Multiple effects of sentential constraint on word processing

Abstract

Behavioral and electrophysiological studies have uncovered different patterns of constraint effects on the processing of words in sentences. Whereas response time measures have indicated a reduced scope of facilitation from strongly constraining contexts, event-related brain potential (ERP) measures have instead revealed enhanced facilitation for semantically related endings in such sentences. Given this disparity, and the concomitant possibility of functionally separable stages of context effects, the current study jointly examined expectancy (cloze probability) and constraint effects on the ERP response to words. Expected and unexpected (but plausible) words completed strongly and weakly constraining sentences; unexpected items were matched for contextual fit across the two levels of constraint and were semantically unrelated to the most expected endings. N400 amplitudes were graded by expectancy but unaffected by constraint and seemed to index the benefit of contextual information. However, a later effect, in the form of increased frontal positivity from 500 to 900 ms post-stimulus-onset, indicated a possible cost associated with the processing of unexpected words in strongly constraining contexts.

Not all disfluencies are are equal: The effects of disfluent repetitions on language comprehension

“…The effect is particularly clear if the repeated word is presented immediately after its first occurrence (Nagy and Rugg, 1989). Consistent with the predominant interpretation of the N400 as indicating semantic integration difficulty (e.g., Federmeier, Wlotko, De Ochoa-Dewald, and Kutas, 2007;Hagoort, Hald, Bastiaansen, and Petersson, 2004;Van Berkum, Brown, and Hagoort, 1999;Van Berkum, Brown, Hagoort, and Zwitserlood, 2003; for evidence that the N400 is driven by word associations rather than semantic features, see these studies suggest that second or later mentions of a word are easier to integrate.…”

“…Indeed, the LPC has been observed in conditions often associated with the elicitation of an N400. It has been observed in response to unexpected words completing highly constrained sentences (Federmeier et al, 2007), idioms (Moreno, Federmeier, and Kutas, 2002), or stories relative to the most expected words, and to probe words which are unrelated to preceding jokes (Coulson and Wu, 2005) relative to semantically related controls.…”

Stimulus onset asynchrony and the timeline of word recognition: Event-related potentials during sentence reading

“…N400 amplitudes on the article were enhanced when its phonological form mismatched the initial phoneme of the expected, but not yet visible target word (e.g., "an", when "kite" was the high predictability noun). Thus, representations of upcoming words appear to be available before they are visually presented (for similar results, see Otten, Nieuwland, & van Berkum, 2007;Otten & Van Berkum, 2008;Van Berkum, Brown, Zwitserlood, Kooijman, & Hagoort, 2005;Wicha, Bates, Moreno, & Kutas, 2003;Wicha, Moreno, & Kutas, 2004; see also DeLong, Urbach, Groppe, & Federmeier & Kutas, 1999;Federmeier, Wlotko, De Ochoa-Dewald, & Kutas, 2007; but see Van Petten & Luka, 2012, for a discussion).…”

A developmental ERP study of verbal and non-verbal semantic processing

“…Mean amplitudes of the N400 effect of each subject were measured at each of the 23 electrodes from 25 ms before to 25 ms after the "center" latency of the group to which the subject belonged. Thus, the N400 effect amplitudes for each subject represented means over 50 ms at the 23 electrodes and the N400 effect latencies represented peak latencies of the measured peaks (e.g., Federmeier, Wlotko, de Ochoa-Dewald, & Kutas, 2007). Two-tailed independent-sample t-tests were conducted to test the significance of the N400 effect elicited by the two sound types at the midline electrodes.…”