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Yang Q, Jiang X. On the scope of presupposition in discourse reading comprehension. Acta Psychol (Amst) 2023; 237:103955. [PMID: 37327659 DOI: 10.1016/j.actpsy.2023.103955] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/19/2022] [Revised: 02/14/2023] [Accepted: 05/30/2023] [Indexed: 06/18/2023] Open
Abstract
referential relationships can be communicated through presupposition. The presupposition trigger (also) in Jiayan also bought eggs exerts a pragmatic constraint that besides the object, the verb constrains additional and alternative referents. Our study provided a novel set of evidence that the reader preferred larger- over smaller-sized sets for the scope of presupposition in discourse comprehension. The structural hierarchy in smaller-sized sets and the earlier-mentioned structural details in larger-sized sets drove higher preference. Furthermore, readers' difference in their preference reflected their tendency to attend to discourse structural information. These findings are consistent with the multiple constraints hypothesis/the presupposition maximization principle hypothesis, rather than the local bias hypothesis. The present study enlightened the understanding of structural constraints on processing the number and the identity of presupposed referential information in discourse reading comprehension.
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Affiliation(s)
- Qi Yang
- School of Humanities, Tongji University, Shanghai, China
| | - Xiaoming Jiang
- Institute of Linguistics, Shanghai International Studies University, Shanghai, China.
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2
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Hao Y, Wang L, Bai B. An electrophysiological exploration of modifiers embedded in different hierarchies: Insight from short passives in Mandarin. Brain Res 2023; 1803:148230. [PMID: 36608758 DOI: 10.1016/j.brainres.2022.148230] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/05/2022] [Revised: 12/29/2022] [Accepted: 12/31/2022] [Indexed: 01/05/2023]
Abstract
This event-related potentials study explored the processing of Mandarin short passives. We used a syntactic violation paradigm to compare the processing of two auxiliary phrases (i.e., a verb-modifier di-phrase and a noun-modifier de-phrase). In the control condition, the syntactic hierarchy of the di-phrase was lower than that of the de-phrase. In the violation condition, the low-level violation was created by replacing di with de in the auxiliary phrase, while the high-level violation was created by replacing de with di in the auxiliary phrase. The ERP data showed that the noun-modifier elicited the greater left anterior negativity (LAN) and the P600 than the verb-modifier, in both the control condition and the violation condition. We also observed that the LAN induced by the verb-modifier phrase was greater in the control condition than that in the violation condition, while the LAN induced by the noun-modifier was greater in the violation condition than that in the control condition. These results suggested that the greater cortical LAN-P600 might differentiate the high-level hierarchy from the low-level hierarchy. In addition, we tentatively claimed that given the same predicate argument structure, long passives might be the default representational mode of short passives (generally, a constructional alternation might be activated during the processing of the target structure).
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Affiliation(s)
- Yuxin Hao
- Institute of Chinese Language and Culture Education, Huaqiao University, Xiamen, Mainland China 361021, China
| | - Lin Wang
- Chinese Language and Culture College, Huaqiao University, Xiamen, Mainland China 361021, China
| | - Bing Bai
- School of Foreign Languages, Soochow University, Suzhou, Mainland China 215006, China.
