Is the P600/SPS affected by the richness of semantic content? A linguistic ERP study in Swedish

Abstract

The study investigated whether the P600/SPS component is sensitive to the richness of semantic content in sentences. ERPs were recorded while 30 native Swedish speakers read sentences, of which half were syntactically correct and half contained a syntactic violation. Both kinds of sentences came in one of three types of descending semantic completeness: semantically coherent sentences, sentences which were incoherent due to violations of selectional restrictions, or sentences of pseudo words, hence void of lexical content. In the semantically coherent sentences a P600/SPS was found for the syntactic violation. A less salient positivity was found for the violation in the semantically incoherent sentences. No P600/SPS was found for the syntactic violation in the pseudo word sentences and no LAN component in any sentence type. The results are interpreted as supporting the hypothesis that the P600/SPS component reflects a semantically based reanalysis process.

Language background affects online word order processing in a second language but not offline

“…More specifically, the ERP effect of word order over left anterior sites in native Swedish speakers did not differ significantly from the negative effect over right medial sites in German learners, although both effects differed from the larger frontal positivity elicited in English learners. The anterior effect in native speakers was weaker than expected, in part replicating previous studies where the increases in the P600 has been more reliably evoked, whereas effects in the left anterior negativity (LAN) have not always been reported (den Ouden & Bastiaanse, 2009;Ericsson, Olofsson, Nordin, Rudolfsson & Sandström, 2008;Osterhout, 1997;Weyerts et al, 2002). The right medial distribution of the anterior negative effect in German learners replicates the previously reported distribution for L2 processing (Friederici, Steinhauer & Pfeifer, 2002;Rossi et al, 2006).…”

Cross‐Language Similarity Modulates Effectiveness of Second Language Grammar Instruction

“…Lastly, in the present study, we employed stringent stimulus controls that rendered sentences of each cross‐language similarity type nearly identical, thus minimizing the likelihood that effects were due to uncontrolled stimulus differences. Even so, it is important to note that the present experiment did not employ a control group of native Swedish speakers, thus preventing a direct group comparison (but see Ericsson, Olofsson, Norvin, Rudolfsson, & Sandström, , for brain sensitivity effects to article–noun violations in L1 Swedish). Furthermore, ideally the present results would be compared to others based on the examination of different L1–L2 pairs, as well as a language pair in which the similarities and differences here operationalized are inversed, thus implementing a full experimental design.…”

Isn't It Ironic? An Electrophysiological Exploration of Figurative Language Processing

“…The P600 has been suggested to reflect late integration processes of various information types (Friederici & Weissenborn, 2007;Friederici, Gunter, Hahne, & Mauth, 2004), or alternatively was taken as an index of generalized mapping (Bornkessel-Schlesewsky & Schlesewsky, 2008) as well as domain-general processes such as the concept of monitoring (Kolk, Chwilla, van Herten, & Oor, 2003;Coulson, King, & Kutas, 1998). Most recently, the P600 component has been regarded as a reflection of reanalysis and interpretation processes based on semantic information (Ericsson, Olofsson, Nordin, Rudolfsson, & Sandstrom, 2008).…”

“…These functional interpretations are based on the observation that the P600 was modulated by semantic expectancy (Gunter, Friederici, & Schriefers, 2000;Gunter, Stowe, & Mulder, 1997), by probability of stimulus occurrence (Coulson et al, 1998), and, moreover, by thematic and semantic-pragmatic anomalies (Ericsson et al, 2008;Vissers, Chwilla, & Kolk, 2006;Gunter et al, 2000). For example, a late positivity was elicited by utterances such as "The cat that fled from the mice" that were syntactically correct but contained a semantic reversal anomaly (van Herten, Kolk, & Chwilla, 2005;Kolk et al, 2003).…”