About Edible Restaurants: Conflicts between Syntax and Semantics as Revealed by ERPs

Abstract

In order to investigate conflicts between semantics and syntax, we recorded ERPs, while participants read Dutch sentences. Sentences containing conflicts between syntax and semantics (Fred eats in asandwich…/Fred eats arestaurant…) elicited an N400. These results show that conflicts between syntax and semantics not necessarily lead to P600 effects and are in line with the processing competition account. According to this parallel account the syntactic and semantic processing streams are fully interactive and information from one level can influence the processing at another level. The relative strength of the cues of the processing streams determines which level is affected most strongly by the conflict. The processing competition account maintains the distinction between the N400 as index for semantic processing and the P600 as index for structural processing.

Keywords: ERPs; conflict; language; semantics; sentence processing; syntax.

Figure 1

(A) Grand-average waveforms for ERPs elicited by the semantic anomalies (dotted, blue line) and their correct controls (solid, black line) for electrode Pz and the scalp distribution of the N400 effect elicited by the semantic manipulation between 300 and 500 ms after critical word onset. (In this and all following figures the waveforms are time-locked to the onset of the critical word (0 ms) and negative voltage is plotted upward. Furthermore, an 8 Hz low-pass filter has been applied for illustrative purposes. The gray block indicates the time window used for analysis.) (B) Grand-average waveforms for ERPs elicited by the agreement violations between the subject and the verb (dotted, red line) and their correct controls (solid, black line) for electrode Pz and the scalp distribution of the P600 effect elicited by the agreement violations between 500 and 900 ms after critical word onset.

Figure 2

(A) Grand-average waveforms for ERPs elicited by the thematic role violations (dotted, blue line) and the baseline condition (solid, black line) for electrodes CP1, P3, and Pz. (B) The scalp topography of the mean difference between the thematic role violations and the baseline condition within the N400 time window (between 300 and 500 ms after critical word onset).

Figure 3

Comparison of the effect of the thematic role and semantic manipulation: the grand-average waveforms at electrode Pz and the scalp topography with adjusted scales.

Figure 4

(A) Mean contextual constraint values for the correct control sentences of the thematic role violations and the semantic violations. (B) Correlations between contextual constraint and N400 effect per electrode and their topographical distribution. (C) Scatter diagram and best-fitting regression line of contextual constraint and N400 effect values per thematic role and semantic item at electrode Pz.