Event-related potentials index lexical retrieval (N400) and integration (P600) during language comprehension

Meaning composition in minimal phrasal contexts: distinct ERP effects of intensionality and denotation

“…"real", "current", "fake", and "former"). Our result is difficult to accommodate by theories of the N400 as a pure index of lexical semantic expectancy or predictability, or lexical retrieval from declarative memory facilitated by contextual (pre-)activation (for discussion, see Baggio, 2012Baggio, , 2018Baggio & Hagoort, 2011;Brouwer et al, 2017;Delogu et al, 2019;Federmeier, 2007;Kutas & Federmeier, 2011;Hagoort et al, 2009). The N400 here may index the (re-)activation of semantic features (lexical, logical) of the adjective, relevant for interpretation of the noun and for composition of the phrasal meaning.…”

“…There are generally two different functions attributed to the N400: semantic integration of an item (e.g. word or gesture) into a preceding semantic context (Calloway & Perfetti, 2017;Hagoort et al, 2004;Lau et al, 2016), or retrieval of an item from long-term memory (Brouwer et al, 2017;Delogu et al, 2019;Federmeier, 2007). A hybrid account, where the N400 indexes a sequence of processes, including retrieval and integration, has also been proposed (Baggio, 2018;Baggio & Hagoort, 2011;Nieuwland et al, 2020 provides supporting evidence).…”

“…The latter has been initially associated with syntactic and morphosyntactic processing costs (Hagoort, 2003), such as syntactic integration, and repair or reanalysis of syntactic structure as such (Friederici, 1998;Hagoort et al, 1993;Osterhout & Holcomb, 1992). More recent studies, however, have linked the P600 to processes of semantic integration (Brouwer et al, 2017;Delogu et al, 2019), or mechanisms combining syntactic and semantic information (Bornkessel-Schlesewsky & Schlesewsky, 2008;Kuperberg, 2007). Alternatively, Baggio (2018) has proposed that the P600 reflects either the top-down effect of a plausible interpretation on how the input's grammatical form is "perceived" (as was shown using ERPs by Kim & Osterhout, 2005, for example) or bottom-up, syntax-driven composition of lexical meanings, when a "rich" semantic context, which would allow by-passing costly syntactic computations, is absent (as consistent with much earlier work associating the P600 with phrasal or sentential syntax; Hagoort, 2003).…”

Reading Comprehension and Predictability Effects on Sentence Processing: An Event‐Related Potential Study

“…It has been proposed that frontal positivities following unexpected endings in strongly constraining sentences might be reflecting the cost of inhibiting context‐based predictions of lexical items (DeLong et al, ; DeLong et al, ; Van Petten & Luka, ) (although recent lines of evidence suggest that this effect might not be restricted to strong expectancy violations, since it was observed in medium and low constrain contexts by Brothers et al, and Freunberger & Roehm, ). On the other hand, posterior positivities (including the syntax‐related P600) have been interpreted to reflect the integration of retrieved lexical information with previous message‐level representations (Brouwer, Crocker, Venhuizen & Hoeks, 2016; Brouwer & Hoeks, , Brouwer et al, ; see also Delogu, Brouwer, & Crocker, ; Friederici, ; Ledwidge, ), or as the product of domain‐general recognition and categorization processes (Sassenhagen & Bornkessel‐Schlesewsky, ), indexing subjective significance or stimulus salience within a given task. Both interpretations might fit our pattern of results, since (1) unexpected endings might have been harder to integrate with more restrictive sentential contexts (as suggested by their significantly lower plausibility ratings) thus leading to higher postlexical processing costs, or (2) unexpected endings might have been more salient in restrictive contexts because of their stronger dissonance with previous expectations.…”

Distinguishing Old From New Referents During Discourse Comprehension: Evidence From ERPs and Oscillations

“…Such N400 modulations may reflect the ease with which the meaning of the anaphor is activated as a function of the context (e.g., Kutas and Federmeier, 2011), and need not reflect higher-level processes such as discourse updating or integration. While recent studies suggest that N400 activity can arise from a cascade of processes that activate and integrate word meaning with context into a sentence-level meaning (e.g., Baggio and Hagoort, 2011; Baggio, 2019; Nieuwland et al, 2019), some studies have failed to observe updating- or integration-related effects on the N400 and found them on a later positive-going ERP component, the LPC (e.g., Burkhardt, 2006, 2007; Delogu et al, 2019). For example, Burkhardt (2006) reported that contextually implied and novel definite referents (‘the conductor’ when the context does or does not describe an orchestra, respectively) elicit a similar post-N400, LPC when compared to a repeated noun phrase anaphor.…”