In traditional theories of language comprehension, syntactic and semantic processing are inextricably linked. This assumption has been challenged by the 'Semantic Illusion Effect' found in studies using Event Related brain Potentials. Semantically anomalous sentences did not produce the expected increase in N400 amplitude but rather one in P600 amplitude. To explain these findings, complex models have been devised in which an independent semantic processing stream can arrive at a sentence interpretation that may differ from the interpretation prescribed by the syntactic structure of the sentence. We review five such multi-stream models and argue that they do not account for the full range of relevant results because they assume that the amplitude of the N400 indexes some form of semantic integration. Based on recent evidence we argue that N400 amplitude might reflect the retrieval of lexical information from memory. On this view, the absence of an N400-effect in Semantic Illusion sentences can be explained in terms of priming. Furthermore, we suggest that semantic integration, which has previously been linked to the N400 component, might be reflected in the P600 instead. When combined, these functional interpretations result in a single-stream account of language processing that can explain all of the Semantic Illusion data.

No abstract

Ten years ago, researchers using event‐related brain potentials (ERPs) to study language comprehension were puzzled by what looked like a Semantic Illusion: Semantically anomalous, but structurally well‐formed sentences did not affect the N400 component—traditionally taken to reflect semantic integration—but instead produced a P600 effect, which is generally linked to syntactic processing. This finding led to a considerable amount of debate, and a number of complex processing models have been proposed as an explanation. What these models have in common is that they postulate two or more separate processing streams, in order to reconcile the Semantic Illusion and other semantically induced P600 effects with the traditional interpretations of the N400 and the P600. Recently, however, these multi‐stream models have been called into question, and a simpler single‐stream model has been proposed. According to this alternative model, the N400 component reflects the retrieval of word meaning from semantic memory, and the P600 component indexes the integration of this meaning into the unfolding utterance interpretation. In the present paper, we provide support for this “Retrieval–Integration (RI)” account by instantiating it as a neurocomputational model. This neurocomputational model is the first to successfully simulate the N400 and P600 amplitude in language comprehension, and simulations with this model provide a proof of concept of the single‐stream RI account of semantically induced patterns of N400 and P600 modulations.

No abstract

In this study, children, young adults and elderly adults were tested in production and comprehension tasks assessing referential choice. Our aims were (1) to determine whether speakers egocentrically base their referential choice on the preceding linguistic discourse or also take into account the perspective of a hypothetical listener and (2) whether the possible impact of perspective taking on referential choice changes with increasing age, with its associated changes in cognitive capacity. In the production task, participants described picture-based stories featuring two characters of the same gender, making it necessary to use unambiguous forms; in the comprehension task, participants interpreted potentially ambiguous pronouns at the end of similar orally presented stories. Young adults (aged 18–35) were highly sensitive to the informational needs of hypothetical conversational partners in their production and comprehension of referring expressions. In contrast, children (aged 4–7) did not take into account possible conversational partners and tended to use pronouns for all given referents, leading to the production of ambiguous pronouns that are unrecoverable for a listener. This was mirrored in the outcome of the comprehension task, where children were insensitive to the shift of discourse topic marked by the speaker. The elderly adults (aged 69–87) behaved differently from both young adults and children. They showed a clear sensitivity to the other person's perspective in both production and comprehension, but appeared to lack the necessary cognitive capacities to keep track of the prominence of discourse referents, producing more potentially ambiguous pronouns than young adults, though fewer than children. In conclusion then, referential choice seems to depend on perspective taking in language, which develops with increasing linguistic experience and cognitive capacity, but also on the ability to keep track of the prominence of discourse referents, which is gradually lost with older age.