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3
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Neural segregation in left inferior frontal gyrus of semantic processes at different levels of syntactic hierarchy. Neuropsychologia 2022; 171:108254. [DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2022.108254] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/18/2021] [Revised: 03/07/2022] [Accepted: 04/26/2022] [Indexed: 11/17/2022]
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4
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Jiang X, Zhou X. An alternative structure rescues failed semantics? Strong global expectancy reduces local-mismatch N400 in Chinese flexible structures. Neuropsychologia 2020; 140:107380. [PMID: 32087203 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2020.107380] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/16/2019] [Revised: 02/04/2020] [Accepted: 02/05/2020] [Indexed: 01/08/2023]
Abstract
During comprehension of a hierarchical structure, semantic integration between sequential, mismatched sentential constituents does not proceed when the later word in the sequence (e.g., the noun in the verb + classifier + noun) can be assigned an alternative role in the sentence (e.g., as a modifier of a subsequent object noun) (Zhang et al., 2011). Using electrophysiological measures, we examined how the availability of an alternative structure and whether the reader is motivated to generate an alternative structure affect semantic integration in a hierarchical structure. The same set of sentences was employed in three experiments in which the semantic congruency between the adjective and the object noun in the local structure and the sentential-contextual expectancy towards a noun were manipulated simultaneously. The reader's motivation was manipulated by tasks in which they made semantic acceptability judgment (Experiment 1), passively viewed sentences for comprehension (Experiment 2), or actively predicted the upcoming word and monitored the compatibility between the anticipated and the actual input (Experiment 3). Stronger contextual expectancy reduced N400 responses to the object noun regardless of semantic congruency, indicating that strengthening the constraints of an alternative argument decreased the effort of semantic integration between incompatible local constituents. Relative to weaker expectancy, the incongruent noun preceded by a stronger expectancy context elicited reduced N400 responses when no active prediction was demanded but showed equal amplitudes when such a demand was high. These findings demonstrate that the semantic failure in a flexible structure is likely to be resolved by the comprehender's motivation to generate an alternative structure based on the active use of contextual expectancy information, thus highlighting the "role-dependent semantic processing" during sentence comprehension.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xiaoming Jiang
- Institute of Linguistics, Shanghai International Studies University, Shanghai, China; Department of Psychology, Tongji University, Shanghai, China; School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, China
| | - Xiaolin Zhou
- Institute of Linguistics, Shanghai International Studies University, Shanghai, China; Department of Psychology, Tongji University, Shanghai, China; School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, China; Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health, Peking University, Beijing, China; PKU-IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Peking University, Beijing, China.
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5
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Tokimoto S, Miyaoka Y, Tokimoto N. Functional Linking Between Negative and Positive ERPs for Syntactic Processing in Japanese: Mutual Enhancement, Syntactic Prediction, and Working Memory Constraints. Front Psychol 2020; 10:2744. [PMID: 31920802 PMCID: PMC6923241 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02744] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/18/2019] [Accepted: 11/20/2019] [Indexed: 01/15/2023] Open
Abstract
This study attempts to detect the differences in event-related potentials (ERPs) associated with two syntactic processes: the syntactic integration of discontinuous dependency and the detection of a violation of the syntactic island constraint. We recorded the electroencephalogram elicited by complex sentences in Japanese that included a dependency between a quantifier and its head noun, in which we changed the word order of the two words to manipulate the presence and absence of a syntactic integration and a syntactic island violation while keeping the lexical items and construction unchanged. We found significant negative and positive deflections for the syntactic integration only when a quantifier preceded its head noun. We also observed significant negative and positive deflections for the syntactic island violation, for which the negativity was more salient when a quantifier preceded its head noun. This study is the first to report a late positive ERP for a violation of the syntactic island constraints in Japanese, and the results showed that the ERP elicited by syntactic integration and that by syntactic island violation were different in terms of their latency, topography, and duration. More importantly, the ERPs elicited by the two syntactic processes were biphasic, and the amplitudes of the negative ERP and of the positive ERP were positively correlated. This positive correlation could be a characteristic of syntactic processing because it contrasted with the negative correlation reported for the ERP elicited by semantic anomalies in English. Furthermore, the amplitude of the ERP for syntactic integration was negatively correlated with the individual capacity of working memory (WM). That is, a reader with greater WM capacity showed smaller negativity and positivity for the syntactic integration, whereas the amplitude for the syntactic island violation showed no significant correlation with the individual capacity of WM. Our results suggested that linguistic ERPs functionally interacted with each other and that the ERP involving the retention and the retrieval of a distant word could be constrained by the individual differences in WM capacity. We discuss the possible reasons for the contrast between English and Japanese on the basis of the cross-linguistic differences in the two languages.
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Affiliation(s)
- Shingo Tokimoto
- Department of English Language Studies, Mejiro University, Tokyo, Japan
| | - Yayoi Miyaoka
- Department of Liberal Arts, Hiroshima University of Economics, Hiroshima, Japan
| | - Naoko Tokimoto
- Department of Life Management, Shobi University, Saitama, Japan
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6
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Abstract
Objective: The past few decades of research in language processing provides empirical data on the dimensions of the brain-language relationship. The methodologies used to study language processing have evidenced an immense advancement over the years, tracking real-time processing events with millisecond precision. Event-related potentials is one such method which assists to visualize the neural mechanisms that underlie language processing. Different electrophysiological components mark different components of language depending on their structural and functional aspects. Since research on language processing is expanding its boundaries, the neural mechanisms for processing syntax components have been the focus of recent investigations across the languages of the world. The present review article aims to discuss the findings of studies on syntax processing besides highlighting the functional significance of P600, the electrophysiological marker of syntax processing.Methods: Electronic databases such as Pubmed, Science Direct, Research gate, PLOS, Directory of Open Access Journals were searched for relavant articles. The review process followed PRISMA guidelines for screening, identification, and selection of articles.Results: The results of the review elucidate the need for evaluating the finer details of syntax, including morpho-syntax concerning specific language structures. Studies across the languages of the world exemplify the uniqueness in the structure of different languages that may provide varied perspectives on the universality in syntax processing.Conclusion: The present review contributes a new dimension towards understanding the nature of syntax processing with respect to language specificity.
