ERP evidence for telicity effects on syntactic processing in garden-path sentences

Verbs contain multifaceted information about both the semantics of an action, and potential argument structures. Linguistic theory classifies verbs according to whether the denoted action has an inherent (telic) end-point (fall, awaken), or whether it is considered homogenous, or atelic (read, worship). The aim of our study was to examine how this distinction influences on-line sentence processing, investigating the effects of verbal telicity on the ease of syntactic re-analysis of Object reduced relative clauses. Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were recorded from 22 English speakers as they read sentences in which the main verb was either telic or atelic, e.g., “The actress awakened/worshipped by the writer left in a hurry”. ERPs elicited by telic and atelic verbs, the preposition “by” introducing the second argument (Agent), and the second argument itself, e.g., “writer”, were compared. Additionally, participants were grouped according to receptive syntactic proficiency: normal (NP) or high (HP). ERPs from the NP group first diverged at the second argument, with the atelic condition eliciting larger amplitude negativity at the N100, and continuing to the P200 interval. In contrast, ERPs from the HP group first diverged earlier in the sentence, on the word “by”. ERPs elicited by “by” in the atelic condition were also characterized by increased negativity, in this case significant at P200 and Anterior Negativity between 320 and 500 ms post stimulus onset. Our results support the postulated conceptual/semantic distinction underlying the two verb categories, and demonstrate that world-knowledge about actions designated by verbs and syntactic proficiency are reflected in on-line processing of sentence structure.     

句法加工的ERP研究综述

句法加工是语言理解中的重要环节。句法加工的脑机制问题是心理语言学和认知神经科学的重要研究内容。使用事件相关电位(ERP)技术对句法加工的脑机制的研究已经取得了一些重要的研究成果,发现了句法加工的早成分(LAN)和晚成分(P600/SPS),确立了一些句法加工的研究范式。在这个过程中,也还有一些问题存在争论。该文将对句法加工的ERP研究的成果和问题分别进行介绍和讨论。     

Gapping: Electrophysiological evidence for immediate processing of "missing" verbs in sentence comprehension

In the present study we use event related potentials (ERPs) to explore the time course of identification and resolution of verb gaps. ERPs were recorded while participants read sentences that contained a verb gap like Ron took/sanded the planks, and Bill ? the hammer... Plausibility of the critical words (hammer) that followed the verb gap was manipulated. Relative to the plausible control (preceded by took), ERPs to the critical word in the implausible condition (preceded by sanded) showed an N400, followed by a positivity (P600). ERPs to determiners following gapped verbs showed a negativity between 100 and 300 ms, and a positivity between 300 and 500 ms compared to determiners in non-gapping constructions. These results suggest that the sentence processor recognizes a verb gap and reconstructs the verb information at the earliest possible occasion, and that this reconstruction process is different from the reconstruction of antecedents in other filler-gap constructions (e.g., WH gaps).     

ERP correlates of attentional processing in spider fear: evidence of threat-specific hypervigilance

Attentional bias towards threat can be demonstrated by enhanced processing of threat-related targets and/or greater interference when threat-related distractors are present. These effects are argued to reflect processing within the orienting and executive control networks of the brain respectively. This study investigated behavioural (RT) and electrophysiological correlates of early selective attention and top-down attentional control among females with high (n?=?16) or low (n?=?16) spider fear (Mean age?=?22 years). Participants completed a novel flanker go/nogo task in which a central schematic flower or spider stimulus was flanked by either congruent or incongruent distractors. Participants responded to green stimuli (go trials) and withheld response to yellow stimuli (nogo trials). High fear participants demonstrated significantly shorter reaction times and greater P1 amplitude to spider targets, suggesting specific hypervigilance towards threat-relevant stimuli. In contrast to predictions, there was little evidence for behavioural interference effects or differences in N2 amplitude when distractor stimuli were threat-relevant.     

Familiarity matters: A review on prioritized processing of personally familiar faces

In this review, we synthesize the existing literature investigating personally familiar face processing and highlight the remarkable, enhanced processing efficiency resulting from real-life experience. Highly learned identity-specific visual and semantic information associated with personally familiar face representations facilitates detection, recognition of identity and social cues, and activation of person knowledge. These optimizations afford qualitatively different processing of personally familiar as compared to unfamiliar faces, which manifests on both the behavioural and neural level.     

二语句法加工的认知机制、影响因素及其神经基础

二语(L2)和母语(L1)在句法加工方面的差异是量的不同还是质的表现？当前, 该问题已成为语言认知领域研究的热点。研究表明, 二语句法加工受到二语习得年龄、语言熟练度、工作记忆、二语习得方式等因素的影响。有关二语句法加工的理论主要有浅层结构假说、D/P模型和统一竞争模型。未来研究应注重探讨二语句法加工中二语熟练度及二语习得年龄的交互效应, 同时也应当加强儿童二语句法加工能力的研究。     

Event-related potential (ERP) evidence for the differential cognitive processing of semantic jokes and pun jokes

Brain-imaging studies report that separate neural correlates are associated with processing of different types of humorous materials. However, such evidence lacks temporal information. In this study, we examined the temporal dynamics of humour comprehension between two types of jokes: semantic (SEMs) and pun (PUNs) jokes, using electroencephalographic (EEG) techniques. Thirty SEMs and 30 PUNs were presented to 16 healthy subjects, and their EEG data were concurrently recorded. PUNs consequently showed a larger N400 amplitude than did SEMs, without a specified scalp site, which implies that PUNs induce greater surprise and semantic violation. Meanwhile, SEMs induced a larger P600-like amplitude at the posterior site, which implies that, in order to understand SEMs, higher working memory loads are needed to form novel associations and successfully frame-shift. A possible explanation is the differing logical mechanisms used to understand SEMs and PUNs: the former builds on semantic relationships, the latter on phonological causality.     

