Semantic illusion depends on information structure: ERP evidence

Wang, Lin; Hagoort, Peter; Yang, Yufang

doi:10.1016/j.brainres.2009.05.069

Cited by 55 publications

(54 citation statements)

References 30 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…In the five multi-stream models we have discussed, it was assumed that N400 amplitude is sensitive to difficulty of semantic integration (compositional semantic processing) ( Hagoort and Van Berkum, 2007;Hagoort et al, 2009;Lotze et al, 2011;Osterhout and Holcomb, 1992;van Berkum et al, 1999;Wang et al, 2009). Under such a view, it should be difficult to integrate the critical verb thrown in sentences such as 'De speer heeft de atleten geworpen' (lit: The javelin has the athletes thrown), because this yields an interpretation that is not in line with what we know about the world: athletes throw javelins and not the other way around.…”

Section: N400 As Memory Retrievalmentioning

confidence: 99%

Getting real about Semantic Illusions: Rethinking the functional role of the P600 in language comprehension

2012

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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.

show abstract

Section: N400 As Memory Retrievalmentioning

confidence: 99%

Getting real about Semantic Illusions: Rethinking the functional role of the P600 in language comprehension

2012

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The early positivity is independent of the processing modality and likely reflects the attentive processing of focus. The enhanced attention to focus leads in turn to more elaborate processing: Listeners detect semantic and syntactic violations on accented focus more often than those on unaccented focused elements (Wang et al, 2011;Wang, Hagoort, & Yang, 2009). Further evidence for the link of information structure and attention comes from an fMRI study by Kristensen, Wang, Petersson, and Hagoort (2013) who found that accented information recruits attention areas in the brain.…”

Section: Linguistic Cues For Focus Capture Listeners' Attention Durinmentioning

confidence: 99%

Beat that Word: How Listeners Integrate Beat Gesture and Focus in Multimodal Speech Discourse

Dimitrova

Chu

Lin³

et al. 2016

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract■ Communication is facilitated when listeners allocate their attention to important information (focus) in the message, a process called "information structure." Linguistic cues like the preceding context and pitch accent help listeners to identify focused information. In multimodal communication, relevant information can be emphasized by nonverbal cues like beat gestures, which represent rhythmic nonmeaningful hand movements. Recent studies have found that linguistic and nonverbal attention cues are integrated independently in single sentences. However, it is possible that these two cues interact when information is embedded in context, because context allows listeners to predict what information is important. In an ERP study, we tested this hypothesis and asked listeners to view videos capturing a dialogue. In the critical sentence, focused and nonfocused words were accompanied by beat gestures, grooming hand movements, or no gestures. ERP results showed that focused words are processed more attentively than nonfocused words as reflected in an N1 and P300 component. Hand movements also captured attention and elicited a P300 component. Importantly, beat gesture and focus interacted in a late time window of 600-900 msec relative to target word onset, giving rise to a late positivity when nonfocused words were accompanied by beat gestures. Our results show that listeners integrate beat gesture with the focus of the message and that integration costs arise when beat gesture falls on nonfocused information. This suggests that beat gestures fulfill a unique focusing function in multimodal discourse processing and that they have to be integrated with the information structure of the message. ■

show abstract

“…Despite the complex interactions to which the different language-specific, grammatical and pragmatic functions of intonation give rise, some studies have underlined the cognitive importance of the prosodic markings of information structure for sentence processing (Cowles et al 2007, Wang et al 2009, van Leeuwen et al 2014. The above-mentioned process of unification has been shown to be particularly sensitive to the encoding of information structure: ERP studies showed for instance Complutense Journal of English Studies 2014, vol.…”

Section: General Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The above-mentioned process of unification has been shown to be particularly sensitive to the encoding of information structure: ERP studies showed for instance Complutense Journal of English Studies 2014, vol. 22, 11-33 14 that an N400 effect is obtained when an unexpected word is found in a reading task after a focusing device, such as clefting in English (Cowles et al 2007, Wang et al 2009), but also in studies of auditory processing of language (van Leeuwen et al 2014:65 and references cited therein). These neurolinguistic studies show that whatever is mentioned in previous discourse/textual context creates expectations as to the information structural status of a specific item that follows, and that more processing resources (as measured through ERPs) are required if there is a mismatch between the salience of the information presented and the expected way in which it is supposed to be encoded through pitch manipulation (van Leeuwen et al 2014).…”

Section: General Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

New Information in Naturalistic Data Is Also Signalled by Pitch Movement: An Analysis from Monolingual English/Spanish and Bilingual Spanish Speakers

Gries

Miglio²

2014

Comp.J. Eng. Stud.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In communication, speakers and listeners need ways to highlight certain information and relegate other information to the background. They also need to keep track of what information they (think they) have already communicated to the listener, and of the listeners' (supposed) knowledge of topics and referents. This knowledge and its layout in the utterance is commonly referred to as information structure, i.e., the degree to which propositions and referents are given or new. All languages have 'chosen' different ways to encode such information structure, for instance by modifying the pitch or intensity of the vocal signal or the order of words in a sentence. In this study, we assess whether the use of pitch to signal new information holds in typologically different languages such as English and Spanish by analyzing three population group monolingual California English speakers, bilingual speakers of English and Spanish from California (Chicano Spanish), and monolingual Mexican Spanish speakers from Mexico City.Our study goes beyond previous work in several respects. First, most current work is based on sentences just read or elicited in response to highly standardized and often somewhat artificial stimuli whose generalizability to more naturalistic settings may be questionable. We opted instead to use semidirected interviews whose more naturalistic setting provides data with a higher degree of authenticity. Second, in order to deal with the resulting higher degree of noise in the data as well as the inherent multifactoriality of the data, we are using state-of-the-art statistical methods to explore our data, namely generalized linear mixed-effects modeling, to accommodate speaker-and lexically-specific variability. Despite the noisy data, we find that contour tones including H+L or L+H sequences signal new information, and that items encoding new information also exhibit proportionally longer stressed vowels, than those encoding given information. We also find cross-dialectal variation between monolingual Mexican Spanish speakers on the one hand and monolingual English speakers and Chicanos on the other: Mexican Spanish speakers modify pitch contours less than monolingual English speakers, whereas the English patterns affect even the Spanish pronunciation of early bilinguals. Our findings, therefore, corroborate Gussenhoven's theory (2002) that some aspects of intonation are shared cross-linguistically (longer vowel length & higher pitch for new info), whereas others are encoded language-specifically and vary even across dialects (pitch excursion & the packaging of information structure).

show abstract

Semantic illusion depends on information structure: ERP evidence

Cited by 55 publications

References 30 publications

Getting real about Semantic Illusions: Rethinking the functional role of the P600 in language comprehension

Getting real about Semantic Illusions: Rethinking the functional role of the P600 in language comprehension

Beat that Word: How Listeners Integrate Beat Gesture and Focus in Multimodal Speech Discourse

New Information in Naturalistic Data Is Also Signalled by Pitch Movement: An Analysis from Monolingual English/Spanish and Bilingual Spanish Speakers

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About