Differences in brain potentials to open and closed class words: class and frequency effects

Münte, Thomas F.; Wieringa, Bernardina M.; Weyerts, Helga; Szentkuti, Andras; Matzke, Mike; Johannes, Sönke

doi:10.1016/s0028-3932(00)00095-6

Cited by 93 publications

(83 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…This raises the question of whether the determiner-noun combination in (5a) independently elicits a negativity, in comparison to preposition-determiner-noun combinations. Some studies have reported that closed class words elicit different ERPs than open class words (Neville, Mills, & Lawson, 1992;Pulvermuller, Lutzenberger, & Birbaumer, 1995), although other studies have reported no differences across classes (Münte et al, 2001;Osterhout, Bersick, & McKinnon, 1997). Irrespectively, both articles and the prepositions in the current stimuli are closed class or functional categories, and we have no evidence that these lexical differences should yield independent ERP differences.…”

Section: Designcontrasting

confidence: 70%

Brain responses to filled gaps

et al. 2007

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An unresolved issue in the study of sentence comprehension is whether the process of gap-filling is mediated by the construction of empty categories (traces), or whether the parser relates fillers directly to the associated verb's argument structure. We conducted an event-related potentials (ERP) study that used the violation paradigm to examine the time course and spatial distribution of brain responses to ungrammatically filled gaps. The results indicate that the earliest brain response to the violation is an early left anterior negativity (eLAN). This ERP indexes an early phase of pure syntactic structure building, temporally preceding ERPs that reflect semantic integration and argument structure satisfaction. The finding is interpreted as evidence that gap-filling is mediated by structurally predicted empty categories, rather than directly by argument structure operations.

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Section: Designcontrasting

confidence: 70%

Brain responses to filled gaps

et al. 2007

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“…This result is in line with the hypothesis that the P600 reflects in part a semantic-based process (Canseco-Gonzalez, 2000;Canseco-Gonzalez et al, 1997;Münte et al, 1997), but it was not predicted by the Timing Hypothesis (Hahne & Jescheniak, 2001). Since the negative grammaticality effects in this study were elicited early (< 300 ms), and since critical words in the present study were closed-class words, thus their occurrences should not be perceived as semantic errors (Münte et al, 2001;Neville et al, 1992;Nobre & McCarthy, 1994), the present data demonstrate that, contrary to the prediction of the Timing Hypothesis, the attenuation of P600 does not require error detection in both syntactic and semantic domains. Unlike the violations in the studies by Canseco-Gonzalez and her colleagues (Canseco-Gonzalez, 2000;Canseco-Gonzalez et al, 1997) and Münte and his colleagues (1997), the violations in the study by Hahne and Jescheniak (2001) were at the end of the sentence.…”

Section: Grammaticality Effectscontrasting

confidence: 48%

“…If this effect indexes processes based on semantics, as suggested in previous studies (Canseco-Gonzalez, 2000;Canseco-Gonzalez et al, 1997;Münte et al, 1997), the amplitude of the effect should be reduced when sentences lack semantic content. Since the syntactic violations employed in this study elicit an anterior negativity in an early latency range (< 300 ms) according to the pilot results, and since the critical words were all closed-class words, which would not elicit an N400 (Münte et al, 2001;Neville, Mills & Lawson, 1992;Nobre & McCarthy, 1994); such attenuation would provide evidence against the Timing Hypothesis proposed by Hahne and Jescheniak (2001).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 74%

An ERP study of syntactic processing in English and nonsense sentences

Yamada

Neville

2007

Brain Research

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The timecourse of the interaction between syntactic and semantic information during sentence processing in monolingual native English speakers was investigated using event-related potentials (ERPs). To examine the effects of semantic information on syntactic processing, the results for normal English sentences were compared to those for semantically impoverished nonsense (Jabberwocky) sentences. Within each sentence type condition, half of the sentences contained a syntactic violation. Violations elicited a larger amplitude N1 and more negative ERPs around 200 ms after the onset of the critical word relative to the grammatical condition. Although these effects were observed in both sentence types, they were anteriorly distributed for English sentences only. Moreover, the P600 elicited by the syntactic violation was attenuated in processing Jabberwocky as compared to English sentences. These results suggest that semantic and syntactic information are integrated during the earlier stages of syntactic processing indexed by the anterior negativities, and that these interactions continue in the later stages of processing indexed by the P600.

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“…However, this issue is discussed controversially. Results of other studies revealed that differences between word classes do not reflect qualitatively separate processing mechanisms, but rather are a function of word frequency or of frequency and length (e.g., King & Kutas, 1998;Münte, Wieringa, Weyerts, Szentkuti, Matzke, & Johannes, 2001;Osterhout, Bersick, & McKinnon, 1997).…”

Section: Present Studymentioning

confidence: 91%

Frequency and predictability effects on event-related potentials during reading

et al. 2006

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Effects of frequency, predictability, and position of words on event-related potentials were assessed during word-by-word sentence reading in 48 subjects in an early and in a late time window corresponding to P200 and N400. Repeated-measures multiple regression analyses revealed a P200-effect in the high-frequency range; also the P200 was larger on words at the beginning and end of sentences than on words in the middle of sentences (i.e., a quadratic effect of word position). Predictability strongly affected the N400 component; the effect was stronger for low than for high-frequency words. The P200 frequency effect indicates that high-frequency words are lexically accessed very fast, independent of context information. Effects on the N400 suggest that predictability strongly moderates the late access especially of low-frequency words. Thus, contextual facilitation on the N400 appears to reflect both lexical and post-lexical stages of word recognition, questioning a strict classification into lexical and post-lexical processes.

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Differences in brain potentials to open and closed class words: class and frequency effects

Cited by 93 publications

References 21 publications

Brain responses to filled gaps

Brain responses to filled gaps

An ERP study of syntactic processing in English and nonsense sentences

Frequency and predictability effects on event-related potentials during reading

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