Composing sentence meaning is easier for predictable words than for unpredictable words. Are predictable words genuinely predicted, or simply more plausible and therefore easier to integrate with sentence context? We addressed this persistent and fundamental question using data from a recent, large-scale (N = 334) replication study, by investigating the effects of word predictability and sentence plausibility on the N400, the brain's electrophysiological index of semantic processing. A spatiotemporally fine-grained mixedeffects multiple regression analysis revealed overlapping effects of predictability and plausibility on the N400, albeit with distinct spatiotemporal profiles. Our results challenge the view that the predictability-dependent N400 reflects the effects of either prediction or integration, and suggest that semantic facilitation of predictable words arises from a cascade of processes that activate and integrate word meaning with context into a sentence-level meaning.
Keywords
Predictability; Plausibility; Semantic Similarity; N400Composing sentence meaning is easier with predictable words than with unpredictable words: for example, 'bicycle' is easier to process than 'elephant' in "You never forget how to ride a bicycle/an elephant once you've learned." This effect of predictability can be observed in behavioural measures of comprehension such as reading times [1] and on amplitude modulation of the N400 ERP component [2]. The N400 is a negative-going and centroparietally distributed component of the ERP, which occurs approximately 200-500 ms after word onset and that is strongly associated with lexico-semantic processing [2-3]. Predictable words elicit smaller N400 amplitude than unpredictable words, suggesting facilitation during semantic processing. However, to what extent is such an effect of predictability driven by other relationships between a word and its context, such as the plausibility of the described event? We addressed this issue by re-analysing data from a large-scale (N=334) replication study [4]. In a temporally fine-grained analysis, we explored whether predictability, plausibility, and semantic similarity have dissociable effects on word-elicited ERP activity and how these effects unfold over time.Word predictability is commonly operationalized as 'cloze probability', the probability of being used in a non-speeded, offline sentence completion test. The correlation between word predictability and N400 amplitude is well-established [5], with some studies reporting correlations as high as or even higher than r = .8 [2,[6][7]. Such results are often considered to demonstrate effects of prediction: people pre-activate a word fully before it appears (as when a specific lexical form can be strongly anticipated in a highly constraining context) or partially (as when some semantic features are activated due to passive spreading of information). Prediction facilitates the semantic activation processes that are initiated when the word appears and are reflected in N400 activity [5].