Anaphora is an essential means of maintaining textual coherence, the phenomenon of replacing one word or phrase in the preceding part of a discourse with another. At least two crucial stages are involved in anaphor processing: bonding and resolution. The links between the anaphor and potential antecedents are established in the former stage, which would be evaluated and integrated into the latter stage. We reviewed relevant event-related potential (ERP) studies that examined the time course of anaphor processing and neural oscillation studies that explored energy changes in alpha, theta, and gamma frequency bands, which were associated with attention, working memory retrieval, and integration, respectively. The existing neuroimaging studies revealed the involvement of language processing networks and the Theory of Mind (ToM). Further research should explore the neural correlates and the effects of potential factors on anaphor processing, which could help gain a more comprehensive picture from multiple perspectives.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.