Speed-Accuracy Tradeoffs in Brain and Behavior: Testing the Independence of P300 and N400 Related Processes in Behavioral Responses to Sentence Categorization

Abstract

Although the N400 was originally discovered in a paradigm designed to elicit a P300 (Kutas and Hillyard, 1980 ), its relationship with the P300 and how both overlapping event-related potentials (ERPs) determine behavioral profiles is still elusive. Here we conducted an ERP ( N = 20) and a multiple-response speed-accuracy tradeoff (SAT) experiment ( N = 16) on distinct participant samples using an antonym paradigm ( The opposite of black is white/nice/yellow with acceptability judgment). We hypothesized that SAT profiles incorporate processes of task-related decision-making (P300) and stimulus-related expectation violation (N400). We replicated previous ERP results (Roehm et al., 2007 ): in the correct condition ( white ), the expected target elicits a P300, while both expectation violations engender an N400 [reduced for related ( yellow ) vs. unrelated targets ( nice )]. Using multivariate Bayesian mixed-effects models, we modeled the P300 and N400 responses simultaneously and found that correlation between residuals and subject-level random effects of each response window was minimal, suggesting that the components are largely independent. For the SAT data, we found that antonyms and unrelated targets had a similar slope (rate of increase in accuracy over time) and an asymptote at ceiling, while related targets showed both a lower slope and a lower asymptote, reaching only approximately 80% accuracy. Using a GLMM-based approach (Davidson and Martin, 2013 ), we modeled these dynamics using response time and condition as predictors. Replacing the predictor for condition with the averaged P300 and N400 amplitudes from the ERP experiment, we achieved identical model performance. We then examined the piecewise contribution of the P300 and N400 amplitudes with partial effects (see Hohenstein and Kliegl, 2015 ). Unsurprisingly, the P300 amplitude was the strongest contributor to the SAT-curve in the antonym condition and the N400 was the strongest contributor in the unrelated condition. In brief, this is the first demonstration of how overlapping ERP responses in one sample of participants predict behavioral SAT profiles of another sample. The P300 and N400 reflect two independent but interacting processes and the competition between these processes is reflected differently in behavioral parameters of speed and accuracy.

Frequency Effects on Spelling Error Recognition: An ERP Study

“…We found a more positive response for misspelled words than for correctly spelled words only for highfrequency words in the right anterior region. The P300 wave is not a component exclusively related to language processing; however, it is found in any psycholinguistic paradigm that requires an assessment of stimulus and a binary decision (Proverbio et al, 2009;González-Garrido et al, 2014;Alday and Kretzschmar, 2019). This wave reflects an information-processing cascade when attentional and memory mechanisms are engaged, namely, final stimulus evaluation (Polich, 1985(Polich, , 2004Taylor, 1993).…”

“…The ERP results in this experiment showed that word frequency influences the error recognition process in later stages. The N400 component found in lexical or semantic categorization tasks is overlapped by the modulation of P300, a component associated with attention mechanisms activated to perform a task (Polich, 1985, 2004; van Hees et al, 2017; Alday and Kretzschmar, 2019; Bermúdez-Margaretto et al, 2019). In our study, we also observed a positive wave in the frontal regions, along with a negative wave in the central parietal areas.…”

Referential Chains Reveal Predictive Processes and Form-to-Function Mapping: An Electroencephalographic Study Using Naturalistic Story Stimuli

“…Hence, prediction match is achieved, as visible in an increase in P300 amplitude as compared to the less prominent referents with noun antecedent. Following Alday and Kretzschmar (2019) , if we wanted to provide a cognitive explanation for the P300 effect, we might say that the P300 reflects the immediate categorization of pronoun anaphors with pronoun antecedents, in the sense that they can be directly linked to a referent in the discourse model without the need for further evidence (e.g., by subsequent context). In other words, as mentioned in the introduction, we argue that pronominal reference to prominent referents is predicted to the extent that the referential relation is anticipated before the anaphoric pronoun is actually detected.…”

“…If, as it was the case in the related and unrelated condition, there occurs prediction error with regard to linguistic meaning, the same biphasic N400-P600 pattern as in Schumacher et al (2015) can be observed. As discussed in Alday and Kretzschmar (2019) , the N400 and P300 both seem to be sensitive to prediction, yet while the N400 reflects the processing of stimulus related features (e.g., linguistic prominence features) necessary for categorization, the P300 reflects the categorization process itself. Accordingly, in the absence of prediction error, no further information is needed for stimulus classification, hence the early P300 in Roehm et al (2007) , while with linguistic prediction error, and hence, categorization uncertainty, an N400 arises, reflecting the processing of stimulus features relevant for categorization (“evidence accumulation”).…”

“…In the following study, we aim at exploring the form-function relation between anaphors and their antecedents as outlined above. Prior to any analysis steps, we chose to analyze the P300 (200–300 ms) and N400 time windows (300–500 ms), because of the sensitivity of the P300 to predictability in language comprehension in general (e.g., Roehm et al, 2007 ; Sassenhagen et al, 2014 ; Brilmayer et al, 2017 ; Alday and Kretzschmar, 2019 ) and because of the effects in Brilmayer et al (2019) , who recorded the data used for the present analysis. The N400 was chosen because of the ubiquity of N400 effects in discourse research and language research in general (cf.…”