title: Revisiting the incremental effects of context on word processing: Evidence from single-word event-related brain potentials.
abstract: The amplitude of the N400-an event-related potential (ERP) component linked to meaning processing and initial access to semantic memory-is inversely related to the incremental buildup of semantic context over the course of a sentence. We revisited the nature and scope of this incremental context effect, adopting a word-level linear mixed-effects modeling approach, with the goal of probing the continuous and incremental effects of semantic and syntactic context on multiple aspects of lexical processing during sentence comprehension (i.e., effects of word frequency and orthographic neighborhood). First, we replicated the classic word-position effect at the single-word level: Open-class words showed reductions in N400 amplitude with increasing word position in semantically congruent sentences only. Importantly, we found that accruing sentence context had separable influences on the effects of frequency and neighborhood on the N400. Word frequency effects were reduced with accumulating semantic context. However, orthographic neighborhood was unaffected by accumulating context, showing robust effects on the N400 across all words, even within congruent sentences. Additionally, we found that N400 amplitudes to closed-class words were reduced with incrementally constraining syntactic context in sentences that provided only syntactic constraints. Taken together, our findings indicate that modeling word-level variability in ERPs reveals mechanisms by which different sources of information simultaneously contribute to the unfolding neural dynamics of comprehension.
authors: Department of Psychology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois, USA.|The Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois, USA.
authors: Brennan R
authors: BR
authors: Payne
authors: Graduate Institute of Linguistics, Department of Psychology, Graduate Institute of Brain and Mind Sciences, and Neurobiology and Cognitive Neuroscience Center National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan.
authors: Chia-Lin
authors: CL
authors: Lee
authors: Department of Psychology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois, USA.|The Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois, USA.|The Neuroscience Program, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois, USA.
authors: Kara D
authors: KD
authors: Federmeier
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D032882:Comprehension / Q000502:physiology*; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005071:Evoked Potentials / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008297:Male; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D011932:Reading; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Event-related potentials (ERPs); Lexical processing; Linear mixed-effects model; N400; Sentence comprehension