Event-related Potential Experiment Research Articles

The time course of normalizing speech variability in vowels

To achieve perceptual constancy, listeners utilize contextual cues to normalize speech variabilities in speakers. The present study tested the time course of this cognitive process with an event-related potential (ERP) experiment. The first neurophysiological evidence of speech normalization is observed in P2 (130–250 ms), which is functionally related to phonetic and phonological processes. Furthermore, the normalization process was found to ease lexical retrieval, as indexed by smaller N400 (350–470 ms) after larger P2. A cross-language vowel perception task was carried out to further specify whether normalization was processed in the phonetic and/or phonological stage(s). It was found that both phonetic and phonological cues in the speech context contributed to vowel normalization. The results suggest that vowel normalization in the speech context can be observed in the P2 time window and largely overlaps with phonetic and phonological processes.

Do all facial emojis communicate emotion? The impact of facial emojis on perceived sender emotion and text processing

Facial emojis can express a variety of positive and negative emotions, and are commonly used in digital, written communication. However, little is known about how emojis impact text processing and how different emoji-text combinations give rise to a sender's mental state. In this study, we investigated how facial emojis with positive valence (= happy emojis) and facial emojis with negative valence (= upset emojis) embedded in emotionally ambiguous/neutral text affect the perceived mental state of the sender using ratings (Experiment 1) and the processing of the text messages using Event-Related Potentials (Experiment 2). We predicted that (1) the same text message with happy and upset emojis would convey different sender mental states, and (2) emoji valence would affect the processing of subsequent text in valence-specific ways. Our Experiment 1 results showed that while texts with upset emojis convey specific sender mental states, texts with happy emojis convey positive emotion more generally, with no further differentiation between emojis. In ERPs (Experiment 2), we found that emojis affect subsequent text processing at N400, and emoji valence affects processing downstream at the second word. We concluded that all facial-emojis impact text processing, but happy and upset emojis carry differential social-emotional salience and impact text processing differently when content becomes available.

Evidence for neural re-use hypothesis from the processing of Chinese emotional words

<p id="p00005">The two main theoretical views of emotional word processing are conflicting. According to standard psycholinguistics, emotions are elicited within the reading network itself after semantic activation. However, neural reuse theories suggest that emotional words can be directly processed by the brain region that is activated in emotional information processing, similar to how emotional images, smell, and faces are processed. This means that emotional effects to words occur before semantics, which benefits human adaptability. The processing of emotional words in phonetic characters supports the view of neural reuse, but the processing of emotional words in ideographic texts has no evidence. An event-related potential experiment and a behavioral experiment were conducted to explore the processing of emotional information while reading at an implicit level. <p id="p00010">A total of 262 Chinese words were selected from the Chinese Affective Stimulus System. Among these words, 128 were disgust-related words, 100 were neutral words, and 34 were transportation-related words. We then selected 35 neutral words, 35 disgust-related words, and 24 transportation-related words that were matched on the basis of valence and arousal. Twenty Chinese college students (10 female) participated in the EEG experiment. They were asked to press the response button using their right index finger when the words they read were related to transportation (Go trials). Otherwise, they should not respond (No-go trials). Another 30 healthy individuals (15 female) participated in the behavioral experiment. However, they were asked to silently read the presented words and press the response button using their right index finger only when a given word was not related to transportation (Go trials). Otherwise, they should not respond (No-go trials). <p id="p00015">The EEG experiment showed that differences between disgust and neutral words appeared as early as 170 ms after the onset of stimulus. No significant effect of emotion was found on P100 (the early ERP component). However, a significant main effect of emotion was found for the early posterior negativity (EPN). Disgust-related words evoked a larger right EPN than neutral words did. A negative going wave reflecting the processing of meaning was found at approximately 400 ms, and source localization indicated a cortical generator of emotion effect near the left anterior insula. The inhibition response to disgust-related words generated greater late positive component than the response to neutral words. Specifically, disgust-related words evoked a much larger P600 amplitude compared with neutral words. Behavioral experiment results showed a significant difference between the reaction time to disgust-related words and neutral words. Participants responded faster to disgust-related words than to neutral words. <p id="p00020">Results indicate that negative emotional words have an advantage in processing over neutral words. Emotional response to negative emotional words occurs before the processing of their semantics. The processing of negative emotional words supports theory of neural reuse. This finding shows that the nervous system is highly flexible and can process information in an appropriate manner according to the needs in an actual situation. Moreover, when processing emotional information, ideographic Chinese emotional words start earlier and activate a wider range of brain regions than phonetic Western emotional words.