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Affiliation(s)
- Niharika M K
- Department of Speech-Language Sciences, All India Institute of Speech and Hearing, Mysuru, India
| | - K S Prema Rao
- Department of Speech-Language Sciences, All India Institute of Speech and Hearing, Mysuru, India
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7
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Zhou L, Liu F, Jiang J, Jiang H, Jiang C. Abnormal neural responses to harmonic syntactic structures in congenital amusia. Psychophysiology 2019; 56:e13394. [PMID: 31111968 DOI: 10.1111/psyp.13394] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/02/2018] [Revised: 04/14/2019] [Accepted: 04/23/2019] [Indexed: 10/26/2022]
Abstract
In music, harmonic syntactic structures are organized hierarchically through local and long-distance dependencies. This study investigated whether congenital amusia, a neurodevelopmental disorder of pitch perception, is associated with impaired processing of harmonic syntactic structures. For stimuli, we used harmonic sequences containing two phrases, where the first phrase ended with a half cadence and the second with an authentic cadence. In Experiment 1, we manipulated the ending chord of the authentic cadence to be either syntactically regular or irregular based on local dependencies. Sixteen amusics and 16 controls judged the expectedness of these chords while their EEG waveforms were recorded. In comparison to the regular endings, irregular endings elicited an ERAN, an N5, and a late positive component in controls but not in amusics, indicating that amusics were impaired in processing local syntactic dependencies. In Experiment 2, we manipulated the half cadence of the harmonic sequences to either adhere to or violate long-distance syntactic dependencies. In response to irregular harmonic sequences, an ERAN-like component and an N5 were elicited in controls but not in amusics, suggesting that amusics were impaired in processing long-distance syntactic dependencies. Furthermore, for controls, the neural processing of local and long-distance syntactic dependencies was correlated at the later integration stage but not at the early detection stage. These findings indicate that amusia is associated with impairment in the detection and integration of local and long-distance syntactic violations. The implications of these findings in terms of hierarchical music-syntactic processing are discussed.
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Affiliation(s)
- Linshu Zhou
- Music College, Shanghai Normal University, Shanghai, China
| | - Fang Liu
- School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences, University of Reading, Reading, UK
| | - Jun Jiang
- Music College, Shanghai Normal University, Shanghai, China
| | - Hanyuan Jiang
- Faculty of Humanities and Arts, Macau University of Science and Technology, Macau, China
| | - Cunmei Jiang
- Music College, Shanghai Normal University, Shanghai, China
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8
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Simple arithmetic: electrophysiological evidence of coactivation and selection of arithmetic facts. Exp Brain Res 2016; 234:3305-3319. [DOI: 10.1007/s00221-016-4728-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/16/2016] [Accepted: 07/12/2016] [Indexed: 10/21/2022]
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9
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Nam Y, Hong U. Local and global semantic integration in an argument structure: ERP evidence from Korean. Brain Res 2016; 1642:590-602. [PMID: 27095512 DOI: 10.1016/j.brainres.2016.04.037] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/26/2015] [Revised: 03/07/2016] [Accepted: 04/15/2016] [Indexed: 10/21/2022]
Abstract
The neural responses of Korean speakers were recorded while they read sentences that included local semantic mismatch between adjectives (A) and nouns (N) or/and global semantic mismatch between object nouns (N) and verbs (V), as well as the corresponding control sentences without any semantic anomalies. In Experiment 1 using verb-final declarative sentences (Nsubject [A-N]object V), the local A-N incongruence yielded an N400 effect at the object noun and a combination of N400 and a late negativity effect at the sentence final verb, whereas the global N-V incongruence yielded a biphasic N400 and P600 ERP pattern at the verb compared with the ERPs of same words in the control sentences respectively; in Experiment 2 using verb-initial object relative clause constructions ([Nsubject _V]rel [A-N]object …..) derived from the materials of Experiment 1, the effect of local incongruence changed notably such that not only an N400 but also an additional P600 effect was observed at the object noun, whereas the effect of the global incongruence remained largely the same (N400 and P600). Our theoretical interpretation of these results specifically focused on the reason for the P600 effects observed across different experiment conditions, which turned out to be attributable to (i) coordination of a semantic conflict, (ii) prediction disconfirmation, or (iii) argument structure processing breakdown.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yunju Nam
- Department of Media and Communication, Konkuk University, Seoul 05029, South Korea
| | - Upyong Hong
- Department of Media and Communication, Konkuk University, Seoul 05029, South Korea.
