title: A predictive coding framework for rapid neural dynamics during sentence-level language comprehension.
abstract: There is a growing literature investigating the relationship between oscillatory neural dynamics measured using electroencephalography (EEG) and/or magnetoencephalography (MEG), and sentence-level language comprehension. Recent proposals have suggested a strong link between predictive coding accounts of the hierarchical flow of information in the brain, and oscillatory neural dynamics in the beta and gamma frequency ranges. We propose that findings relating beta and gamma oscillations to sentence-level language comprehension might be unified under such a predictive coding account. Our suggestion is that oscillatory activity in the beta frequency range may reflect both the active maintenance of the current network configuration responsible for representing the sentence-level meaning under construction, and the top-down propagation of predictions to hierarchically lower processing levels based on that representation. In addition, we suggest that oscillatory activity in the low and middle gamma range reflect the matching of top-down predictions with bottom-up linguistic input, while evoked high gamma might reflect the propagation of bottom-up prediction errors to higher levels of the processing hierarchy. We also discuss some of the implications of this predictive coding framework, and we outline ideas for how these might be tested experimentally.
authors.affiliation: Neurobiology of Language Department, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, The Netherlands; Radboud University, Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Center for Cognitive Neuroimaging, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Ashley G
authors.initials: AG
authors.lastname: Lewis
authors.affiliation: Neurobiology of Language Department, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, The Netherlands; Academy for Leisure, NHTV University of Applied Sciences, Breda, The Netherlands. Electronic address: bastiaansen4.m@nhtv.nl.
authors.forename: Marcel
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bastiaansen
mesh_terms: D059031:Anticipation, Psychological / Q000502:physiology*; D001611:Beta Rhythm; D032882:Comprehension / Q000502:physiology*; D004569:Electroencephalography; D065818:Gamma Rhythm; D006801:Humans; D009415:Nerve Net / Q000502:physiology; D013067:Speech Perception / Q000502:physiology
keywords: Beta; Gamma; Language comprehension; Neural oscillations; Predictive coding