Context and Complexity in Incremental Sentence Interpretation: An ERP Study on Temporal Quantification

• Published in: Cognitive science Vol. 44; no. 11; pp. e12913 - n/a
• Main Authors: Augurzky, Petra, Hohaus, Vera, Ulrich, Rolf
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Wiley Subscription Services, Inc 01.11.2020
• Subjects: Event-related potentials; Incremental semantic processing; Information processing; Language comprehension; N400; Quantificational complexity; Semantic expectancies; Temporal processing; Language comprehension; N400; Quantificational complexity; Semantic expectancies; Temporal processing; Event-related potentials; Incremental semantic processing
• ISSN: 0364-0213; 1551-6709
• DOI: 10.1111/cogs.12913

The present event‐related potential (ERP) study used picture–sentence verification to investigate the neurolinguistic correlates of the online processing of compositional‐semantic information. To this end, we examined context effects on sentences involving temporal adverbial quantification likeJana war jeden Morgen schwimmen an den Arbeitstagen (“Jana went for a swim every morning during the working week”). We tested whether the conceptual complexity associated with quantifying over time intervals leads to delayed predictions regarding the upcoming words in a sentence. The present study replicated previous results relating to quantification over individuals, which are conceptually less complex than time intervals. Analogous to previous studies, false vs. true sentences elicited an N400 whenever contextual cues did not permit a potential revision of a locally assigned truth value. The present results are compatible with an approach under which contextual cues are immediately considered for predicting how a sentence continues. The fact that the contextual complexity did not lead to processing delays indicates that the processing system quickly s away from the conceptual complexity associated with the linguistic input if such an ion is possible.