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10
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Su JJ, Molinaro N, Gillon-Dowens M, Tsai PS, Wu DH, Carreiras M. When "He" Can Also Be "She": An ERP Study of Reflexive Pronoun Resolution in Written Mandarin Chinese. Front Psychol 2016; 7:151. [PMID: 26903939 PMCID: PMC4751802 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00151] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/30/2015] [Accepted: 01/27/2016] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
The gender information in written Chinese third person pronouns is not symmetrically encoded: the character for "he" (, with semantic radical , meaning human) is used as a default referring to every individual, while the character for "she" (, with semantic radical , meaning woman) indicates females only. This critical feature could result in different patterns of processing of gender information in text, but this is an issue that has seldom been addressed in psycholinguistics. In Chinese, the written forms of the reflexive pronouns are composed of a pronoun plus the reflexive "/self" (/himself and /herself). The present study focuses on how such gender specificity interacts with the gender type of an antecedent, whether definitional (proper name) or stereotypical (stereotypical role noun) during reflexive pronoun resolution. In this event-related potential (ERP) study, gender congruity between a reflexive pronoun and its antecedent was studied by manipulating the gender type of antecedents and the gender specificity of reflexive pronouns (default: /himself vs. specific: /herself). Results included a P200 "attention related" congruity effect for /himself and a P600 "integration difficulty" congruity effect for /herself. Reflexive pronoun specificity independently affected the P200 and N400 components. These results highlight the role of /himself as a default applicable to both genders and indicate that only the processing of /herself supports a two-stage model for anaphor resolution. While both reflexive pronouns are evaluated at the bonding stage, the processing of the gender-specific reflexive pronoun is completed in the resolution stage.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jui-Ju Su
- Basque Center on Cognition, Brain, and LanguageSan Sebastián, Spain
| | - Nicola Molinaro
- Basque Center on Cognition, Brain, and LanguageSan Sebastián, Spain
- Ikerbasque, Basque Foundation for ScienceBilbao, Spain
| | - Margaret Gillon-Dowens
- Neuroscience of Language Laboratory, The University of Nottingham Ningbo ChinaNingbo, China
| | - Pei-Shu Tsai
- Graduate Institute of Translation and Interpretation, National Changhua University of EducationChanghua, Taiwan
| | - Denise H. Wu
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, National Central UniversityTaoyuan, Taiwan
- Joint Research Center for Language and Human Complexity, The Chinese University of Hong KongHong Kong, Hong Kong
| | - Manuel Carreiras
- Basque Center on Cognition, Brain, and LanguageSan Sebastián, Spain
- Ikerbasque, Basque Foundation for ScienceBilbao, Spain
- Department of Philology, University of Basque CountrySan Sebastián, Spain
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11
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Wu Y, Yang X, Yang Y. Eye Movement Evidence for Hierarchy Effects on Memory Representation of Discourses. PLoS One 2016; 11:e0147313. [PMID: 26789002 PMCID: PMC4720401 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0147313] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/07/2015] [Accepted: 12/31/2015] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
In this study, we applied the text-change paradigm to investigate whether and how discourse hierarchy affected the memory representation of a discourse. Three kinds of three-sentence discourses were constructed. In the hierarchy-high condition and the hierarchy-low condition, the three sentences of the discourses were hierarchically organized and the last sentence of each discourse was located at the high level and the low level of the discourse hierarchy, respectively. In the linear condition, the three sentences of the discourses were linearly organized. Critical words were always located at the last sentence of the discourses. These discourses were successively presented twice and the critical words were changed to semantically related words in the second presentation. The results showed that during the early processing stage, the critical words were read for longer times when they were changed in the hierarchy-high and the linear conditions, but not in the hierarchy-low condition. During the late processing stage, the changed-critical words were again found to induce longer reading times only when they were in the hierarchy-high condition. These results suggest that words in a discourse have better memory representation when they are located at the higher rather than at the lower level of the discourse hierarchy. Global discourse hierarchy is established as an important factor in constructing the mental representation of a discourse.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yingying Wu
- Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
- University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
| | - Xiaohong Yang
- Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
- * E-mail: (XY); (YY)
| | - Yufang Yang
- Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
- * E-mail: (XY); (YY)
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12
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Yang X, Chen S, Chen X, Yang Y. How Distance Affects Semantic Integration in Discourse: Evidence from Event-Related Potentials. PLoS One 2015; 10:e0142967. [PMID: 26569606 PMCID: PMC4646638 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0142967] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/21/2014] [Accepted: 10/29/2015] [Indexed: 11/19/2022] Open
Abstract
Event-related potentials were used to investigate whether semantic integration in discourse is influenced by the number of intervening sentences between the endpoints of integration. Readers read discourses in which the last sentence contained a critical word that was either congruent or incongruent with the information introduced in the first sentence. Furthermore, for the short discourses, the first and last sentence were intervened by only one sentence while for the long discourses, they were intervened by three sentences. We found that the incongruent words elicited an N400 effect for both the short and long discourses. However, a P600 effect was only observed for the long discourses, but not for the short ones. These results suggest that although readers can successfully integrate upcoming words into the existing discourse representation, the effort required for this integration process is modulated by the number of intervening sentences. Thus, discourse distance as measured by the number of intervening sentences should be taken as an important factor for semantic integration in discourse.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xiaohong Yang
- Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
- Jiangsu Collaborative Innovation Center for Language Ability, Jiangsu Normal University, Xuzhou, China
- * E-mail: (XY); (YY)
| | - Shuang Chen
- Department of Psychology, Zhejiang Normal University, Jinhua, China
| | - Xuhai Chen
- School of Psychology, Shannxi Normal University, Xi’an, China
| | - Yufang Yang
- Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
- Jiangsu Collaborative Innovation Center for Language Ability, Jiangsu Normal University, Xuzhou, China
- * E-mail: (XY); (YY)
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13
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Semantic Processing Persists despite Anomalous Syntactic Category: ERP Evidence from Chinese Passive Sentences. PLoS One 2015; 10:e0131936. [PMID: 26125621 PMCID: PMC4488374 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0131936] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/08/2014] [Accepted: 06/08/2015] [Indexed: 11/25/2022] Open
Abstract
The syntax-first model and the parallel/interactive models make different predictions regarding whether syntactic category processing has a temporal and functional primacy over semantic processing. To further resolve this issue, an event-related potential experiment was conducted on 24 Chinese speakers reading Chinese passive sentences with the passive marker BEI (NP1 + BEI + NP2 + Verb). This construction was selected because it is the most-commonly used Chinese passive and very much resembles German passives, upon which the syntax-first hypothesis was primarily based. We manipulated semantic consistency (consistent vs. inconsistent) and syntactic category (noun vs. verb) of the critical verb, yielding four conditions: CORRECT (correct sentences), SEMANTIC (semantic anomaly), SYNTACTIC (syntactic category anomaly), and COMBINED (combined anomalies). Results showed both N400 and P600 effects for sentences with semantic anomaly, with syntactic category anomaly, or with combined anomalies. Converging with recent findings of Chinese ERP studies on various constructions, our study provides further evidence that syntactic category processing does not precede semantic processing in reading Chinese.
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14
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Abstract
A coherent discourse exhibits certain structures in that subunits of discourses are related to one another in various ways and in that subunits that contribute to the same discourse purpose are joined to create a larger unit so as to produce an effect on the reader. To date, this crucial aspect of discourse has been largely neglected in the psycholinguistic literature. In two experiments, we examined whether semantic integration in discourse context was influenced by the difference of discourse structure. Readers read discourses in which the last sentence was locally congruent but either semantically congruent or incongruent when interpreted with the preceding sentence. Furthermore, the last sentence was either in the same discourse unit or not in the same discourse unit as the preceding sentence, depending on whether they shared the same discourse purpose. Results from self-paced reading (Experiment 1) and eye tracking (Experiment 2) showed that discourse-incongruous words were read longer than discourse-congruous words only when the critical sentence and the preceding sentence were in the same discourse unit, but not when they belonged to different discourse units. These results establish discourse structure as a new factor in semantic integration and suggest that discourse effects depend both on the content of what is being said and on the way that the contents are organized.
