Effects of grammatical categories on children’s visual language processing: Evidence from event-related brain potentials

Weber‐Fox, Christine; Hart, Laura J.; Spruill, John E.

doi:10.1016/j.bandl.2006.01.003

Cited by 8 publications

(7 citation statements)

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“…From the developmental literature, it is clear that verbs impose high processing loads for sentence comprehension and include integrating inflections and argument structures (Hirsh-Pasek & Golinkoff, 2006). Further, ERP evidence in school-age children indicate that verbs elicit one of the longest peak latencies of the second negative component, thought to index the initial availability of the word's lexical category (Brown, Hagoort, & Ter Keurs, 1999), compared to other categories, such as nouns and conjunctions (Weber-Fox, Hart, & Spruill, 2006). Further, errors in comprehension and production of verbs are common in children with specific language impairments, and it has been argued that these children have particular difficulty with the additional grammatical complexity that verbs require for sentence processing (Leonard, 1998; Leonard & Deevy, 2003).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…ERPs provide a functional measure of neural activity with fine temporal resolution (Nunez, 1995) and allow the examination of specific operations of language processing (e.g., Friederici, 1997; King & Kutas, 1995; Kutas & Hillyard, 1980; Neville, et al, 1991; Osterhout & Holcomb, 1992; Weber-Fox, et al, 2006). The converging evidence from the current study and from the prior series of ERP studies in AWS (Cuadrado & Weber-Fox, 2003; Weber-Fox, 2001; Weber-Fox et al, 2004), indicate that stuttering is associated with differences in language processing activations, even in the absence of overt-speech planning and production.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Like nouns, verbs are conceptually rich and provide semantic information in a sentence, but in addition, they provide relational information for integrating inflections and argument structures across the sentence (Hirsh-Pasek & Golinkoff, 2006; Langacker, 1987; Osterhout, Kim, & Kuperberg, In press). Verb processing engages distinctive neural activations compared to nouns as indexed by measures of ERPs and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in both children and adults (Federmeier, Segal, Lombrozo, & Kutas, 2000; Weber-Fox, Hart, & Spruill, 2006; Yokoyama et al, 2006). In a study utilizing class-ambiguous verbs/nouns (e.g., drink, smoke, hammer), Federmeier and colleagues (2000) noted that the role of words in a given context impacts the neural activations for processing that word.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Stuttering and Natural Speech Processing of Semantic and Syntactic Constraints on Verbs

Weber‐Fox

Hampton

2008

J Speech Lang Hear Res

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Purpose Previous findings from event-related brain potentials (ERPs) indicate that adults who stutter (AWS) exhibit processing differences for visually presented linguistic information. This study explores how neural activations for AWS may differ for a linguistic task that does not require preparation for overt articulation and/or engage the articulatory loop for silent speech. Method Syntactic and semantic processing constraints were examined in AWS and adults who are normally fluent (AWNF) by assessing their behavioral performance and ERPs in a natural speech listening task. Results AWS performed similarly to AWNF in identifying verb-agreement violations and semantic anomalies, but ERPs elicited by syntactic and semantic constraints indicated atypical neural functions for AWS. ERPs of the AWNF displayed an expected N400 for reduced semantic expectations and a typical P600 for verb-agreement violations. In contrast, both N400s and P600s for the semantic and verb-agreement conditions were observed in the ERPs of the AWS. Conclusions The findings suggest that AWS may engage semantic-syntactic mechanisms more generally for semantic and syntactic processing. These findings converge with earlier studies using visual stimuli to indicate that, while linguistic abilities are normal in AWS, underlying brain activity mediating some aspects of language processing may function differently.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Stuttering and Natural Speech Processing of Semantic and Syntactic Constraints on Verbs