A comparison of semantic and syntactic event related potentials generated by children and adults

The present study employs event related potentials (ERPs) to verify the utility of using electrophysiological measures to study developmental questions within the field of language comprehension. Established ERP components (N400 and P600) that reflect semantic and syntactic processing were examined. Fifteen adults and 14 children (ages 8-13) processed spoken stimuli containing either semantic or syntactic anomalies. Adult participants showed a significant N400 in response to semantic anomalies and P600 components in response to syntactic anomalies. Children also show evidence of both ERP components. The children's N400 component differed from the adults' in scalp location, latency, and component amplitude. The children's P600 was remarkably similar to the P600 shown by adults in scalp location, component amplitude, and component latency. Theoretical implication for theories of language comprehension in adults and children will be discussed.     

Hemispheric asymmetries in processing L1 and L2 idioms: effects of salience and context

This study investigates the contribution of the left and right hemispheres to the comprehension of bilingual figurative language and the joint effects of salience and context on the differential cerebral involvement in idiom processing. The divided visual field and the lexical decision priming paradigms were employed to examine the activation of salient and nonsalient ambiguous idiom interpretations (i.e., literal vs. non-literal) in the two hemispheres. Literally plausible ambiguous idioms, L1 (Polish) and L2 (English), were embedded in unconstraining ambiguous (e.g., I knew he kept an ace up his sleeve) or constraining unambiguous context clearly favoring their conventional idiomatic interpretation (e.g., The debating president kept an ace up his sleeve). Idioms were presented centrally, followed by laterally presented targets related to the figurative (e.g., GAIN) or literal (e.g., SHIRT) meaning of the idiom and displayed at Interstimulus Intervals (ISIs) of 0 ms (Experiment 1), 300 ms (Experiment 2), and 800 ms (Experiment 3). Results indicate that context and salience effects are significantly modulated by the language (native vs. nonnative) of the stimulus materials being presented to each hemisphere. Literal facilitation was found for L2 idioms in all three ISI conditions, which supports the notion of the special status that literal meanings of L2 idioms enjoy in the course of their processing by nonnative language users. No significant differences were found between the right and left hemispheres in regards to their sensitivity to contextual constraints. Results are discussed in terms of the Graded Salience Hypothesis and the Fine/Coarse Coding Theory.     

Visual awareness and the levels of processing hypothesis: A critical review

Does a visual percept emerge to consciousness in a graded manner (i.e. evolving through increasing degrees of clarity), or according to a dichotomous, “all-or-none” pattern (i.e. abruptly transitioning from unawareness to awareness)? The level of processing hypothesis (LoP; B. Windey and A. Cleeremans, 2015) recently proposed a theoretical framework where the transition from unaware to aware visual experience is graded for low-level stimulus representations (i.e. stimulus “energy” or “feature” levels) whereas it is dichotomous for high-level (i.e. the perception of “letters”, “words” or “meaning”) stimulus perception. Here, we will critically review current behavioral and brain-based evidence on the LoP hypothesis and discuss potential challenges (such as differences in LoP conceptualizations, awareness scale related issues, attentional confounds and divergences on experimental factors or statistical analyses) which might be of use for future research within the field. Overall, the LoP hypothesis is a recent and promising proposal that attempts to integrate divergent evidence on the graded vs. dichotomous emergence of awareness debate. Whereas current evidence validates some of the assumptions proposed by the LoP account, there is still much work to do on both methodological and experimental levels. Future neuroimaging studies might help to disentangle the current complex pattern of results found in LoP studies and, importantly, shed some light on the ongoing debate about the search for the Neural Correlates of Consciousness (NCC).     

第二语言阅读“熔断”假说的认知心理证据:在线篇章处理的范式

本研究以认知心理学的结构建造理论为实验框架,模拟学习者母语及外语在线篇章处理的过程,从而获取第二语言阅读"熔断"假说以及"门槛"效应的认知心理证据。英语水平差别显著的高低两组共60名被试参加了英、汉语故事理解加工实验,考察他们如何对故事的人物角色进行持续跟踪,以厘清故事内的"因果链"。结果发现:(1)高水平组成功地把他们的母语故事理解加工能力迁移到第二语言的故事理解加工,而低水平组则迁移失败;(2)理解加工能力的迁移与被试心理表征建构能力以及抑制机制的效率紧密关联,高水平组被试能有效地利用抑制机制来管理他们第二语言的结构建造过程,从而建立对故事的连贯心理表征,而低水平组则不能。在分析上述结果的基础上,文章提出第二语言阅读"熔断"假说的认知心理证据就是第二语言心理表征建构与抑制机制的作用问题;要成功地进行第二语言篇章理解,读者必须要使其二语潜在的能力(如词汇效率等)发展到某个点上,使得与抑制(结构建造的关键)相关的许多无意识的决定过程能够高度自动化。     

第二语言语义提取中的工作记忆效应

本文报告一项针对工作记忆容量是否制约中国英语学习者第二语言语义提取效率的实验。实验考查了工作记忆广度中的个体差异是否抑制学习者对第二语言单词语义信息的提取问题,还探索了工作记忆广度和第二语言词汇知识水平的相关性。研究以通用容量工作记忆模型为基础,采用运算广度的工作记忆测试,得出工作记忆广度对单词语义信息的提取没有显著抑制作用的结果。结果还显示工作记忆广度与第二语言词汇知识水平之间没有显著的线性关系。