Event-related potential indicators of text integration across sentence boundaries.
An event-related potentials (ERPs) study examined word-to-text integration processes across sentence boundaries. In a two-sentence passage, the accessibility of a referent for the first content word of the second sentence (the target word) was varied by the wording of the first sentence in one of the following ways: lexically (explicitly using a form of the target word); conceptually (using a paraphrase of the target word), and situationally (encouraging an inference concerning the referent of the target word). A baseline condition had no coreference between the two sentences. ERP results on the target word indicated multiple effects related to word identification and word-to-referent mapping processes. Both the explicit and paraphrase conditions, but not the inference condition, showed a reduced N400 relative to the baseline condition, consistent with immediate integration by lexico-semantic processes. A 300-ms effect (P300) was found in the paraphrase condition. The results were consistent with an immediate integration hypothesis and furthermore differentiated a lexical (N200), a conceptual (P300), and a situational (N400) component for this integration. The conceptual basis appears not to extend to predictive inferences.
Yang
Chin Lung
CL
Learning Research and Development Center, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15260, USA. cyang@pitt.edu
Perfetti
Charles A
CA
Schmalhofer
Franz
F
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology; D001931:Brain Mapping / Q000295:instrumentation; D003071:Cognition; D005071:Evoked Potentials; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008037:Linguistics / Q000379:methods; D008297:Male; D014825:Vocabulary