title: Predictability, plausibility, and two late ERP positivities during written sentence comprehension.
abstract: Van Petten and Luka's (2012, International Journal of Psychophysiology, 83(2), 176-190) literature survey of late positive ERP components elicited by more or less predictable words during sentence processing led them to propose two topographically and functionally distinct positivities: a parietal one associated with semantically incongruent words related to semantic reanalysis and a frontal one with unknown significance associated with congruent but lexically unpredicted words. With the goal of testing this hypothesis within a single set of experimental materials and participants, we report results from two ERP studies: Experiment 1, a post-hoc analysis of a dataset that varied on dimensions of both cloze probability (predictability) and plausibility, and Experiment 2, a follow-up study in which these factors were manipulated in a controlled fashion. In both studies, we observed distinct post-N400 positivities: a more anterior one to plausible, but not anomalous, low cloze probability sentence medial words, and a more posterior one to semantically anomalous sentence continuations. Taken together with an observed canonical cloze-modulated N400, these dual positivities indicate a dissociation between brain processes relating to written words׳ sentential predictability versus plausibility, clearly an important distinction for any viable neural or psycholinguistic model of written sentence processing.
authors: University of California, San Diego (UCSD) Department of Cognitive Science, USA. Electronic address: kadelong@cogsci.ucsd.edu.
authors: Katherine A
authors: KA
authors: DeLong
authors: University of Münster, Germany. Electronic address: l.quante@uni-muenster.de.
authors: Laura
authors: L
authors: Quante
authors: University of California, San Diego (UCSD) Department of Cognitive Science, USA; UCSD Center for Research in Language, USA; UCSD Department of Neurosciences, USA; UCSD Kavli Institute for Brain and Mind, USA. Electronic address: kutas@cogsci.ucsd.edu.
authors: Marta
authors: M
authors: Kutas
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D059031:Anticipation, Psychological / Q000502:physiology*; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D032882:Comprehension / Q000502:physiology*; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005071:Evoked Potentials; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D011932:Reading; D012660:Semantics; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: ERP; Language; N400; P600; Plausibility; Prediction; Sentence comprehension