scholarly journals Processing pronouns with real-world referents: An electrophysiological investigation

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clinton L. Johns ◽  
Debra L. Long ◽  
Tamara Y Swaab
Keyword(s):  
Real World ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Background Knowledge ◽  
Sentence Context ◽  
World Knowledge ◽  
Electrophysiological Investigation ◽  
High Quality ◽  
Discourse Model ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
Processing Difficulty

Investigations of coreferential processing typically require participants to link anaphors with semantically underspecified (“empty”) discourse entities. However, outside the laboratory, anaphors often refer to people, objects, or events about which we possess extensive background knowledge. In addition, recent evidence indicates that comprehenders experience processing difficulty when sentence characters are semantically similar. In the current study we examined whether activating pre-existing real-world knowledge about antecedents influenced coreferential processing in a developing sentence context. Event-related potentials were recorded as participants read sentences containing ambiguous pronouns. Antecedents were either “empty” or were real, well-known individuals. In addition, pronouns either matched or mismatched the sex of their antecedents. Mismatching anaphors elicited a P600 effect whose amplitude was significantly greater when sentence characters were real. Moreover, matching pronouns elicited a P600-like effect when their antecedents were semantically “empty”. Our results suggest that the presence of high-quality representations in a discourse model facilitates coreferential processing.

scholarly journals Conceptual Integration of Arithmetic Operations With Real-World Knowledge: Evidence From Event-Related Potentials

2015 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 723-757 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amy M. Guthormsen ◽  
Kristie J. Fisher ◽  
Miriam Bassok ◽  
Lee Osterhout ◽  
Melissa DeWolf ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Real World ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
World Knowledge ◽  
Arithmetic Operations ◽  
Conceptual Integration ◽  
Related Potentials

Brain Responses to World Knowledge Violations: A Comparison of Stimulus- and Fixation-triggered Event-related Potentials and Neural Oscillations

2015 ◽  
Vol 27 (5) ◽  
pp. 1017-1028 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Metzner ◽  
Titus von der Malsburg ◽  
Shravan Vasishth ◽  
Frank Rösler
Keyword(s):  
Word Meaning ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Visual Presentation ◽  
World Knowledge ◽  
N400 Effect ◽  
Brain Potentials ◽  
Time Frequency ◽  
Gamma Range ◽  
Brain Responses ◽  
Related Potentials

Recent research has shown that brain potentials time-locked to fixations in natural reading can be similar to brain potentials recorded during rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP). We attempted two replications of Hagoort, Hald, Bastiaansen, and Petersson [Hagoort, P., Hald, L., Bastiaansen, M., & Petersson, K. M. Integration of word meaning and world knowledge in language comprehension. Science, 304, 438–441, 2004] to determine whether this correspondence also holds for oscillatory brain responses. Hagoort et al. reported an N400 effect and synchronization in the theta and gamma range following world knowledge violations. Our first experiment (n = 32) used RSVP and replicated both the N400 effect in the ERPs and the power increase in the theta range in the time–frequency domain. In the second experiment (n = 49), participants read the same materials freely while their eye movements and their EEG were monitored. First fixation durations, gaze durations, and regression rates were increased, and the ERP showed an N400 effect. An analysis of time–frequency representations showed synchronization in the delta range (1–3 Hz) and desynchronization in the upper alpha range (11–13 Hz) but no theta or gamma effects. The results suggest that oscillatory EEG changes elicited by world knowledge violations are different in natural reading and RSVP. This may reflect differences in how representations are constructed and retrieved from memory in the two presentation modes.

An Auditory Event Related Potential Evaluation of Sonar Task Experience and Age

1995 ◽  
Vol 80 (3_suppl) ◽  
pp. 1363-1376 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lex L. Merrill ◽  
David A. Kobus ◽  
F. J. McGuigan
Keyword(s):  
Real World ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Event Related Potential ◽  
Auditory Task ◽  
Auditory Event ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Younger Age ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
Potential Evaluation ◽  
Task Experience

To gauge the interaction of real-world sonar-task experience and age on brain electrical activity, the effect of sonar experience and age on event related potentials (ERP) was examined. A three-group design was used and the results suggest that sonar experience and age affect the amplitude and distribution of the ERP component. The results concerning age and ERPs support and extend the results of previous studies and suggest that age-related differences occur at a much younger age than is reported elsewhere. Attentional and stimulus evaluation processes which have been linked to parameters of the ERP component may be enhanced with real-world auditory task experience. Research on ERP should control for the possible confounds of auditory-task experience and age.

scholarly journals Seeing and Hearing Meaning: ERP and fMRI Evidence of Word versus Picture Integration into a Sentence Context

2008 ◽  
Vol 20 (7) ◽  
pp. 1235-1249 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roel M. Willems ◽  
Aslı Özyürek ◽  
Peter Hagoort
Keyword(s):  
Visual Information ◽  
Time Course ◽  
Semantic Information ◽  
Temporal Cortex ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Semantic Integration ◽  
Sentence Context ◽  
N400 Effect ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
Pictures And Words

Understanding language always occurs within a situational context and, therefore, often implies combining streams of information from different domains and modalities. One such combination is that of spoken language and visual information, which are perceived together in a variety of ways during everyday communication. Here we investigate whether and how words and pictures differ in terms of their neural correlates when they are integrated into a previously built-up sentence context. This is assessed in two experiments looking at the time course (measuring event-related potentials, ERPs) and the locus (using functional magnetic resonance imaging, fMRI) of this integration process. We manipulated the ease of semantic integration of word and/or picture to a previous sentence context to increase the semantic load of processing. In the ERP study, an increased semantic load led to an N400 effect which was similar for pictures and words in terms of latency and amplitude. In the fMRI study, we found overlapping activations to both picture and word integration in the left inferior frontal cortex. Specific activations for the integration of a word were observed in the left superior temporal cortex. We conclude that despite obvious differences in representational format, semantic information coming from pictures and words is integrated into a sentence context in similar ways in the brain. This study adds to the growing insight that the language system incorporates (semantic) information coming from linguistic and extralinguistic domains with the same neural time course and by recruitment of overlapping brain areas.

Prediction differs at sentence and discourse level: An event-related potential study

2020 ◽  
Vol 41 (4) ◽  
pp. 797-815
Author(s):  
Ruohan Chang ◽  
Xiaohong Yang ◽  
Yufang Yang
Keyword(s):  
Contextual Information ◽  
Critical Word ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Sentence Context ◽  
Event Related Potential ◽  
Living Room ◽  
Discourse Context ◽  
Positivity Effect ◽  
Sentence Level ◽  
Related Potentials

AbstractThis study used event-related potentials (ERPs) to investigate how predicting upcoming words differ when contextual information used to generate the prediction is from the immediately preceding sentence context versus an earlier discourse context. Four-sentence discourses were presented to participants, with the critical words in the last sentences, either predictable or unpredictable based on sentence- or discourse-level contextual information. At the sentence level, the crucial contextual information for prediction was provided by the last sentence, where the critical word was embedded (e.g., Xiaoyu came to the living room. She made a cup of lemon tea. Then she sat down in a chair. She opened a box/an album to look at the pictures.), and at the discourse level by the first sentence (e.g., Xiaoyu took out a box/an album. She made a cup of lemon tea. Then she sat down in a chair. She leisurely looked at the pictures.). Results showed reduced N400 for predictable words compared to unpredictable counterparts at sentence and discourse levels and also a post-N400 positivity effect of predictability at sentence level. This suggests that both sentence- and discourse-level semantic information help readers predict upcoming words, but supportive sentence context more than discourse context.

scholarly journals Concurrent use of animacy and event-knowledge during comprehension: Evidence from event-related potentials

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mariana Vega-Mendoza ◽  
Martin John Pickering ◽  
Mante S. Nieuwland
Keyword(s):  
Real World ◽  
Semantic Processing ◽  
Sentence Comprehension ◽  
Time Window ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Semantic Relatedness ◽  
Judgment Task ◽  
N400 Effect ◽  
Event Knowledge ◽  
Related Potentials

In two ERP experiments, we investigated whether readers prioritize animacy over real-world event-knowledge during sentence comprehension. We used the paradigm of Paczynski and Kuperberg (2012), who argued that animacy is prioritized based on the observations that the ‘related anomaly effect’ (reduced N400s for context-related anomalous words compared to unrelated words) does not occur for animacy violations, and that animacy violations but not relatedness violations elicit P600 effects. Participants read passive sentences with plausible agents (e.g., The prescription for the mental disorder was written by the psychiatrist) or implausible agents that varied in animacy and semantic relatedness (schizophrenic/guard/pill/fence). In Experiment 1 (with a plausibility judgment task), plausible sentences elicited smaller N400s relative to all types of implausible sentences. Moreover, animate words elicited smaller N400s than inanimate words, and related words elicited smaller N400s than unrelated words. Crucially, at the P600 time-window, we observed more positive ERPs for animate than inanimate words and for related than unrelated words at anterior regions. In Experiment 2 (with no judgment task), we observed an N400 effect with animacy violations, but no other effects. Taken together, the results of our experiments fail to support a prioritized role of animacy information over real-world event-knowledge, but they support an interactive, constraint-based view on incremental semantic processing.

scholarly journals The effects of background music on neural responses during reading comprehension

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Meng Du ◽  
Jun Jiang ◽  
Zhemin Li ◽  
Dongrui Man ◽  
Cunmei Jiang
Keyword(s):  
Reading Comprehension ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Semantic Integration ◽  
Background Music ◽  
Cognitive Tasks ◽  
World Knowledge ◽  
Neural Responses ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
Visually Based

Abstract The effects of background speech or noise on visually based cognitive tasks has been widely investigated; however, little is known about how the brain works during such cognitive tasks when music, having a powerful function of evoking emotions, is used as the background sound. The present study used event-related potentials to examine the effects of background music on neural responses during reading comprehension and their modulation by musical arousal. Thirty-nine postgraduates judged the correctness of sentences about world knowledge without or with background music (high-arousal music and low-arousal music). The participants’ arousal levels were reported during the experiment. The results showed that the N400 effect, elicited by world knowledge violations versus correct controls, was significantly smaller for silence than those for high- and low-arousal music backgrounds, with no significant difference between the two musical backgrounds. This outcome might have occurred because the arousal levels of the participants were not affected by the high- and low-arousal music throughout the experiment. These findings suggest that background music affects neural responses during reading comprehension by increasing the difficulty of semantic integration, and thus extend the irrelevant sound effect to suggest that the neural processing of visually based cognitive tasks can also be affected by music.

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.

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