title: The P600 as a correlate of ventral attention network reorientation.
abstract: When, during language processing, a reader or listener is confronted with a structurally deviant phrase, this typically elicits a late positive ERP deflection (P600). The P600 is often understood as a correlate of structural analysis. This assumption has informed a number of neurocognitive models of language. However, the P600 strongly resembles the P3, likely a more general electrophysiological correlate of reorientation behaviour supported by noradrenergic input to the ventral attention network/VAN. Some researchers have proposed that the P600 is an instance of the P3, not a distinct component reflecting the analysis of structured inputs. Here, we tested the P600-as-P3 hypothesis by estimating the alignment of the P600 elicited in a visual sentence processing task to simultaneously collected behavioural measures. A similar analysis was undertaken for a P3 elicited in a separate non-linguistic (face detection) task. Since the P3 is usually aligned to reaction time/RT, the same should hold for the P600; a failure to find RT alignment of the P600 would pose a problem for the P600-as-P3 hypothesis. In contrast, RT alignment of the P600 would associate it with the well-established VAN/Locus Coeruleus - Noradrenaline - Network subserving cortical reorientation. We failed to falsify the hypothesis of RT alignment. Secondary measures, while less unambiguous, were more in agreement with the P600-as-P3 hypothesis. We interpret our results as corroborating the hypothesis that the P600 is a P3, in that it shows that the P600 is RT-aligned. This perspective is unpredicted by an account of the P600 as indexing high-level processing.
authors: Department of Germanic Linguistics, University of Marburg, Marburg, Germany; Department of Psychology, University of Frankfurt, Germany. Electronic address: jona.sassenhagen@staff.uni-marburg.de.
authors: Jona
authors: J
authors: Sassenhagen
authors: School of Psychology, Social Work and Social Policy, University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia; Department of Germanic Linguistics, University of Marburg, Marburg, Germany.
authors: Ina
authors: I
authors: Bornkessel-Schlesewsky
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D004569:Electroencephalography; D018913:Event-Related Potentials, P300 / Q000502:physiology*; D005071:Evoked Potentials / Q000502:physiology*; D005145:Face; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008125:Locus Coeruleus / Q000502:physiology; D008297:Male; D009434:Neural Pathways / Q000502:physiology; D009638:Norepinephrine / Q000502:physiology; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011930:Reaction Time; D011932:Reading; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D009638:Norepinephrine
keywords: P3; P600; Sentence processing; Single-trial analysis; Ventral attention network