Semantic Violations Research Articles

Representation and processing of multi-word expressions in the brain

Language comprehension is sensitive to the predictability of the upcoming information. Prediction allows for smooth, expedient and successful communication. While general discourse-based constraints have been investigated in detail, more specific phrase-level prediction has received little attention. We address this gap by exploring the ERPs elicited during the comprehension of English binomials – familiar and predictable multi-word expressions. In Experiment 1a, participants read binomial expressions (knife and fork), infrequent strongly associated phrases (spoon and fork), and semantic violations (theme and fork). In Experiment 1b, participants read the same stimuli without “and”. Experiment 1a revealed that binomials elicited larger P300s and smaller N400s compared to the other conditions, reflecting the activation of a ‘template’ that matches the upcoming information (P300) and pointing to easier semantic integration (N400). In contrast, no differences were observed between binomials and associates in Experiment 1b. We conclude that distinct mechanisms underlie the processing of predicable and novel sequences.

Influence of semantic consistency and perceptual features on visual attention during scene viewing in toddlers

Conceptual representations of everyday scenes are built in interaction with visual environment and these representations guide our visual attention. Perceptual features and object-scene semantic consistency have been found to attract our attention during scene exploration. The present study examined how visual attention in 24-month-old toddlers is attracted by semantic violations and how perceptual features (i. e. saliency, centre distance, clutter and object size) and linguistic properties (i. e. object label frequency and label length) affect gaze distribution. We compared eye movements of 24-month-old toddlers and adults while exploring everyday scenes which either contained an inconsistent (e.g., soap on a breakfast table) or consistent (e.g., soap in a bathroom) object. Perceptual features such as saliency, centre distance and clutter of the scene affected looking times in the toddler group during the whole viewing time whereas looking times in adults were affected only by centre distance during the early viewing time. Adults looked longer to inconsistent than consistent objects either if the objects had a high or a low saliency. In contrast, toddlers presented semantic consistency effect only when objects were highly salient. Additionally, toddlers with lower vocabulary skills looked longer to inconsistent objects while toddlers with higher vocabulary skills look equally long to both consistent and inconsistent objects. Our results indicate that 24-month-old children use scene context to guide visual attention when exploring the visual environment. However, perceptual features have a stronger influence in eye movement guidance in toddlers than in adults. Our results also indicate that language skills influence cognitive but not perceptual guidance of eye movements during scene perception in toddlers.

Gender Stereotype Activation versus Lexical Semantic Activation: An ERP Study

ABSTRACTIt is an open question whether social stereotype activation can be distinguished from nonsocial semantic activation. To address this question, gender stereotype activation (GSA) and lexical semantic activation (LSA) were directly compared. EEGs were recorded in 20 participants as they identified the congruence between prime-target word pairs under four different conditions (stereotype congruent, stereotype incongruent, semantic congruent, and semantic incongruent). We found that congruent targets elicited faster and more accurate responses and reduced N400 amplitudes irrespective of priming category types. The N400 congruency effect (i.e., the difference between incongruity and congruity) started earlier and had greater amplitude for GSA than for LSA. Moreover, gender category priming induced a smaller N400 and a larger P600 than lexical category priming. These findings suggest that the brain is not only sensitive to both stereotype and semantic violation in the post-perceptual processing stage but can also differentiate these two information processes. Further, the findings suggest superior processing (i.e., faster and deeper processing) when the words are associated with social category and convey stereotype knowledge.

The effects of transcranial direct current stimulation on pragmatic processing

Abstract The current study used the violation paradigm to assess responses to pragmatically and semantically violated sentences. Thirteen participants received bilateral tDCS stimulation (anodal -- left Superior Temporal Gyrus (STG) and cathodal -- right STG). The participants listened to sentences with no violations as well as sentences with pragmatic or semantic violations and had to indicate whether each sentence “makes sense”. This task was conducted in three conditions – without stimulation, after active stimulation, and after a sham procedure. The results showed faster response times for the pragmatic violations than for the semantic violations. The response times for the pragmatic violations after active stimulation were faster than after a sham stimulation. No similar difference in response times was observed for the semantic violations. These findings suggest that brain stimulation of the STG area modulates the processing of pragmatic but not semantic information.