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15
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Yang X, Chen X, Chen S, Xu X, Yang Y. Topic structure affects semantic integration: evidence from event-related potentials. PLoS One 2013; 8:e79734. [PMID: 24348994 PMCID: PMC3857846 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0079734] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/03/2013] [Accepted: 10/03/2013] [Indexed: 11/19/2022] Open
Abstract
This study investigated whether semantic integration in discourse context could be influenced by topic structure using event-related brain potentials. Participants read discourses in which the last sentence contained a critical word that was either congruent or incongruent with the topic established in the first sentence. The intervening sentences between the first and the last sentence of the discourse either maintained or shifted the original topic. Results showed that incongruent words in topic-maintained discourses elicited an N400 effect that was broadly distributed over the scalp while those in topic-shifted discourses elicited an N400 effect that was lateralized to the right hemisphere and localized over central and posterior areas. Moreover, a late positivity effect was only elicited by incongruent words in topic-shifted discourses, but not in topic-maintained discourses. This suggests an important role for discourse structure in semantic integration, such that compared with topic-maintained discourses, the complexity of discourse structure in topic-shifted condition reduces the initial stage of semantic integration and enhances the later stage in which a mental representation is updated.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xiaohong Yang
- Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
| | - Xuhai Chen
- School of Psychology, Shannxi Normal University, Xi'an, China
| | - Shuang Chen
- Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
| | - Xiaoying Xu
- School of Chinese Language and Literature, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
| | - Yufang Yang
- Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
- * E-mail:
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16
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Jiang X, Li Y, Zhou X. Is it over-respectful or disrespectful? Differential patterns of brain activity in perceiving pragmatic violation of social status information during utterance comprehension. Neuropsychologia 2013; 51:2210-23. [PMID: 23916511 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2013.07.021] [Citation(s) in RCA: 64] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/29/2012] [Revised: 07/19/2013] [Accepted: 07/24/2013] [Indexed: 11/25/2022]
Abstract
A critical issue in the study of language communication is how extra-linguistic information, such as the social status of the communicators, is taken into account by the online comprehension system. In Mandarin Chinese, the second-person pronoun (you/your) can be in a respectful form (nin/nin-de) when the addressee is of higher status than the speaker or in a less respectful form (ni/ni-de) when the addressee is of equal or lower status. We conducted an event-related potential (ERP) study to investigate how social status information affects pronoun resolution during utterance comprehension. Participants read simple conversational scenarios for comprehension, with each scenario including a context describing a speaker and an addressee and a directly-quoted utterance beginning with the second-person pronoun. The relative status between the speaker and the addressee was varied, creating conditions in which the second-person pronoun was either consistent or inconsistent with the relationship between conversants, or in which the two conversants were of equal status. ERP results showed that, compared with the status-consistent and status-equal conditions, the status-inconsistent condition elicited an anterior N400-like effect on nin-de (over-respectful) and a broadly distributed N400 on ni-de (disrespectful). In a later time window, both the status-reversed and the status-equal conditions elicited a sustained positivity effect on nin-de and a sustained negativity effect on ni-de. These findings suggest that the comprehender builds up expectance towards the upcoming pronoun based on the perceived social status of conversants. While the inconsistent pronoun causes semantic integration difficulty in an earlier stage of processing, the strategy to resolve the inconsistency and the corresponding brain activity vary according to the pragmatic implications of the pronoun.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xiaoming Jiang
- Center for Brain and Cognitive Sciences and Department of Psychology, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China
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Jiang X, Li Y, Zhou X. Even a rich man can afford that expensive house: ERP responses to construction-based pragmatic constraints during sentence comprehension. Neuropsychologia 2013; 51:1857-66. [DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2013.06.009] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/06/2013] [Revised: 05/29/2013] [Accepted: 06/10/2013] [Indexed: 10/26/2022]
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18
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Xu X, Jiang X, Zhou X. Processing biological gender and number information during Chinese pronoun resolution: ERP evidence for functional differentiation. Brain Cogn 2012; 81:223-36. [PMID: 23262177 DOI: 10.1016/j.bandc.2012.11.002] [Citation(s) in RCA: 20] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/26/2012] [Revised: 11/03/2012] [Accepted: 11/05/2012] [Indexed: 11/18/2022]
Abstract
