Abstract
It is well-known that, within ERP paradigms of sentence processing, semantically anomalous words elicit N400 effects. Less clear, however, is what happens after the N400. In some cases N400 effects are followed by Late Positive Complexes (LPC), whereas in other cases such effects are lacking. We investigated several factors which could affect the LPC, such as contextual constraint, inter-individual variation, and working memory. Seventy-two participants read sentences containing a semantic manipulation (Whipped cream tastes sweet/anxious and creamy). Neither contextual constraint nor working memory correlated with the LPC. Inter-individual variation played a substantial role in the elicitation of the LPC with about half of the participants showing a negative response and the other half showing an LPC. This individual variation correlated with a syntactic ERP as well as an alternative semantic manipulation. In conclusion, our results show that inter-individual variation plays a large role in the elicitation of the LPC and this may account for the diversity in LPC findings in language research.
Highlights
Since its discovery (Kutas and Hillyard, 1980), the N400 has proven to be a reliable and consistent measure in the processing of meaning
Even though the N400 effect is widespread, the topographical distribution shows that the effect was strongest over the posterior electrodes, which is common for N400 effects (Kutas and Van Petten, 1994)
A substantial dataset, consisting of the Event-Related brain Potentials (ERPs) responses of 72 participants to a semantic manipulation (Whipped cream tastes sweet/anxious and creamy.), enabled us to examine potential factors involved in the elicitation of the Late Positive Complex (LPC), such as contextual constraint (Federmeier et al, 2007; DeLong et al, 2011), individual variation (Osterhout et al, 1997; Nieuwland and Van Berkum, 2008), and working memory
Summary
Since its discovery (Kutas and Hillyard, 1980), the N400 has proven to be a reliable and consistent measure in the processing of meaning. Some studies report that the N400 is followed by a late positivity or Late Positive Complex (LPC) with a broad, posterior (Münte et al, 1998; Severens and Hartsuiker, 2009; Van de Meerendonk et al, 2010; Sanford et al, 2011; Szewczyk and Schriefers, 2011) or, sometimes, frontal distribution (Federmeier et al, 2007; DeLong et al, 2011; Thornhill and Van Petten, 2012), whereas in other studies such an LPC is lacking (Osterhout and Mobley, 1995; Van den Brink et al, 2006; Van Berkum et al, 2008; Baggio et al, 2010; Stroud and Phillips, 2012; for a review see Van Petten and Luka, 2012) It is not clear what causes this inconsistency in findings. We investigated a number of possible triggers of LPCs in two studies that did not require a response from the participant
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