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Dorothee J. Chwilla
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Journal Articles
Publisher: Journals Gateway
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience (2011) 23 (9): 2400–2414.
Published: 01 September 2011
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According to embodied theories, the symbols used by language are meaningful because they are grounded in perception, action, and emotion. In contrast, according to abstract symbol theories, meaning arises from the syntactic combination of abstract, amodal symbols. If language is grounded in internal bodily states, then one would predict that emotion affects language. Consistent with this, advocates of embodied theories propose a strong link between emotion and language [Havas, D., Glenberg, A. M., & Rinck, M. Emotion simulation during language comprehension. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 14, 436–441, 2007; Niedenthal, P. M. Embodying emotion. Science, 316, 1002–1005, 2007]. The goal of this study was to test abstract symbol vs. embodied views of language by investigating whether mood affects semantic processing. To this aim, we induced different emotional states (happy vs. sad) by presenting film clips that displayed fragments from a happy movie or a sad movie. The clips were presented before and during blocks of sentences in which the cloze probability of mid-sentence critical words varied (high vs. low). Participants read sentences while ERPs were recorded. The mood induction procedure was successful: Participants watching the happy film clips scored higher on a mood scale than those watching the sad clips. For N400, mood by cloze probability interactions were obtained. The N400 cloze effect was strongly reduced in the sad mood compared with the happy mood condition. Furthermore, a difference in late positivity was only present for the sad mood condition. The mood by semantic processing interaction observed for N400 supports embodied theories of meaning and challenges abstract symbol theories that assume that processing of word meaning reflects a modular process.
Journal Articles
Publisher: Journals Gateway
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience (2011) 23 (9): 2447–2467.
Published: 01 September 2011
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The present study addresses the question whether accentuation and prosodic phrasing can have a similar function, namely, to group words in a sentence together. Participants listened to locally ambiguous sentences containing object- and subject-control verbs while ERPs were measured. In Experiment 1, these sentences contained a prosodic break, which can create a certain syntactic grouping of words, or no prosodic break. At the disambiguation, an N400 effect occurred when the disambiguation was in conflict with the syntactic grouping created by the break. We found a similar N400 effect without the break, indicating that the break did not strengthen an already existing preference. This pattern held for both object- and subject-control items. In Experiment 2, the same sentences contained a break and a pitch accent on the noun following the break. We argue that the pitch accent indicates a broad focus covering two words [see Gussenhoven, C. On the limits of focus projection in English. In P. Bosch & R. van der Sandt (Eds.), Focus: Linguistic, cognitive, and computational perspectives . Cambridge: University Press, 1999], thus grouping these words together. For object-control items, this was semantically possible, which led to a “good-enough” interpretation of the sentence. Therefore, both sentences were interpreted equally well and the N400 effect found in Experiment 1 was absent. In contrast, for subject-control items, a corresponding grouping of the words was impossible, both semantically and syntactically, leading to processing difficulty in the form of an N400 effect and a late positivity. In conclusion, accentuation can group words together on the level of information structure, leading to either a semantically “good-enough” interpretation or a processing problem when such a semantic interpretation is not possible.
Journal Articles
Publisher: Journals Gateway
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience (2010) 22 (8): 1832–1843.
Published: 01 August 2010
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Language switching in bilingual speakers requires attentional control to select the appropriate language, for example, in picture naming. Previous language-switch studies used the color of pictures to indicate the required language thereby confounding endogenous and exogenous control. To investigate endogenous language control, our language cues preceded picture stimuli by 750 msec. Cue-locked event-related potentials (ERPs) were measured while Dutch–English bilingual speakers overtly named pictures. The response language on consecutive trials could be the same (repeat trials) or different (switch trials). Naming latencies were longer on switch than on repeat trials, independent of the response language. Cue-locked ERPs showed an early posterior negativity for switch compared to repeat trials for L2 but not for L1, and a late anterior negativity for switch compared to repeat trials for both languages. The early switch–repeat effect might reflect disengaging from the nontarget native language, whereas the late switch–repeat effect reflects engaging in the target language. Implications for models of bilingual word production are discussed.
Journal Articles
Publisher: Journals Gateway
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience (2010) 22 (5): 1036–1053.