Weber‐Fox

Hampton

2008

J Speech Lang Hear Res

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“…Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) provide a functional measure of neural activity with very fine temporal resolution (Nunez, 1995) and allow the examination of specific operations of non-linguistic and linguistic processing (e.g., Friederici, 1997; King & Kutas, 1995; Kutas & Hillyard, 1980; Mangun & Hillyard, 1991; Neville, Nicol, Barss, Forster, & Garrett, 1991; Hagoort, Brown, & Groothusen, 1993; Osterhout & Holcomb, 1992; Polich & Kok, 1995; Weber-Fox, Hart, & Spruill, 2006). In this study, we focus on adolescents with SLI and their typically developing same-age peers.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Like nouns, verbs are conceptually rich and provide semantic information in a sentence, but in addition, they provide relational information for integrating grammatical inflections and argument structures across the sentence (Hirsh-Pasek & Golinkoff, 2006; Langacker, 1987; Osterhout, Kim, & Kuperberg, in press). Verb processing engages distinctive neural activations compared to nouns as indexed by measures of ERPs and fMRI in both children and adults (Federmeier et al, 2000; Weber-Fox et al, 2006; Yokoyama, Miyamoto, Riera, Kim, Akitsuki, Iwata et al, 2006). Finally, the current design allows for examining the relationship between performance and ERPs elicited in the rapid auditory processing task and sentence processing task to further explore the relationship between rapid auditory processing and linguistic processing in adolescents.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Electrophysiological correlates of rapid auditory and linguistic processing in adolescents with specific language impairment

et al. 2010

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Brief tonal stimuli and spoken sentences were utilized to examine whether adolescents (aged 14;3-18;1) with specific language impairments (SLI) exhibit atypical neural activity for rapid auditory processing of non-linguistic stimuli and linguistic processing of verb-agreement and semantic constraints. Further, we examined whether the behavioral and electrophysiological indices for rapid auditory processing were correlated with those for linguistic processing. Fifteen adolescents with SLI and 15 adolescents with normal language met strict criteria for displaying consistent diagnoses from kindergarten through the eighth grade. The findings provide evidence that auditory processing for non-linguistic stimuli is atypical in a significant number of adolescents with SLI compared to peers with normal language and indicate that reduced efficiency in auditory processing in SLI is more vulnerable to rapid rates (200 ms ISI) of stimuli presentation (indexed by reduced accuracy, a tendency for longer RTs, reduced N100 over right anterior sites, and reduced amplitude P300). Many adolescents with SLI displayed reduced behavioral accuracy for detecting verbagreement violations and semantic anomalies, along with less robust P600s elicited by verbagreement violations. The results indicate that ERPs elicited by morphosyntactic aspects of language processing are atypical in many adolescents with SLI. Additionally, correlational analyses between behavioral and electrophysiological indices of processing non-linguistic stimuli and verb-agreement violations suggest that the integrity of neural functions for auditory processing may only account for a small proportion of the variance in morphosyntactic processing in some adolescents.

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Using developmental cognitive neuroscience to study behavioral and attentional control

Astle

Scerif

2008

Developmental Psychobiology

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Adult cognitive neuroscience employs a wide variety of techniques to investigate a broad range of behavioral and cognitive functions. One prominent area of study is that of executive control, complemented by a smaller but growing literature exploring the developmental cognitive neuroscience of executive control. To date this approach has often compared children with specific developmental disorders, such as ADHD and ASD, with typically developing controls. Whilst these comparisons have done much to advance our understanding of the neural markers that underpin behavioral difficulties at specific time-points in development, we contend that they should leave developmental cognitive neuroscientists wanting. Studying the neural correlates of typical changes in executive control in their own right can reveal how different neural mechanisms characteristic of the adult end-state emerge, and it can therefore inform the adult cognitive neuroscience of executive control itself. The current review addresses the extent to which developmentalists and adult cognitive neuroscientists have tapped this common ground. Some very elegant investigations illustrate how seemingly common processes in adulthood present as separable in childhood, on the basis of their distinctive developmental trajectories. These demonstrations have implications not only for an understanding of changing behavior from infancy through childhood and adolescence into adulthood, but, moreover, for our grasp of the adult end-state per se. We contend that, if used appropriately, developmental cognitive neuroscience could enable us to construct a more mechanistic account of executive control.

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Effects of grammatical categories on children’s visual language processing: Evidence from event-related brain potentials

Cited by 8 publications

References 45 publications

Stuttering and Natural Speech Processing of Semantic and Syntactic Constraints on Verbs

Stuttering and Natural Speech Processing of Semantic and Syntactic Constraints on Verbs

Electrophysiological correlates of rapid auditory and linguistic processing in adolescents with specific language impairment

Using developmental cognitive neuroscience to study behavioral and attentional control

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