Information structure influences depth of syntactic processing: event-related potential evidence for the Chomsky illusion.

Lin Wang,Peter Hagoort,Yufang Yang,Marcel Bastiaansen

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0047917

Abstract

Information structure facilitates communication between interlocutors by highlighting relevant information. It has previously been shown that information structure modulates the depth of semantic processing. Here we used event-related potentials to investigate whether information structure can modulate the depth of syntactic processing. In question-answer pairs, subtle (number agreement) or salient (phrase structure) syntactic violations were placed either in focus or out of focus through information structure marking. P600 effects to these violations reflect the depth of syntactic processing. For subtle violations, a P600 effect was observed in the focus condition, but not in the non-focus condition. For salient violations, comparable P600 effects were found in both conditions. These results indicate that information structure can modulate the depth of syntactic processing, but that this effect depends on the salience of the information. When subtle violations are not in focus, they are processed less elaborately. We label this phenomenon the Chomsky illusion.

Highlights

During communication, people tend to organize their utterances so as to highlight the most relevant information
The results showed that the semantic incongruency evoked a significantly larger N400 effect for focused than for nonfocused information, which confirms the role of information structure (IS) in modulating the depth of semantic processing
The P600 effect was different between the focus and nonfocus conditions, as revealed by a marginally significant interaction between Grammaticality and Context (p = .067)

Summary

Introduction

People tend to organize their utterances so as to highlight the most relevant information. This way of linking new and/or important information with previously given information is referred to as information structure (IS) [1]. It divides a sentence into two parts: background and focus (for a review see [2]). In the question-answer-pair Who orders a taxi after the party? The guest orders a taxi after the party, the wh-question (who) inquired about specific information concerning the subject noun of the answer sentences. The constituent of the answer (the word in boldface) corresponding to the wh-word in the question conveys important information and has a focus status, while the other part of the answer refers to information already stated in the question, and forms the background [3]

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion