An ERP study of the neural correlates of processing Chinese content words and function words

Guo, Taomei; Qi, Zhenhai; Peng, Danling; Yan, Yan

doi:10.1016/j.jneuroling.2007.10.001

Cited by 4 publications

(11 citation statements)

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“…Therefore, the different processing times observed in Experiment 1 could have been caused by emotional valence or word role (cf. Guo, Qi, Peng, & Yan, 2008), or both. Although this would not affect our main conclusion Fig.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Accessing the meaning of invisible words

Yang

Yeh

2011

Consciousness and Cognition

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Accessing the meaning of invisible words

Yang

Yeh

2011

Consciousness and Cognition

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“…Conversely, fewer resources are allocated to non-focused information, and accordingly the extra information in non-focus position might be harder to integrate or activate. Numerous studies have reported that the processing of content words elicits an N400 component (Van Petten and Kutas, 1991;Münte et al, 2001;Guo et al, 2008). It has also been shown that the easier the integration, the smaller N400 amplitude (Kutas and Federmeier, 2000;Hagoort et al, 2004).…”

Section: The Natural Mechanism Of Is In Semantic Integrationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Semantic illusion depends on information structure: ERP evidence

2009

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Next to propositional content, speakers distribute information in their utterances in such a way that listeners can make a distinction between new (focused) and given (non-focused) information. This is referred to as information structure. We measured event-related potentials (ERPs) to explore the role of information structure in semantic processing.Following different questions in wh-question-answer pairs (e.g. What kind of vegetable did Ming buy for cooking today? / Who bought the vegetables for cooking today?), the answer sentences (e.g., Ming bought eggplant/beef to cook today.) contained a critical word, which was either semantically appropriate (eggplant) or inappropriate (beef), and either focus or non-focus.The results showed a full N400 effect only when the critical words were in focus position. In non-focus position a strongly reduced N400 effect was observed, in line with the well-known semantic illusion effect. The results suggest that information structure facilitates semantic processing by devoting more resources to focused information. IntroductionWhen people communicate what they believe to be new or important, most of them do not realize that they arrange the information in a highly structured manner. For example, in the conversation What did you eat for dinner? / I ate beef for dinner, the wh-phrase in the question indicates what information the requester expects. In the answer, the beef is a newly supplied information, which is the focus of the sentence, whereas the remaining part of the sentence is associated with the previous context, which is the common background shared by the speaker and listener. This way of connecting new information (focus) with previously given information (background) during communication is part of information structure (IS) (Jackendoff, 2002). As described in the example, IS usually consists of two elements: background and focus. Background refers to the information that is already available in the mind of the listener/reader, while focus refers to the part of utterance that represents the new or contrastive information (Gűnther et al., 1999). There are several approaches to realize IS, such as position in question-answer pairs (as in the example, focus is in bold), syntactic constructions like it-cleft sentence (It is beef that I ate for dinner.), and accentuation in spoken language (I ate BEEF for dinner. The accented word is marked in capitals). Several behavioral studies suggest that the focused information receives more attention and attains deeper processing than non-focused information (Cutler and Fodor, 1979;Birch and Rayner, 1997;Ward and Sturt, 2007;Sanford et al., 2006). In a recent ERP study, Li et al. (2008a) found that more resources

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“…Additionally, research was also conducted to investigate the relationship between the ERP components and these kinds of words in Chinese. Guo, Qi, Peng, and Yan (2008) conducted an ERP study of the neural correlates of processing Chinese content words and function words. The temporal course of the neural activity associated with these two kinds of words was investigated.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Guo et al (2008) indicated that different underlying mechanisms may be involved in the processing of Chinese content words and function words. But Fang et al (2007) concluded that the prepositions in modern Chinese usage are probably not separated from verbs.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In Guo's experiment (Guo et al, 2008), the sequence of the sentence presentation was fit for the common expression, while in Fang's (Fang et al, 2007), the sequence was reversed. It is possible that such a strange procedure in Fang's study would influence the results, because during this procedure, the participants would pay more attention to semantics but overlook the syntax.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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