Optimizing auditory input for foreign language learners through a verbotonal-based dichotic listening approach

The quality of the physical language signals to which learners are exposed and which result in neurobiological activity leading to perception constitutes a variable that is rarely, if ever, considered in the context of language learning. It deserves some attention. The current study identifies an optimal audio language input signal for Chinese EFL/ESL learners generated by modifying the physical features of language-bearing audio signals. This is achieved by applying the principles of verbotonalism in a dichotic listening context. Low-pass filtered (320 Hz cut-off) and unfiltered speech signals were dichotically and diotically directed to each hemisphere of the brain through the contralateral ear. Temporal and spatial neural signatures for the processing of the signals were detected in a combined event-related potential (ERP) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiment. Results showed that the filtered stimuli in the left ear and unfiltered in the right ear (FL-R) configuration provided optimal auditory language input by actively exploiting left-hemispheric dominance for language processing and right-hemispheric dominance for melodic processing, i.e., each hemisphere was fed the signals that it should be best equipped to process—and it actually did so effectively. In addition, the filtered stimuli in the right ear and unfiltered in the left ear (L-FR) configuration was identified as entirely non-optimal for language learners. Other outcomes included significant load reduction through exposure to both-ear-filtered FL-FR signals as well as the confirmation that non-language signals were recognized by the brain as irrelevant to language and did not trigger any language processing. These various outcomes will necessarily entail further research.

Current trends in electrophysiological research on bilingual language processing

AbstractRecently, much psycholinguistic research has been devoted to examining cognitive mechanisms engaged in language processing in the bilingual context, as this might provide in‐depth insights into how different languages interact with one another as well as how and to what extent language competence affects cognition. At the same time, along with such a growing interest in studying bilingual populations, psycholinguistics as a discipline has been rapidly developing owing to the more and more widespread use of physiological research methods. Particularly, electroencephalography (EEG) has received much scholarly attention, as it can elucidate the exact time course of language processing. The present contribution explores current trends in EEG research on bilingual language processing and discusses how event‐related potential (ERP) studies and their findings have been extended from the monolingual to the bilingual context. To this end, the paper discusses selected ERP experiments into language co‐activation across different modalities, bilingual executive control, electrophysiological correlates of new meaning construction, neural changes accompanying foreign language learning, and the automaticity of emotional responding in bilingual speakers.

Does mobile payment change consumers’ perception during payment process? —An ERP study

Innovative payment methods have been getting worldwide attention. Exploring the mechanisms behind consumers’ purchase behaviors modulated by different payment methods was critical but challenging. In this paper, we proposed a 2 (payment methods: cash payment vs mobile payment) × 2 (price levels of products: high vs low) Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) experiment to study the difference of cash payment and mobile payment on consumers' purchase intention of products in different price level from a neuroscience perspective. Greater P200 amplitude was found in mobile payment condition, which meant that mobile payment captured more early attention resources than cash. Larger N270 amplitude was found in cash payment condition as the participants had to spend more cognitive resources and struggled more when using cash. Moreover, lower N270 amplitude was found in high-price product condition, which indicated that when there were limited cognitive resources, the affective process played a dominating role. Specifically, buying the high-price products with mobile payment, the consumers would experience the pleasure of consumption more rather than the pain of paying. The study offers insights on the cognitive process of consumers when they pay with different methods.