ONYMS OF THE WORLD CULTURAL DIAPASON IN THE POETIC WORKS OF N. ZEROV

The article is devoted to the study of the onyms’ functional features that nominate the realities of world history and culture in the poetic discourse of the famous Ukrainian neo-classical poet M. Zerov. The connotative and expressive filling of anthroponyms and toponyms in the context of the writer’s poetry, their part in creating artistic integrity of the works are characterized. It has been stated that onyms in the creative laboratory of the writer are the structural component that is transformed into a bright artistic device for expressing the author’s ideological and aesthetic conception. It has been proved that proper names have a wide functional diapason; due to their informativeness short poetic text acquires a semantic capacity, and onyms act as distinctive identifiers. It has been stated that in the poetic discourse of N. Zerov, onyms, which are a part of a certain artistic text, as a rule, refer to the same circle – temporal, spatial, cultural. However, there are examples of purposeful "collision" of the proper names belonging to the different temporal or cultural circles that is caused by the individual and aesthetic tasks of the author. N. Zerov widely uses onyms with semantic violations that adds expressiveness to a poetic text.

Neural patterns elicited by sentence processing uniquely characterize typical development, SLI recovery, and SLI persistence

BackgroundA substantial amount of work has examined language abilities in young children with specific language impairment (SLI); however, our understanding of the developmental trajectory of language impairment is limited. Along with studying the behavioral changes that occur across development, it is important to examine the neural indices of language processing for children with different language trajectories. The current study sought to examine behavioral and neural bases of language processing in adolescents showing three different trajectories: those with normal language development (NL), those exhibiting persistent SLI (SLI-Persistent), and those with a history of SLI who appear to have recovered (SLI-Recovered).MethodsThrough a sentence judgment task, we examined semantic and syntactic processing. Adolescents judged whether or not each sentence was semantically and syntactically correct. Stimuli consisted of naturally spoken sentences that were either correct, contained a semantic verb error, or contained a syntactic verb agreement error. Verb agreement errors consisted of omission and commission violations of the third-person singular -s. Behavioral button-press responses and electroencephalographic recordings were collected. Behavioral judgments and mean amplitude of the N400 and P600 components were examined.ResultsAdolescents in the SLI-Persistent group had lower sentence judgment accuracy overall, relative to the NL and SLI-Recovered groups. Accuracy in judging omission and commission syntactic errors were marginally different, with marginally lower accuracy for commission errors. All groups demonstrated an N400 component elicited by semantic violations. However, adolescents in the SLI-Persistent group demonstrated a less robust P600 component for syntactic violations. Furthermore, adolescents in the SLI-Recovered group exhibited a similar neural profile to the NL group for the semantic and syntactic omission violations. However, a unique profile with initial negativity was observed in the SLI-Recovered group in the commission violation condition.ConclusionsAdolescents with persistent language impairment continue to demonstrate delays in language processing at the behavioral and neural levels. Conversely, the adolescents in the SLI-Recovered group appear to have made gains in language processing skills to overcome their initial impairments. However, our findings suggest that the adolescents in the SLI-Recovered group may have compensatory processing strategies for some aspects of language, as evidenced by a unique event-related potential profile.

Enabling semantics to improve detection of data races and misuses of lock‐free data structures

SummaryThe rapid progress of multi/many‐core architectures has caused data‐intensive parallel applications not yet fully optimized to deliver the best performance. In the advent of concurrent programming, frameworks offering structured patterns have alleviated developers' burden adapting such applications to multithreaded architectures. While some of these patterns are implemented using synchronization primitives, others avoid them by means of lock‐free data mechanisms. However, lock‐free programming is not straightforward, ensuring an appropriate use of their interfaces can be challenging, since different memory models plus instruction reordering at compiler/processor levels can interfere in the occurrence of data races. The benefits of race detectors are formidable in this sense; however, they may emit false positives if are unaware of the underlying lock‐free structure semantics. To mitigate this issue, this paper extends ThreadSanitizer, a race detection tool, with the semantics of 2 lock‐free data structures: the single‐producer/single‐consumer and the multiple‐producer/multiple‐consumer queues. With it, we are able to drop false positives and detect potential semantic violations. The experimental evaluation, using different queue implementations on a set of μ benchmarks and real applications, demonstrates that it is possible to reduce, on average, 60% the number of data race warnings and detect wrong uses of these structures.

