Speeding Up Syntax: On the Relative Timing and Automaticity of Local Phrase Structure and Morphosyntactic Processing as Reflected in Event-related Brain Potentials

2008 ◽  
Vol 20 (7) ◽  
pp. 1207-1219 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna S. Hasting ◽  
Sonja A. Kotz
Keyword(s):  
Phrase Structure ◽  
Automatic Processing ◽  
Acoustic Properties ◽  
Time Range ◽  
Relative Timing ◽  
Processing Stage ◽  
Brain Potentials ◽  
Speech Stimuli ◽  
Attentional Resources ◽  
Syntactic Relation

Neurolinguistic research utilizing event-related brain potentials (ERPs) typically relates syntactic phrase structure processing to an early automatic processing stage around 150 to 200 msec, whereas morphosyntactic processing is associated with a later and somewhat more attention-dependent processing stage between 300 and 500 msec. However, recent studies have challenged this position by reporting highly automatic ERP effects for morphosyntax in the 100 to 200 msec time range. The present study aimed at determining the factors that could contribute to such shifts in latency and automaticity. In two experiments varying the degree of attention, German phrase structure and morphosyntactic violations were compared in conditions in which the locality of the violated syntactic relation, as well as the violation point and the acoustic properties of the speech stimuli, were strictly controlled for. A negativity between 100 and 300 msec after the violation point occurred in response to both types of syntactic violations and independently of the allocation of attentional resources. These findings suggest that the timing and automaticity of ERP effects reflecting specific syntactic subprocesses are influenced to a larger degree by methodological than by linguistic factors, and thus, need to be regarded as relative rather than fixed to temporally successive processing stages.

On the Nature of Gender Categorization

2012 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 14-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Silvia Tomelleri ◽  
Luigi Castelli
Keyword(s):  
Early Stage ◽  
Processing Stage ◽  
Brain Potentials ◽  
Ongoing Process ◽  
Gender Categorization

In the present paper, relying on event-related brain potentials (ERPs), we investigated the automatic nature of gender categorization focusing on different stages of the ongoing process. In particular, we explored the degree to which gender categorization occurs automatically by manipulating the semantic vs. nonsemantic processing goals requested by the task (Study 1) and the complexity of the task itself (Study 2). Results of Study 1 highlighted the automatic nature of categorization at an early (N170) and on a later processing stage (P300). Findings of Study 2 showed that at an early stage categorization was automatically driven by the ease of extraction of category-based knowledge from faces while, at a later stage, categorization was more influenced by situational constrains.

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.

scholarly journals Hierarchical and Linear Sequence Processing: An Electrophysiological Exploration of Two Different Grammar Types

2006 ◽  
Vol 18 (11) ◽  
pp. 1829-1842 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jörg Bahlmann ◽  
Thomas C. Gunter ◽  
Angela D. Friederici
Keyword(s):  
Phrase Structure ◽  
Phrase Structure Grammar ◽  
Brain Potentials ◽  
Late Positivity ◽  
Sequence Processing ◽  
Linear Sequence ◽  
Artificial Grammars ◽  
Finite State ◽  
State Grammar ◽  
Finite State Grammar

The present study investigated the processing of two types of artificial grammars by means of event-related brain potentials. Two categories of meaningless CV syllables were applied in each grammar type. The two grammars differed with regard to the type of the underlying rule. The finite-state grammar (FSG) followed the rule (AB)n, thereby generating local transitions between As and Bs (e.g., n = 2, ABAB). The phrase structure grammar (PSG) followed the rule AnBn, thereby generating center-embedded structures in which the first A and the last B embed the middle elements (e.g., n = 2, [A[AB]B]). Two sequence lengths (n = 2, n = 4) were used. Violations of the structures were introduced at different positions of the syllable sequences. Early violations were situated at the beginning of a sequence, and late violations were placed at the end of a sequence. A posteriorly distributed early negativity elicited by violations was present only in FSG. This effect was interpreted as the possible reflection of a violated local expectancy. Moreover, both grammar-type violations elicited a late positivity. This positivity varied as a function of the violation position in PSG, but not in FSG. These findings suggest that the late positivity could reflect difficulty of integration in PSG sequences.

scholarly journals Magnetic Brain Response Mirrors Extraction of Phonological Features from Spoken Vowels

2004 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonas Obleser ◽  
Aditi Lahiri ◽  
Carsten Eulitz
Keyword(s):  
Time Course ◽  
Inverse Correlation ◽  
Source Location ◽  
Cortical Activation ◽  
Acoustic Properties ◽  
Brain Response ◽  
Vowel Perception ◽  
Speech Stimuli ◽  
Place Of Articulation ◽  
Phonological Features

This study further elucidates determinants of vowel perception in the human auditory cortex. The vowel inventory of a given language can be classified on the basis of phonological features which are closely linked to acoustic properties. A cortical representation of speech sounds based on these phonological features might explain the surprisingly inverse correlation between immense variance in the acoustic signal and high accuracy of speech recognition. We investigated timing and mapping of the N100m elicited by 42 tokens of seven natural German vowels varying along the phonological features tongue height (corresponding to the frequency of the first formant) and place of articulation (corresponding to the frequency of the second and third formants). Auditoryevoked fields were recorded using a 148-channel whole-head magnetometer while subjects performed target vowel detection tasks. Source location differences appeared to be driven by place of articulation: Vowels with mutually exclusive place of articulation features, namely, coronal and dorsal elicited separate centers of activation along the posterior-anterior axis. Additionally, the time course of activation as reflected in the N100m peak latency distinguished between vowel categories especially when the spatial distinctiveness of cortical activation was low. In sum, results suggest that both N100m latency and source location as well as their interaction reflect properties of speech stimuli that correspond to abstract phonological features.

