On the brain response to syntactic anomalies: manipulations of word position and word class reveal individual differences.
In two experiments, event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were recorded from 13 scalp locations while subjects read sentences containing a syntactically or a semantically anomalous word. The position (sentence-embedded vs sentence-final) and word class (open vs closed) of the syntactic anomalies wer...
| Publicado en: | Brain & Language Vol. 59; no. 3; pp. 494 - 523 |
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| Autores principales: | , |
| Formato: | research tables/charts Journal Article |
| Publicado: |
Academic Press Inc.
1997 Oct 1
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| Sumario: | In two experiments, event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were recorded from 13 scalp locations while subjects read sentences containing a syntactically or a semantically anomalous word. The position (sentence-embedded vs sentence-final) and word class (open vs closed) of the syntactic anomalies were manipulated. In both experiments, semantically anomalous words elicited an enhanced N400 component. Syntactically anomalous closed class words elicited a widely distributed late positive wave (P600) regardless of the word's position and a smaller negative-going effect that was largest over anterior sites when the anomaly occurred in sentence-final position. The response to syntactically anomalous open class words revealed striking qualitative individual differences: These words elicited a P600 response in the majority of subjects and an N400 response in others. The proportion of subjects exhibiting the N400 response was greater when the anomaly occurred in sentence-final position. These results are interpreted in the context of prior findings, and implications for the hypothesis that syntactic and semantic anomalies elicit distinct brain potentials are discussed. |
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