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Effect of word association on linguistic event-related potentials in moderately to mildly constraining sentences.

ABSTRACT: The processing of word associations in sentence context depends on several factors. EEG studies have shown that when the expectation of the upcoming word is high (high semantic constraint), the within-sentence word association plays a negligible role, whereas in the opposite case, when there is no expectation (as in pseudo-sentences), the role of word association becomes more pronounced. However, what happens when the expectations are not high (mild to moderate semantic constraint) is not yet clear. By adopting a cross-factorial design, crossing sentence congruity with within-sentence word association, our EEG recordings show that association comes into play during semantic processing of the word only when the sentence is meaningless. We also performed an exploratory source localization analysis of our EEG recordings to chart the brain regions putatively implicated in processing the said factors and showed its complementarity to EEG temporal analysis. This study furthers our knowledge on sentence processing and the brain networks involved in it.

SUBMITTER: Khachatryan E

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5940757 | biostudies-literature | 2018 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Effect of word association on linguistic event-related potentials in moderately to mildly constraining sentences.

Khachatryan Elvira E Hnazaee Mansoureh Fahimi MF Van Hulle Marc M MM

Scientific reports 20180508 1

The processing of word associations in sentence context depends on several factors. EEG studies have shown that when the expectation of the upcoming word is high (high semantic constraint), the within-sentence word association plays a negligible role, whereas in the opposite case, when there is no expectation (as in pseudo-sentences), the role of word association becomes more pronounced. However, what happens when the expectations are not high (mild to moderate semantic constraint) is not yet cl ...[more]

PMID: 29740165

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Project description:Purpose:This investigation was conducted to determine whether young children with autism spectrum disorders exhibited a canonical neural response to word stimuli and whether putative event-related potential (ERP) measures of word processing were correlated with a concurrent measure of receptive language. Additional exploratory analyses were used to examine whether the magnitude of the association between ERP measures of word processing and receptive language varied as a function of the number of word stimuli the participants reportedly understood. Method:Auditory ERPs were recorded in response to spoken words and nonwords presented with equal probability in 34 children aged 2-5 years with a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder who were in the early stages of language acquisition. Average amplitudes and amplitude differences between word and nonword stimuli within 200-500 ms were examined at left temporal (T3) and parietal (P3) electrode clusters. Receptive vocabulary size and the number of experimental stimuli understood were concurrently measured using the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories. Results:Across the entire participant group, word-nonword amplitude differences were diminished. The average word-nonword amplitude difference at T3 was related to receptive vocabulary only if 5 or more word stimuli were understood. Conclusions:If ERPs are to ever have clinical utility, their construct validity must be established by investigations that confirm their associations with predictably related constructs. These results contribute to accruing evidence, suggesting that a valid measure of auditory word processing can be derived from the left temporal response to words and nonwords. In addition, this measure can be useful even for participants who do not reportedly understand all of the words presented as experimental stimuli, though it will be important for researchers to track familiarity with word stimuli in future investigations. Supplemental Material:https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.5614840.

Project description:Previous research has pointed out that the combination of orthographic and semantic-associative training is a more advantageous strategy for the lexicalization of novel written word-forms than their single orthographic training. However, paradigms used previously involve explicit stimuli categorization (lexical decision), which likely influence word learning. In the present study, we used a more automatic task (silent reading) to determine the advantage of the associative training, by comparing the brain electrical signals elicited in combined (orthographic and semantic) and single (only orthographic) training conditions. In addition, the learning effect (in terms of similar neurophysiological activity between novel and known words) was also tested under a categorization paradigm, enabling determination of the possible influence of the training task in the lexicalization process. Results indicated that novel words repeatedly associated with meaningful cues showed a higher attenuation of N400 responses than those trained in the single orthographic condition, confirming the higher facilitation in the lexico-semantic processing of these stimuli, as a consequence of semantic associations. Moreover, only when the combined training was carried out in the reading task did novel words show similar N400 responses to those elicited by known words, suggesting the achievement of a similar lexical processing to known words. Crucially, when the training is carried out under a demanding task context (lexical decision), known words exhibited positive enhancement within the N400 time window, contributing to maintaining N400 differences with novel trained words and confounding the outcome of the learning. Such deflection-compatible with the modulation of the categorization-related P300 component-suggests that novel word learning could be influenced by the activation of categorization-related processes. Thus, the use of low-demand tasks arises as a more appropriate approach to study novel word learning, enabling the build-up process of mental representations, which probably depends on pure lexical and semantic factors rather than being guided by categorization demands.

Dataset Information

Effect of word association on linguistic event-related potentials in moderately to mildly constraining sentences.

Publications

Effect of word association on linguistic event-related potentials in moderately to mildly constraining sentences.

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