There have been a number of behavioral and neural studies on the processing of syntactic gender and number agreement information, marked by different morpho-syntactic features during sentence comprehension. By using the event-related potential (ERP) technique, the present study investigated whether the processing of semantic gender information and the processing of notional number information can be differentiated and to what extent they might interact during Chinese pronoun resolution. The pronoun (with singular form in Experiment 1 and with plural form in Experiment 2) in a sentence matched its antecedent or mismatched it with respect to either biological gender or notional number or both. While the number mismatch elicited a P600 effect starting from 550ms (for singular pronoun) or 400ms (for plural pronoun) post-onset of the pronoun, the gender mismatch elicited an earlier (for singular) and larger (for both singular and plural) P600 effect. More importantly, the double mismatch produced a P600 effect identical to the effect elicited by the single gender mismatch. These results demonstrate that biological gender information and notional number information are processed differentially and have different processing priorities during Chinese pronoun resolution.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xiaodong Xu
- Research Center for Learning Science and Key Laboratory of Child Development and Learning Science (Ministry of Education), Southeast University, Nanjing 210096, China
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19
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Chou TL, Lee SH, Hung SM, Chen HC. The role of inferior frontal gyrus in processing Chinese classifiers. Neuropsychologia 2012; 50:1408-15. [DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2012.02.025] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/09/2011] [Revised: 12/19/2011] [Accepted: 02/24/2012] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
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20
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Ventral premotor cortex lesions disrupt learning of sequential grammatical structures. Cortex 2012; 48:664-73. [DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2011.02.013] [Citation(s) in RCA: 21] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/11/2010] [Revised: 11/16/2010] [Accepted: 02/14/2011] [Indexed: 11/24/2022]
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21
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Zhang Y, Jiang X, Saalbach H, Zhou X. Multiple constraints on semantic integration in a hierarchical structure: ERP evidence from German. Brain Res 2011; 1410:89-100. [PMID: 21803335 DOI: 10.1016/j.brainres.2011.06.061] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/08/2010] [Revised: 06/27/2011] [Accepted: 06/27/2011] [Indexed: 11/17/2022]
Abstract
A recent ERP study on Chinese demonstrated dissociable neural responses to semantic integration processes at different levels of syntactic hierarchy (Zhou et al., 2010). However, it is unclear whether such findings are restricted to a non-case marked language that relies heavily on word order and semantic information for the construction of sentence representation. This study aimed to further investigate, in a case-marked language, how semantic processes in a hierarchical structure take place during sentence reading. We used German sentences with the structure "subject noun+verb+article/determiner+adjective+object noun+prepositional phrase", in which the object noun was constrained either at the lower level by the adjective or at the higher level by the verb, and manipulated the semantic congruency between the adjective and the object noun and/or between the verb and the object noun. EEGs were recorded while participants read sentences and judged for their semantic acceptability. Compared with correct sentences, a biphasic pattern of an N400 effect followed by a late positivity effect was observed on the object noun for sentences with either lower- or higher-level mismatch or with double mismatches. Both the N400 effect and the late positivity (P600) effect were larger for the double mismatch condition than for either of the single mismatch conditions. These findings demonstrate cross-language mechanisms for processing multiple semantic constraints at different levels of syntactic hierarchy during sentence comprehension.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yang Zhang
- Center for Brain and Cognitive Sciences and Department of Psychology, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China
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22
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Gender and number processing in Chinese learners of Spanish - evidence from Event Related Potentials. Neuropsychologia 2011; 49:1651-9. [PMID: 21349278 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2011.02.034] [Citation(s) in RCA: 76] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/02/2010] [Revised: 02/11/2011] [Accepted: 02/16/2011] [Indexed: 11/21/2022]
Abstract
Traditionally, age of acquisition (AoA) has been considered the single most important factor in second language (L2) acquisition and processing, particularly in the area of syntax processing. However, there is now growing evidence of the importance of other factors, such as the level of proficiency attained and the degree of overlap or similarity between the first language (L1) and L2 structures and possibility of transfer of features and/or processing routines. However, the relative importance of these factors and the nature of L1-L2 transfer are still unclear. To shed light on these issues, we recorded the electrical brain activity of a group of Chinese proficient late learners of Spanish, using the Event Related Potentials technique, while they read Spanish sentences containing violations of number and grammatical gender agreement (adjective-noun agreement and article-noun agreement). Unlike Spanish, Mandarin Chinese is an isolating language in which morphosyntactic features such as gender and number are not computed and so the ERP results from this group can help to clarify the role of L1-L2 transfer in morpho-syntax processing routines. The results included P600 effects for both gender and number agreement violations, with no differences between these disagreement conditions. These results are taken to support second language acquisition models which stress the roles of proficiency and L1-L2 transfer in L2 syntax processing.