Modulations of ‘late’ event-related brain potentials in humans by dynamic audiovisual speech stimuli

2004 ◽  
Vol 372 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 74-79 ◽  
Author(s):  
Riadh Lebib ◽  
David Papo ◽  
Abdel Douiri ◽  
Stella de Bode ◽  
Margaret Gillon Dowens ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Audiovisual Speech ◽  
Brain Potentials ◽  
Speech Stimuli ◽  
Late Event

scholarly journals Later but not early stages of familiar face recognition depend strongly on attentional resources: Evidence from event-related brain potentials

Cortex ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 120 ◽  
pp. 147-158 ◽  
Author(s):  
Holger Wiese ◽  
Brandon T. Ingram ◽  
Megan L. Elley ◽  
Simone C. Tüttenberg ◽  
A. Mike Burton ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Face Recognition ◽  
Brain Potentials ◽  
Attentional Resources ◽  
Familiar Face ◽  
Early Stages

PARALLELIZING GRAMMATICAL FUNCTIONS: P600 AND P345 REFLECT DIFFERENT COST OF REANALYSIS

2004 ◽  
Vol 14 (02) ◽  
pp. 531-549 ◽  
Author(s):  
STEFAN FRISCH ◽  
PETER BEIM GRABEN ◽  
MATTHIAS SCHLESEWSKY
Keyword(s):  
Language Processing ◽  
Symbolic Dynamics ◽  
Processing System ◽  
Time Range ◽  
Grammatical Function ◽  
Brain Potentials ◽  
Function Strategy ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Processing Difficulty ◽  
Object Preference

It is well-known from psycholinguistic literature that the human language processing system exhibits preferences when sentence constituents are ambiguous with respect to their grammatical function. Generally, many theories assume that an interpretation towards the subject is preferred in such cases. Later disambiguations which contradict such a preference induce enhanced processing difficulty (i.e. reanalysis) which reflects itself in late positive deflections (P345/P600) in event-related brain potentials (ERPs). In the case of phoric elements such as pronouns, a second strategy is known according to which an ambiguous pronoun preferentially receives the grammatical function that its antecedent has (parallel function strategy). In an ERP study, we show that this strategy can in principle override the general subject preference strategy (known for both pronominal and nonpronominal constituents) and induce an object preference, in case that the pronoun's antecedent is itself an object. Interestingly, the revision of a subject preference leads to a P600 component, whereas the revision of an object preference induces an earlier positivity (P345). In order to show that the latter component is indeed a positivity and not an N400-like negativity in the same time range, we apply an additional analysis based on symbolic dynamics which allows to determine the polarity of an ERP effect on purely methodological grounds. With respect to the two positivities, we argue that the latency differences reflect qualitative differences in the reanalysis processes.

scholarly journals Encoding into Visual Working Memory: Event-Related Brain Potentials Reflect Automatic Processing of Seemingly Redundant Information

2013 ◽  
Vol 2013 ◽  
pp. 1-8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Berti ◽  
Urte Roeber
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Visual Working Memory ◽  
Memory Performance ◽  
Automatic Processing ◽  
Related Factors ◽  
Brain Potentials ◽  
Task Instructions ◽  
Memory Event ◽  
Category Comparison ◽  
Physically Identical

Encoding and maintenance of information in visual working memory in an S1-S2 task with a 1500 ms retention phase were investigated by means of event-related brain potentials (ERPs). Participants were asked to decide whether two visual stimuli were physically identical (identity comparison (IC) task) or belonged to the same set or category of equivalent patterns (category comparison (CC) task). The stimuli differ with regard to two features. (1) Each pattern can belong to a set of either four (ESS 4) or eight (ESS 8) equivalent patterns, mirroring differences in the complexity with regard to the representational structure of each pattern (i.e., equivalence set size (ESS)). (2) The set of patterns differ with regard to the rated complexity. Memory performance obtained the effects of the task instructions (IC versus CC) and the ESS (ESS 4 versus ESS 8) but not of the rated complexity. ERPs in the retention interval reveal that the stimulus-related factors (subjective complexity and ESS) affect the encoding of the stimuli as mirrored by the pronounced P3b amplitude in ESS 8 compared to ESS 4 patterns. Importantly, these effects are independent of task instructions. The pattern of results suggests an automatic processing of the ESS in the encoding phase.

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