Socially Induced Negative Emotions Elicit Neural Activity in the Mentalizing Network in a Subsequent Inhibitory Task

Despite the growing emphasis on embedding interactive social paradigms in the field of cognitive and affective neuroscience, the impact of socially induced emotions on cognition remains widely unknown. The aim of the present study was to fill this gap by testing whether facial stimuli whose emotional valence was acquired through social learning in an economic trust game may influence cognitive performance in a subsequent stop-signal task. The study was designed as a conceptual replication of previous event-related potential experiments, extending them to more naturalistic settings. We hypothesized that response inhibition to briefly presented faces of negative and positive game partners would be enhanced on the behavioral and neural levels as compared to trials with a neutral player. The results revealed that the trust game was an effective paradigm for the induction of differently valenced emotions towards players; however, behavioral inhibitory performance was comparable in all stop-signal conditions. On the neural level, we found decreased P3 amplitude in negative trials due to significantly stronger activation in the right frontoparietal control network, which is involved in theory-of-mind operations and underlies social abilities in humans, especially memory-guided inference of others’ mental states. Our findings make an important contribution to the cognition–emotion literature by showing that social interactions that take place during an economic game may influence brain activity within the mentalizing network in a subsequent cognitive task.

Perception value of product-service systems: Neural effects of service experience and customer knowledge

Digital trends in product-service system (PSS) development focus on developing win-win solutions for both companies and customers, particularly when considering human behavior issues. It is useful for the PSS provider to know the PSS value creation mechanism when customers are buying and utilizing a PSS, particularly in the service-dominant logic (SDL) and cognitive neuroscience perspective. This study solved the PSS implementation that satisfied the demands of both customers and manufacturers and the value cocreation mechanism during product and service configuration with the impacts of consumer learning and the service experience. The proposed neuroscience methodology is based on an ERP (event-related potential) experiment using PSS stimuli, representing the perception value creation process during customer decision making and the PSS configuration process. The effectiveness of the service experience is more important than customer knowledge during PSS value perception due to positive emotions with pleasant memories for the service experience and the conflicting cognition process of customer learning. The combination of service science and neurology may measure and observe human behavior and psychology through the brain science method and effectively solve the human factors in service science. The findings suggest a more objective and personalized understanding of PSS value perception, particularly the practical requirements of a resulted-oriented PSS and an application-oriented PSS.

Effects of Amateur Musical Experience on Categorical Perception of Lexical Tones by Native Chinese Adults: An ERP Study.

Music impacting on speech processing is vividly evidenced in most reports involving professional musicians, while the question of whether the facilitative effects of music are limited to experts or may extend to amateurs remains to be resolved. Previous research has suggested that analogous to language experience, musicianship also modulates lexical tone perception but the influence of amateur musical experience in adulthood is poorly understood. Furthermore, little is known about how acoustic information and phonological information of lexical tones are processed by amateur musicians. This study aimed to provide neural evidence of cortical plasticity by examining categorical perception of lexical tones in Chinese adults with amateur musical experience relative to the non-musician counterparts. Fifteen adult Chinese amateur musicians and an equal number of non-musicians participated in an event-related potential (ERP) experiment. Their mismatch negativities (MMNs) to lexical tones from Mandarin Tone 2–Tone 4 continuum and non-speech tone analogs were measured. It was hypothesized that amateur musicians would exhibit different MMNs to their non-musician counterparts in processing two aspects of information in lexical tones. Results showed that the MMN mean amplitude evoked by within-category deviants was significantly larger for amateur musicians than non-musicians regardless of speech or non-speech condition. This implies the strengthened processing of acoustic information by adult amateur musicians without the need of focused attention, as the detection of subtle acoustic nuances of pitch was measurably improved. In addition, the MMN peak latency elicited by across-category deviants was significantly shorter than that by within-category deviants for both groups, indicative of the earlier processing of phonological information than acoustic information of lexical tones at the pre-attentive stage. The results mentioned above suggest that cortical plasticity can still be induced in adulthood, hence non-musicians should be defined more strictly than before. Besides, the current study enlarges the population demonstrating the beneficial effects of musical experience on perceptual and cognitive functions, namely, the effects of enhanced speech processing from music are not confined to a small group of experts but extend to a large population of amateurs.

An ERP Study on the Role of Phonological Processing in Reading Two-Character Compound Chinese Words of High and Low Frequency.

