Abstract
The present study investigated oscillatory brain dynamics during self-paced sentence-level processing. Participants read fully correct sentences, sentences containing a semantic violation and “sentences” in which the order of the words was randomized. At the target word level, fixations on semantically unrelated words elicited a lower-beta band (13–18 Hz) desynchronization. At the sentence level, gamma power (31–55 Hz) increased linearly for syntactically correct sentences, but not when the order of the words was randomized. In the 300–900 ms time window after sentence onsets, theta power (4–7 Hz) was greater for syntactically correct sentences as compared to sentences where no syntactic structure was preserved (random words condition). We interpret our results as conforming with a recently formulated predictive-coding framework for oscillatory neural dynamics during sentence-level language comprehension. Additionally, we discuss how our results relate to previous findings with serial visual presentation vs. self-paced reading.
Highlights
Recent accounts of visual word recognition describe the reading process as guided by an interplay between bottom-up incoming information and forward inferences
Fixation-Related Spectral Perturbation Time-locked to the Target Word
We used an adaptation of Bastiaansen et al.’s (2010) paradigm and asked participants to silently read semantically correct sentences, sentences containing a semantically unrelated word (: target word) and ‘‘sentences’’ in which the order of the words was randomized
Summary
Recent accounts of visual word recognition describe the reading process as guided by an interplay between bottom-up incoming information and forward inferences (or predictions; Hagoort, 2005, 2013, 2014; Price and Devlin, 2011). Recent findings indicate that fast readers employ highly efficient reading strategies by complementing bottom-up incoming information with predictions concerning probable upcoming words (DeLong et al, 2005; Hawelka et al, 2015). Sentence level predictions could be inferred based on previous knowledge or on context-based semantic information (Altmann and Kamide, 1999; Kamide et al, 2003). Further support for context based predictions stems from electroencephalographical (EEG) measures of the reading process. Event related brain potentials (ERPs), such as the well documented N400 ERP component
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