Disruption to left inferior frontal cortex modulates semantic prediction effects in reading and subsequent memory: Evidence from simultaneous TMS‐EEG

Abstract

The human brain is widely considered "a fundamentally proactive device " (p. 184, Van Berkum, 2010), that "continuously generates predictions that anticipate the relevant future" (p. 1235, Bar, 2009; see also Bar, 2007;Mesulam, 2008). In language comprehension, it has been argued that readers/listeners use prior context in an anticipatory manner, leading to the preconscious prediction of semantic, syntactic, or perceptual features of likely upcoming words. This preactivation, when accurate, facilitates processing when the predicted word is encountered