Distinguishing Neurocognitive Processes Reflected by P600 Effects: Evidence from ERPs and Neural Oscillations

Abstract

Research on language comprehension using event-related potentials (ERPs) reported distinct ERP components reliably related to the processing of semantic (N400) and syntactic information (P600). Recent ERP studies have challenged this well-defined distinction by showing P600 effects for semantic and pragmatic anomalies. So far, it is still unresolved whether the P600 reflects specific or rather common processes. The present study addresses this question by investigating ERPs in response to a syntactic and pragmatic (irony) manipulation, as well as a combined syntactic and pragmatic manipulation. For the syntactic condition, a morphosyntactic violation was applied, whereas for the pragmatic condition, such as “That is rich”, either an ironic or literal interpretation was achieved, depending on the prior context. The ERPs at the critical word showed a LAN-P600 pattern for syntactically incorrect sentences relative to correct ones. For ironic compared to literal sentences, ERPs showed a P200 effect followed by a P600 component. In comparison of the syntax-related P600 to the irony-related P600, distributional differences were found. Moreover, for the P600 time window (i.e., 500–900 ms), different changes in theta power between the syntax and pragmatics effects were found, suggesting that different patterns of neural activity contributed to each respective effect. Thus, both late positivities seem to be differently sensitive to these two types of linguistic information, and might reflect distinct neurocognitive processes, such as reanalysis of the sentence structure versus pragmatic reanalysis.

Context-dependent impact of presuppositions on early magnetic brain responses during speech perception

“…Similarly, Klimesch (1996) reported semantic difficulties to alleviate upper alpha activity. Reduction of alpha activity, furthermore, could be observed in response to ironic items, concomitant with enhanced P200 and P600 deflections (Regel et al, 2014). In line with these findings, the present study found suppression of spectral MEG activity within the alpha band (and slightly higher frequencies) in case of context-mismatching PSPs.…”

“…Such inhibitory operations might help to avoid premature lexical access and semantic assignments that are facilitated by the context, but do not match the actual text of the test sentences. An enhanced P200 deflection -followed by a P600 -has also been documented for the processing of irony (Regel, Meyer, & Gunter, 2014). In case of irony, immediate access to the ''correct'' lexical meaning leads to incorrect interpretations and, therefore, has to be inhibited in order to provide the temporal resources for additional operations, e.g., negation.…”

Tell me sweet little lies: An event-related potentials study on the processing of social lies

“…For example, the comprehension of ironic versus literal meanings has revealed an increase in this P600 ERP component (Regel, Coulson, & Gunter, 2010;Regel, Gunter, & Friederici, 2011;Regel, Meyer, & Gunter, 2014). To date, the P600 functional interpretation remains controversial.…”

“…Originally obtained for syntactic violations and ambiguities, it is also observed following semantic abnormalities (see Kuperberg, 2007, for a review). A recent study distinguishes between a widespread P600 reflecting reanalysis or repair processes that follow syntactic anomalies and a more constrained centro-parietal P600 to pragmatic anomalies, such as the processing of ironic messages (Regel et al, 2014). However, a P600 effect most prominent over frontal electrode sites has also been reported for the processing of ironic versus literal statements (Spotorno, Cheylus, Van Der Henst, & Noveck, 2013).…”

Disrupting morphosyntactic and lexical semantic processing has opposite effects on the sample entropy of neural signals

“…Here, three remarks are in order. First, recent research suggests that different instances of what appears to be a P600 might reflect different underlying brain processes (Regel et al, 2014;DeLong et al, 2014). Therefore, some prudence is advised when comparing P600 effects across experiments and paradigms.…”