Unlike in English, the role of phonology in word recognition in Chinese is unclear. In this event-related potential experiment, we investigated the role of phonology in reading both high- and low-frequency two-character compound Chinese words. Participants executed semantic and homophone judgment tasks of the same precede-target pairs. Each pair of either high- or low-frequency words were either unrelated (control condition) or related semantically or phonologically (homophones). The induced P200 component was greater for low- than for high-frequency word-pairs both in semantic and phonological tasks. Homophones in the semantic judgment task and semantically-related words in the phonology task both elicited a smaller N400 than the control condition, word frequency-independently. However, for low-frequency words in the phonological judgment task, it was found that the semantically related pairs released a significantly larger P200 than the control condition. Thus, the semantic activation of both high- and low-frequency words may be no later than phonological activation.

Online processing of the grammatical aspect marker by L2 Chinese learners

The perfective aspect marker in Chinese is partly functionally similar to inflectional suffixes in Indo-European languages but is non-inflectional and lexical in nature, lying thus at the semantics–syntax interface. This provides us with the opportunity to compare directly the syntactic and semantic constraints during second language (L2) sentence processing. The present study explored how L2 Chinese learners with Indo-European languages as their first languages (L1s) process the Chinese perfective marker. The Competition Model prioritizes syntactic processes entailed by cross-linguistic transfer from the participants’ L1s, but this prediction might be challenged by the concurrent functioning of semantic processes. In an event-related potentials (ERP) experiment, 22 European language-speaking L2 Chinese learners with low to intermediate proficiency level and 20 native Chinese speakers (i.e. the control group) participated. An aspectual agreement paradigm was used for materials. Results showed that in the aspect marker mismatch condition, L2 Chinese learners with a shorter learning experience were more likely to show a P600-like component, indicating a morpho-syntactic routine, supporting thus the predictions of cross-linguistic transfer based on the Competition Model. Those with a longer L2 learning experience were more likely to show an N400-like component similar to native Chinese speakers. This shift from P600 to N400 for more advanced learners suggests that L1–L2 syntactic similarity may exert much stronger influence than semantic constraints for learners with shorter L2 experience.

Selective adaptation in sentence comprehension: Evidence from event-related brain potentials.

In this study, two event-related potential experiments were conducted to investigate whether readers adapt their expectations to morphosyntactically (Experiment 1) or semantically (Experiment 2) anomalous sentences when they are repeatedly exposed to them. To address this issue, we experimentally manipulated the probability of occurrence of grammatical sentences and syntactically and semantically anomalous sentences through experiments. For the low probability block, anomalous sentences were presented less frequently than grammatical sentences (with a ratio of 1 to 4), while they were presented as frequently as grammatical sentences in the equal probability block. Experiment 1 revealed a smaller P600 effect for morphosyntactic violations in the equal probability block than in the low probability block. Linear mixed-effects models were used to examine how the size of the P600 effect changed as the experiment went along. The results showed that the smaller P600 effect of the equal probability block resulted from an amplitude's decline in morphosyntactically violated sentences over the course of the experiment, suggesting an adaptation to morphosyntactic violations. In Experiment 2, semantically anomalous sentences elicited a larger N400 effect than their semantically natural counterparts regardless of probability manipulation. Little evidence was found in favour of adaptation to semantic violations in that the processing cost associated with the N400 did not decrease over the course of the experiment. Therefore, a dynamic aspect of language-processing system was demonstrated in this study. We will discuss why the language-processing system shows a selective adaptation to morphosyntactic violations.

The neural basis of the unattended processing of destination-slogan consistency

Destination-slogan consistency plays a key role in destination advertising. However, consumers' implicit processing of consistency under unattended conditions is still not well understood. It is difficult or even impossible for traditional methods, such as questionnaires and self-reports, to assess unconscious cognitive processes, that generate fewer unfavorable cognitive responses than attended and conscious processes. This study mainly focused on using neurophysiology tools to investigate consumers' unattended processing of destination-slogan consistency and to measure slogan consistency via consumers' neural response. Based on the dual-process model, an event-related potential (ERP) experiment was designed in which destinations' picture-slogan pairs were chosen as experimental materials to study the consistency effect. Consumers’ implicit cognitive processing of slogan consistency under unattended conditions was revealed, and a two-phase neural cognition model was proposed. Then, the effectiveness of slogan design under unattended conditions was measured, and neurophysiological indicators were presented for destination management organizations (DMOs) to investigate slogan consistency. • Reveals consumers' implicit cognitive processing of slogan consistency under unattended condition. • Proposes a two-phase neural cognition model. • Presents physiological indicators to investigate slogan consistency. • Combines unattended task-irrelevant process with Go/No-Go paradigm. • Evaluates the effectiveness of slogan from the perspective of consumers.