Published: 01 May 2010
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This study addresses the question whether prosodic information can affect the choice for a syntactic analysis in auditory sentence processing. We manipulated the prosody (in the form of a prosodic break; PB) of locally ambiguous Dutch sentences to favor one of two interpretations. The experimental items contained two different types of so-called control verbs (subject and object control) in the matrix clause and were syntactically disambiguated by a transitive or by an intransitive verb. In Experiment 1, we established the default off-line preference of the items for a transitive or an intransitive disambiguating verb with a visual and an auditory fragment completion test. The results suggested that subject- and object-control verbs differently affect the syntactic structure that listeners expect. In Experiment 2, we investigated these two types of verbs separately in an on-line ERP study. Consistent with the literature, the PB elicited a closure positive shift. Furthermore, in subject-control items, an N400 effect for intransitive relative to transitive disambiguating verbs was found, both for sentences with and for sentences without a PB. This result suggests that the default preference for subject-control verbs goes in the same direction as the effect of the PB. In object-control items, an N400 effect for intransitive relative to transitive disambiguating verbs was found for sentences with a PB but no effect in the absence of a PB. This indicates that a PB can affect the syntactic analysis that listeners pursue.
Journal Articles
Publisher: Journals Gateway
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience (2010) 22 (1): 67–82.
Published: 01 January 2010
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In the language domain, most studies of error monitoring have been devoted to language production. However, in language perception, errors are made as well and we are able to detect them. According to the monitoring theory of language perception, a strong conflict between what is expected and what is observed triggers reanalysis to check for possible perceptual errors, a process reflected by the P600. This is at variance with the dominant view that the P600 reflects syntactic reanalysis or repair, after syntactic violations or ambiguity. In the present study, the prediction of the monitoring theory of language perception was tested, that only a strong conflict between expectancies triggers reanalysis to check for possible perceptual errors, reflected by the P600. Therefore, we manipulated plausibility, and hypothesized that when a critical noun is mildly implausible in the given sentence (e.g., “The eye consisting of among other things a pupil, iris, and eyebrow …”), a mild conflict arises between the expected and unexpected event; integration difficulties arise due to the unexpectedness but they are resolved successfully, thereby eliciting an N400 effect. When the noun is deeply implausible however (e.g., “The eye consisting of among other things a pupil, iris, and sticker …”), a strong conflict arises; integration fails and reanalysis is triggered, eliciting a P600 effect. Our hypothesis was confirmed; only when the conflict between the expected and unexpected event is strong enough, reanalysis is triggered.
Journal Articles
Publisher: Journals Gateway
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience (2007) 19 (9): 1421–1434.
Published: 01 September 2007
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Speech is structured into parts by syntactic and prosodic breaks. In locally syntactic ambiguous sentences, the detection of a syntactic break necessarily follows detection of a corresponding prosodic break, making an investigation of the immediate interplay of syntactic and prosodic information impossible when studying sentences in isolation. This problem can be solved, however, by embedding sentences in a discourse context that induces the expectation of either the presence or the absence of a syntactic break right at a prosodic break. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were compared to acoustically identical sentences in these different contexts. We found in two experiments that the closure positive shift, an ERP component known to be elicited by prosodic breaks, was reduced in size when a prosodic break was aligned with a syntactic break. These results establish that the brain matches prosodic information against syntactic information immediately.
Journal Articles
Publisher: Journals Gateway
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience (2006) 18 (7): 1181–1197.
Published: 01 July 2006
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Monitoring refers to a process of quality control designed to optimize behavioral outcome. Monitoring for action errors manifests itself in an error-related negativity in event-related potential (ERP) studies and in an increase in activity of the anterior cingulate in functional magnetic resonance imaging studies. Here we report evidence for a monitoring process in perception, in particular, language perception, manifesting itself in a late positivity in the ERP. This late positivity, the P600, appears to be triggered by a conflict between two interpretations, one delivered by the standard syntactic algorithm and one by a plausibility heuristic which combines individual word meanings in the most plausible way. To resolve this conflict, we propose that the brain reanalyzes the memory trace of the perceptual input to check for the possibility of a processing error. Thus, as in Experiment 1, when the reader is presented with semantically anomalous sentences such as, “The fox that shot the poacher…,” full syntactic analysis indicates a semantic anomaly, whereas the word-based heuristic leads to a plausible interpretation, that of a poacher shooting a fox. That readers actually pursue such a word-based analysis is indicated by the fact that the usual ERP index of semantic anomaly, the so-called N400 effect, was absent in this case. A P600 effect appeared instead. In Experiment 2, we found that even when the word-based heuristic indicated that only part of the sentence was plausible (e.g., “…that the elephants pruned the trees”), a P600 effect was observed and the N400 effect of semantic anomaly was absent. It thus seems that the plausibility of part of the sentence (e.g., that of pruning trees) was sufficient to create a conflict with the implausible meaning of the sentence as a whole, giving rise to a monitoring response.