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Electroencephalogram oscillations differentiate semantic and prosodic processes during sentence reading. Neuroscience 2010; 169:654-64. [PMID: 20580785 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroscience.2010.05.032] [Citation(s) in RCA: 38] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/30/2009] [Revised: 05/13/2010] [Accepted: 05/13/2010] [Indexed: 11/22/2022]
Abstract
How prosodic information is processed at the neural level during silent sentence reading is an unsolved issue. In this study, we investigate whether and how the processing of prosodic constraints can be distinguished from the processing of semantic constraints by measuring changes in event-related electroencephalogram (EEG) power. We visually presented Chinese sentences containing verb-noun combinations that were semantically congruent or incongruent and that had normal or abnormal rhythmic patterns and asked participants to judge whether the sentences were semantically and rhythmically acceptable. In Chinese, the rhythmic pattern refers to the combination of words with different syllable lengths. While the [1+1] pattern is normal for a verb-noun combination, the [2+1] pattern is abnormal. With the critical nouns, we found that the violation of semantic constraints was associated with the low beta (16-20 Hz) decrease in the early window (0-200 ms post onset) and the alpha (10-15 Hz) and low beta decrease in the later window (400-657 ms) while the processing of the abnormal rhythmic pattern was associated with the theta (4-6 Hz) and the alpha increase in the early window and the alpha and upper beta (20-24 Hz) decrease in the later window. These findings suggest that although the processing of semantic constraints and the processing of rhythmic pattern may partially share neuro-cognitive processes, as reflected by the similar decreases in alpha band power, they can nevertheless be differentiated in EEG responses during sentence reading.
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Zhou X, Jiang X, Ye Z, Zhang Y, Lou K, Zhan W. Semantic integration processes at different levels of syntactic hierarchy during sentence comprehension: An ERP study. Neuropsychologia 2010; 48:1551-62. [DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2010.02.001] [Citation(s) in RCA: 59] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/25/2009] [Revised: 12/06/2009] [Accepted: 02/01/2010] [Indexed: 11/26/2022]
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25
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Li X, Zhou X. Who is ziji? ERP responses to the Chinese reflexive pronoun during sentence comprehension. Brain Res 2010; 1331:96-104. [PMID: 20307507 DOI: 10.1016/j.brainres.2010.03.050] [Citation(s) in RCA: 30] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/21/2010] [Revised: 03/11/2010] [Accepted: 03/13/2010] [Indexed: 11/18/2022]
Abstract
The Principle A of Chomsky's (1981) Binding Theory requires the reflexive pronoun in a sentence to be bound to its antecedent within its governing category. However, in Chinese sentences with a common structure "P-NP(1)+VP(1)+P-NP(2)+VP(2)+ziji", in which the P-NP stands for personal name and the reflexive ziji (standing for myself, himself, herself, yourself, ourselves etc., depending on context) is at the object position, ziji can refer to either the local subject (P-NP(2), local reference) or the matrix or main subject (P-NP(1), long-distance reference) or both (ambiguous reference), depending on properties of VP(2). This study investigates whether this violation of Principle A comes with processing costs during sentence comprehension. In an event-related potential (ERP) experiment we found that, as compared with the local reference condition, ERP responses to ziji were significantly more positive in the long-distance reference condition. This pattern appeared on both P300 and P600. It is suggested that linking the reflexive with a distant, rather than a local, antecedent during sentence comprehension requires more processing resources. While the P300 effect may reflect the detection of incongruence between the mental representation based on Principle A and the representation based on the processing of local verb, the P600 effect may be associated with a second-pass integration process that links the reflexive with the matrix subject.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xiaoqian Li
- Center for Brain and Cognitive Sciences and Department of Psychology, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China
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26
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Ye Z, Zhou X. Conflict control during sentence comprehension: fMRI evidence. Neuroimage 2009; 48:280-90. [DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2009.06.032] [Citation(s) in RCA: 105] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/17/2009] [Revised: 06/02/2009] [Accepted: 06/10/2009] [Indexed: 11/26/2022] Open
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27
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