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Is the P600/SPS affected by the richness of semantic content? A linguistic ERP study in Swedish
Author(s) -
ERICSSON EVA,
OLOFSSON JONAS K.,
NORDIN STEVEN,
RUDOLFSSON THOMAS,
SANDSTRÖM GÖREL
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
scandinavian journal of psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.743
H-Index - 72
eISSN - 1467-9450
pISSN - 0036-5564
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9450.2007.00604.x
Subject(s) - p600 , linguistics , sentence , psychology , natural language processing , component (thermodynamics) , syntax , salient , computer science , artificial intelligence , n400 , cognition , event related potential , physics , philosophy , neuroscience , thermodynamics
The study investigated whether the P600/SPS component is sensitive to the richness of semantic content in sentences. ERPs were recorded while 30 native Swedish speakers read sentences, of which half were syntactically correct and half contained a syntactic violation. Both kinds of sentences came in one of three types of descending semantic completeness: semantically coherent sentences, sentences which were incoherent due to violations of selectional restrictions, or sentences of pseudo words, hence void of lexical content. In the semantically coherent sentences a P600/SPS was found for the syntactic violation. A less salient positivity was found for the violation in the semantically incoherent sentences. No P600/SPS was found for the syntactic violation in the pseudo word sentences and no LAN component in any sentence type. The results are interpreted as supporting the hypothesis that the P600/SPS component reflects a semantically based reanalysis process.