title: Neural dynamics of animacy processing in language comprehension: ERP evidence from the interpretation of classifier-noun combinations.
abstract: An event-related potential experiment was conducted to investigate the temporal neural dynamics of animacy processing in the interpretation of classifier-noun combinations. Participants read sentences that had a non-canonical structure, object noun +subject noun+verb+numeral-classifier+adjective. The object noun and its classifier were either (a) congruent, (b) incongruent, but matching in animacy, or (c) incongruent, mismatching in animacy. An N400 effect was observed for both incongruent conditions, but not for additional mismatch in animacy. When only data from participants who accepted the non-canonical structure were analyzed, the animacy mismatch elicited a P600 but still no N400. These findings suggest that animacy information is not used immediately for semantic integration of nouns and their classifiers, but is used in a later analysis reflected by P600. Thus, the temporal neural dynamics of animacy processing in sentence comprehension may be modulated by the relevance of animacy to thematic interpretation.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China. yxzhang@pku.edu.cn
authors.forename: Yaxu
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Jinlu
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Baoquan
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Min
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D044466:Asian People / Q000523:psychology; D001931:Brain Mapping; D032882:Comprehension / Q000502:physiology; D003463:Cues; D005071:Evoked Potentials / Q000502:physiology*; D005072:Evoked Potentials, Auditory / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008297:Male; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D012660:Semantics; D013067:Speech Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult