Cross-linguistic variation in the neurophysiological response to semantic processing: evidence from anomalies at the borderline of awareness.
The N400 event-related brain potential (ERP) has played a major role in the examination of how the human brain processes meaning. For current theories of the N400, classes of semantic inconsistencies which do not elicit N400 effects have proven particularly influential. Semantic anomalies that are difficult to detect are a case in point ("borderline anomalies", e.g. "After an air crash, where should the survivors be buried?"), engendering a late positive ERP response but no N400 effect in English (Sanford, Leuthold, Bohan, & Sanford, 2011). In three auditory ERP experiments, we demonstrate that this result is subject to cross-linguistic variation. In a German version of Sanford and colleagues' experiment (Experiment 1), detected borderline anomalies elicited both N400 and late positivity effects compared to control stimuli or to missed borderline anomalies. Classic easy-to-detect semantic (non-borderline) anomalies showed the same pattern as in English (N400 plus late positivity). The cross-linguistic difference in the response to borderline anomalies was replicated in two additional studies with a slightly modified task (Experiment 2a: German; Experiment 2b: English), with a reliable LANGUAGE×ANOMALY interaction for the borderline anomalies confirming that the N400 effect is subject to systematic cross-linguistic variation. We argue that this variation results from differences in the language-specific default weighting of top-down and bottom-up information, concluding that N400 amplitude reflects the interaction between the two information sources in the form-to-meaning mapping.
Department of Germanic Linguistics, University of Marburg, Deutschhausstrasse 3, 35032 Marburg, Germany.
Sarah
S
Tune
Department of English and Linguistics, Johannes Gutenberg-University, Mainz, Germany.
Matthias
M
Schlesewsky
Department of Neurology, University of California, Irvine, CA, USA.
Steven L
SL
Small
School of Psychology, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK.
Anthony J
AJ
Sanford
School of Psychology, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK.
Jason
J
Bohan
Department of Germanic Linguistics, University of Marburg, Deutschhausstrasse 3, 35032 Marburg, Germany.
Jona
J
Sassenhagen
Department of Germanic Linguistics, University of Marburg, Deutschhausstrasse 3, 35032 Marburg, Germany. Electronic address: iboke@staff.uni-marburg.de.
Ina
I
Bornkessel-Schlesewsky
D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001364:Awareness / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005071:Evoked Potentials / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008037:Linguistics; D008297:Male; D012660:Semantics; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014175:Translating; D055815:Young Adult
Bidirectional coding account; Borderline anomalies; Bottom-up; Cross-linguistic differences; Language processing; Late positivity; N400; P600; Shallow processing; Top-down