Emotional Effects Stimulated by Sad and Fearful Music: A Comparative Study Based on ERP and Behavioural Experiment

In recent two decades, human brain’s response to the emotions of music has become a focus in both neuroscience and applied musicology. Rapid development in brain scanning such as ERP technique provides facilities to explore this fascinating field. How people respond to music emotionally has become a new area of study. This study is one of such explorations and aims to probe into the physical and mental effects of music with negative emotions on humans. Event-related potential (ERP) and behavioural experiment were conducted with 81 participants (20 to 28 years old) with ANOVA / t-test as the analytical tool to compare the effects of two kinds of negative emotional music, i.e., sad music and fearful music. The results showed that the participants had different neural mechanisms, willingness to listen, feelings and music preferences regarding the two types of music with negative emotions. Although fear and sadness are both negative music emotions, the emotional effects on the participants were significantly different based on brain processing. The participants did not reject sad music, but less than 5% of the participants were able to accept fearful music. There were also significant differences in the speed and intensity of the electroencephalography (EEG) responses as well as emotional stability when the participants processed these two music emotions. In sum, this study suggests that close attention people should be paid to the perception of negative emotional music to design music activities that contribute to a positive aesthetic perception.

Sensitivity of item memory to fluency: Evidence from behavioral data and ERP old/new effects.

Previous studies have suggested that item memory is processed based on both familiarity and recollection, and evidence can be found from behavioral as well as event-related potential (ERP) patterns. Recently, great consideration has been given to how the memory of items generated from internal and external sources differ from each other. To date, the modulation of fluency, perceptual fluency in particular, on item memory has been rarely explored from both behavioral and neural perspectives. To address these issues, an ERP experiment was conducted. Stimuli were encoded in the status of perceived vs. imagined, of either high or low frequency, manipulated by times of exposure (once or twice). Subsequent memory for the items was tested, during which ERP signals were recorded. The findings of the old/new effects reveal the distinctiveness between perceived and imagined items, and demonstrate an influence of fluency, with higher accuracy for items of high fluency than those low fluent ones. The sensitivity of item memory to fluency was discussed in terms of the dual-process model, together with other possible accounts.

Electrophysiological differences in older and younger adults\u2019 anaphoric but not cataphoric pronoun processing in the absence of age-related behavioural slowdown

This study reports on an event-related potentials experiment to uncover whether per-millisecond electrophysiological brain activity and analogous behavioural responses are age-sensitive when comprehending anaphoric (referent-first) and cataphoric (pronoun-first) pronouns. Two groups of French speakers were recruited (young n = 18; aged 19–35 and older adults n = 15; aged 57–88) to read sentences where the anaphoric/cataphoric pronouns and their potential referents either matched or mismatched in gender. Our findings indicate that (1) the older adults were not less accurate or slower in their behavioural responses to the mismatches than the younger adults, (2) both anaphoric and cataphoric conditions evoked a central/parietally distributed P600 component with similar timing and amplitude in both the groups. Importantly, mean amplitudes of the P600 effect were modulated by verbal short-term memory span in the older adults but not in the younger adults, (3) nevertheless, the older but not the younger adults displayed an additional anterior negativity emerging on the frontal regions in response to the anaphoric mismatches. These results suggest that pronoun processing is resilient in healthy ageing individuals, but that functional recruitment of additional brain regions, evidenced with the anterior negativity, compensates for increased processing demands in the older adults’ anaphora processing.

Syntactic and semantic processing of passive BEI sentences in Mandarin Chinese: evidence from event-related potentials.

