive Shift ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Discourse Syntax

Speech is structured into parts by syntactic and prosodic breaks. In locally syntactic ambiguous sentences, the detection of a syntactic break necessarily follows detection of a corresponding prosodic break, making an investigation of the immediate interplay of syntactic and prosodic information impossible when studying sentences in isolation. This problem can be solved, however, by embedding sentences in a discourse context that induces the expectation of either the presence or the absence of a syntactic break right at a prosodic break. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were compared to acoustically identical sentences in these different contexts. We found in two experiments that the closure positive shift, an ERP component known to be elicited by prosodic breaks, was reduced in size when a prosodic break was aligned with a syntactic break. These results establish that the brain matches prosodic information against syntactic information immediately.

scholarly journals How Is Sentence Processing Affected by External Semantic and Syntactic Information? Evidence from Event-Related Potentials

PLoS ONE ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. e9742 ◽  
Author(s):  
Annekathrin Schacht ◽  
Manuel Martín-Loeches ◽  
Pilar Casado ◽  
Rasha Abdel Rahman ◽  
Alejandra Sel ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sentence Processing ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Syntactic Information ◽  
Related Potentials

Infants’ Processing of Prosodic Cues: Electrophysiological Evidence for Boundary Perception beyond Pause Detection

2017 ◽  
Vol 61 (1) ◽  
pp. 153-169 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia Holzgrefe-Lang ◽  
Caroline Wellmann ◽  
Barbara Höhle ◽  
Isabell Wartenburger
Keyword(s):  
Age Groups ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Pitch Change ◽  
Prosodic Cues ◽  
Behavioral Studies ◽  
Brain Responses ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
Prosodic Boundaries ◽  
Prosodic Boundary ◽  
First Year Of Life

Infants as young as six months are sensitive to prosodic phrase boundaries marked by three acoustic cues: pitch change, final lengthening, and pause. Behavioral studies suggest that a language-specific weighting of these cues develops during the first year of life; recent work on German revealed that eight-month-olds, unlike six-month-olds, are capable of perceiving a prosodic boundary on the basis of pitch change and final lengthening only. The present study uses Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) to investigate the neuro-cognitive development of prosodic cue perception in German-learning infants. In adults’ ERPs, prosodic boundary perception is clearly reflected by the so-called Closure Positive Shift (CPS). To date, there is mixed evidence on whether an infant CPS exists that signals early prosodic cue perception, or whether the CPS emerges only later—the latter implying that infantile brain responses to prosodic boundaries reflect acoustic, low-level pause detection. We presented six- and eight-month-olds with stimuli containing either no boundary cues, only a pitch cue, or a combination of both pitch change and final lengthening. For both age groups, responses to the former two conditions did not differ, while brain responses to prosodic boundaries cued by pitch change and final lengthening showed a positivity that we interpret as a CPS-like infant ERP component. This hints at an early sensitivity to prosodic boundaries that cannot exclusively be based on pause detection. Instead, infants’ brain responses indicate an early ability to exploit subtle, relational prosodic cues in speech perception—presumably even earlier than could be concluded from previous behavioral results.

scholarly journals Effects of Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) on Go/NoGo Performance Using Food and Non-Food Stimuli in Patients with Prader–Willi Syndrome

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 250
Author(s):  
Albert B. Poje ◽  
Ann Manzardo ◽  
Kathleen M. Gustafson ◽  
Ke Liao ◽  
Laura E. Martin ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Direct Current ◽  
Behavioral Problems ◽  
Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation ◽  
Genetic Disorder ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Prader Willi Syndrome ◽  
Feeding Difficulties ◽  
Direct Current Stimulation ◽  
Positive Effects ◽  
Related Potentials

Prader–Willi syndrome (PWS) is a neurodevelopmental genetic disorder characterized by multiple system involvement with hypotonia, poor suck with feeding difficulties, growth and other hormone deficiencies, intellectual disability, and behavioral problems with childhood onset of hyperphagia resulting in obesity, if not externally controlled. Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) has been increasingly shown to modulate cognitive and behavioral processes in children and adults, including food-intake behaviors in patients with PWS. This study further reports the positive effects of brief tDCS sessions on Go/NoGo task performance involving food and non-food stimuli images, alterations in N2 brain amplitude, and genetic subgroup differences (maternal disomy 15, UPD; 15q11-q13 deletion, DEL) before and after tDCS as assessed by event-related potentials (ERPs) in 10 adults with PWS. The results indicate a group effect on baseline NoGo N2 amplitude in PWS patients with DEL vs UPD (p =0.046) and a decrease in NoGo N2 amplitude following tDCS (p = 0.031). Our tDCS approach also demonstrated a trend towards decreased response time. Collectively, these results replicate and expand prior work highlighting neurophysiological differences in patients with PWS according to genetic subtype and demonstrate the feasibility in examining neuromodulatory effects of tDCS on information processing in this patient population to stimulate additional research and treatment.

scholarly journals Inhibition of Return Decreases Early Audiovisual Integration: An Event-Related Potential Study

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xing Peng ◽  
Xiaoyu Tang ◽  
Hao Jiang ◽  
Aijun Wang ◽  
Ming Zhang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Inhibition Of Return ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Event Related Potential ◽  
Audiovisual Integration ◽  
High Temporal Resolution ◽  
Cue Validity ◽  
Neural Activities ◽  
Behavioral Studies ◽  
Integration Effect ◽  
Related Potentials

Previous behavioral studies have found that inhibition of return decreases the audiovisual integration, while the underlying neural mechanisms are unknown. The current work utilized the high temporal resolution of event-related potentials (ERPs) to investigate how audiovisual integration would be modulated by inhibition of return. We employed the cue-target paradigm and manipulated the target type and cue validity. Participants were required to perform the task of detection of visual (V), auditory (A), or audiovisual (AV) targets shown in the identical (valid cue) or opposed (invalid cue) side to be the preceding exogenous cue. The neural activities between AV targets and the sum of the A and V targets were compared, and their differences were calculated to present the audiovisual integration effect in different cue validity conditions (valid, invalid). The ERPs results showed that a significant super-additive audiovisual integration effect was observed on the P70 (60∼90 ms, frontal-central) only under the invalid cue condition. The significant audiovisual integration effects were observed on the N1 or P2 components (N1, 120∼180 ms, frontal-central-parietal; P2, 200∼260 ms, frontal-central-parietal) in both valid cue as well as invalid cue condition. And there were no significant differences on the later components between invalid cue and valid cue. The result offers the first neural demonstration that inhibition of return modulates the early audiovisual integration process.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document