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Parallel, cascaded, interactive processing of words during sentence reading.

Single words are easier to identify in a briefly presented syntactically correct word sequence compared with a scrambled version of the same set of words: a sentence superiority effect. Interactive-activation models of sentence comprehension can account for this phenomenon by implementing parallel p...

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Published in:Cognition Vol. 189; pp. 221 - 227
Main Authors: Wen, Yun, Snell, Joshua, Grainger, Jonathan
Format: research Journal Article
Published: Elsevier B.V. Aug2019
Online Access:View this record in EBSCOhost
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      jtl: Cognition
      issn: 00100277
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      dt: Aug2019
      vid: 189
      pid: 1004
      pub: Elsevier B.V.
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        10.1016/j.cognition.2019.04.013
        NLM31005638
        136801563
      ppf: 221
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        atl: Parallel, cascaded, interactive processing of words during sentence reading.
      aug:
        au:
          Wen, Yun
          Snell, Joshua
          Grainger, Jonathan
        affil: Laboratoire de Psychologie Cognitive, Aix-Marseille Université, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Marseille, France
      sug:
        subj:
          Cerebral Cortex Physiology
          Psycholinguistics
          Evoked Potentials Physiology
          Visual Perception Physiology
          Reading
          Time Factors
          Young Adult
          Human
          Female
          Adult
          Electroencephalography
          Male
          Validation Studies
          Comparative Studies
          Evaluation Research
          Multicenter Studies
          Adult: 19-44 years
          Female
          Male
      ab: Single words are easier to identify in a briefly presented syntactically correct word sequence compared with a scrambled version of the same set of words: a sentence superiority effect. Interactive-activation models of sentence comprehension can account for this phenomenon by implementing parallel processing of word identities. The cascaded and interactive nature of such processing allows sentence-level structures to influence on-going word processing. Alternatively, prior observations of a sentence superiority effect in post-cued word-in-phrase identification might be due to the sophisticated guessing of word identities on the basis of partial information about the target word and the surrounding context. Here, for the first time, we used electrophysiological recordings to plot the time-course of the sentence superiority effect. According to an interactive-activation account of this phenomenon, the effect should be visible in the N400 component, thought to reflect the mapping of word identities onto higher-level semantic and syntactic representations. Such evidence for changes in highly automatized linguistic processing is not predicted by a sophisticated guessing account. Our results revealed a robust and widespread sentence-superiority effect on the N400 component that onsets around 270 ms post-sentence onset, thus lending support to the interactive-activation account.
      pubtype: Academic Journal
      doctype:
        research
        Journal Article
      ougenre: Article
    language: English
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