Scalp-recorded event-related potentials (ERPs) appear to be sensitive to sentence processing, especially in some particular aspects. ERP studies on inflectional Indo-European languages report that N400 (negativity around 400 ms), typically elicited by semantic anomalies, is absent when a sentence involves both syntactic and semantic violations. It has been considered that syntactic structure building takes precedence over semantic parsing, and lexical-semantic processing can be blocked by syntactic category incongruence. An ERP experiment was conducted to examine whether such syntactic primacy also exists equally in sentence comprehension in Mandarin Chinese, using the long passive sentences of bei constructions (bei is a preposition preceding a predicate verb and expressing a passive meaning) with either semantic or syntactic violations, combined violations of both, or no violations. Results showed that a broad negativity appeared in both purely semantic and combined violations in the time window of 300-500 ms, which implies that lexical-semantic parsing is not blocked by syntactic structure failure. Instead, it is of great significance to the comprehension of long passive sentences in Mandarin Chinese (see Video, Supplemental Digital Content1, http://links.lww.com/WNR/A592, which introduces the article).

Automatic Reappraisal-Based Implementation Intention Produces Early and Sustainable Emotion Regulation Effects: Event-Related Potential Evidence.

Implementation intention has proven effective in regulating intense emotions but is found to be difficult when instructed regulation is used. Here, we aim to test whether automatic reappraisal-based implementation intention (RII) downregulates intense negative emotion more efficiently than controlled reappraisal (CR) using a two-phase event-related potential (ERP) experiment. In the regulation phase, both RII and CR decreased subjective experiences of negative emotion relative to passive watching, irrespective of emotional intensity. Moreover, RII reduced the central–parietal late positive potential (LPP) amplitudes for both intensities in the 300–1,700-ms epoch after picture onset, whereas CR reduced LPP amplitudes just in the 500–700-ms interval. Moreover, the application of RII but not CR produced a reliable long-term LPP attenuation compared to passive watching in the unexpected re-exposure phase. These findings demonstrate that reappraisal-based implementation intention yields an earlier and more sustainable emotion regulatory effects than controlled reappraisal.

An ERP Study on the Auditory Stream Segregation in Cochlear Implant Simulations: Effects of Frequency Separation and Time Interval.

Auditory stream segregation is an important function of the auditory system, and the extent to which this function works has a major impact on listener's ability to recognize auditory objects in complex listening environments. However, cochlear implant (CI) listeners are poorly equipped for this challenge, mainly owing to the impoverished sensory information available via their implants. The purpose of this study was to examine two factors, i.e., frequency separation and time interval, affecting the auditory stream segregation in vocoder simulations simulating CI speech processing based on an event-related potential (ERP) experiment. The pure-tone stimuli were processed by a vocoding process, and presented to normal-hearing listeners in an ERP experiment. Experimental results showed that a large frequency separation or a short time interval led to a larger mismatch negativity (MMN) response. The MMN results in this work suggested that the degree of auditory stream segregation was affected by frequency separation and time interval, and MMN could serve as a potential index for future ERP studies on auditory stream segregation in CI users.

Behavioural and ERP correlates of bilingual language control and general-purpose inhibitory control predicted by L1 and L2 proficiency

Abstract Cognitive control is the ability to adapt flexibly to current demands by promoting task-relevant information in the face of interference, and this has been asserted as an advantage with bilinguals. Bilingual language control and general-purpose cognitive control are discussed in the literature using different types of stimuli, cognitive tasks, component processes (selection, interference, inhibition, switching) and groups (bilingual vs. monolingual; high proficient vs. low proficient bilingual). The present study was designed to investigate the neurocognitive correlates of inhibitory control with linguistic (i.e., words) and nonlinguistic (i.e., line drawings of objects) stimuli in Hindi-English bilingual adults. We conducted the behavioural experiment first to establish the linguistic version of identity negative priming paradigm followed by the Event-related potential (ERP) experiment using the linguistic and nonlinguistic negative priming task. Results show the presence of inhibition effect using mean reaction times as well as ERP data while comparing the control and ignored repetition conditions, and this pattern varied with different stimuli – linguistic vs. nonlinguistic. Thus, the current study suggests that bilingual language control is not entirely subsidiary to general-purpose cognitive control and shows differences based on the stimulus type. Also, proficiency in L1 and L2 differentially predicts performance on the nonlinguistic and linguistic negative priming paradigm, respectively. These results are indicative of a dynamic cognitive control system associated with bilingualism, which varies as a function of stimulus type as well as language proficiency.