Foreign-accented speaker identity affects neural correlates of language comprehension

Abstract This study tested semantic and grammatical processing of native- and foreign-accented speech. Monolinguals with little experience with foreign-accented speech listened to sentences spoken by foreign-accented and native-accented speakers while their brain activity was recorded using EEG/ERPs. We gathered behavioral measures of sentence comprehension, language attitudes, and accent perception. Behavioral results showed that listeners were highly accurate in comprehending both native- and foreign-accented sentences. ERP results showed that grammatical and semantic violations elicited different neural responses in native versus foreign accented speech. Native-accented speech elicited a frontal negativity (Nref) for grammatical violations and a robust N400 for semantic violations. However, in foreign-accented speech only semantic (not grammatical) violations elicited an ERP effect, a late negativity. Closer inspection of listeners who did and who did not correctly identify the foreign accent revealed that listeners who identified the foreign accent showed ERP responses for both grammatical and semantic errors: an N400-like effect to grammatical errors and a late negativity to semantic errors. In contrast, listeners who did not correctly identify the foreign accent showed no ERP responses to grammatical errors in the foreign-accented condition, but did show a late negativity to semantic errors. These findings provide novel insights into understanding the effects of listener experience and foreign-accented speaker identity on the neural correlates of language processing.

Neurophysiological evidence for the interplay of speech segmentation and word-referent mapping during novel word learning

Learning a new language requires the identification of word units from continuous speech (the speech segmentation problem) and mapping them onto conceptual representation (the word to world mapping problem). Recent behavioral studies have revealed that the statistical properties found within and across modalities can serve as cues for both processes. However, segmentation and mapping have been largely studied separately, and thus it remains unclear whether both processes can be accomplished at the same time and if they share common neurophysiological features. To address this question, we recorded EEG of 20 adult participants during both an audio alone speech segmentation task and an audiovisual word-to-picture association task. The participants were tested for both the implicit detection of online mismatches (structural auditory and visual semantic violations) as well as for the explicit recognition of words and word-to-picture associations. The ERP results from the learning phase revealed a delayed learning-related fronto-central negativity (FN400) in the audiovisual condition compared to the audio alone condition. Interestingly, while online structural auditory violations elicited clear MMN/N200 components in the audio alone condition, visual-semantic violations induced meaning-related N400 modulations in the audiovisual condition. The present results support the idea that speech segmentation and meaning mapping can take place in parallel and act in synergy to enhance novel word learning.

These lemons are sour: Investigating the influence of demonstrative determiners on the N400 complex

Demonstrative determiners create a joint focus of attention of speaker and hearer on a particular set of entities in a given context. Despite their omnipresence, very little is known with regard to the online integration of demonstrative determiners during comprehension. Here we investigated whether the N400 reflects meaning differences introduced by determiners. We analyzed whether previously established differences – between correct, contingent, world-knowledge and semantic violations in bare plural generic sentences – were modified by the addition of demonstrative determiners. Off-line ratings suggested that the correct sentences in the generic version (e.g. Zebras are stripy) become less sensible when adding a demonstrative determiner (e.g. These zebras are stripy). In contrast, contingent sentences – that is, sentences with predicates that are true for a subgroup of exemplars but not for all – become more sensible than correct sentences if a demonstrative determiner is added (e.g. These trousers are stripy). Both semantic and world-knowledge violations slightly improve in sensibility if demonstrative determiners are added (These ladybirds/journeys are stripy). None of these differences was reflected in the N400 amplitude. Instead, the previous findings using the bare plural generic sentences were fully replicated, showing largest N400 amplitudes for semantic violations, followed by contingent and world-knowledge violations and finally the correct sentences. This suggests that demonstrative determiners are not automatically integrated during meaning comprehension. Implications with respect to the processes that are reflected in the N400 will be discussed.

The Importance of Reading Naturally: Evidence From Combined Recordings of Eye Movements and Electric Brain Potentials.

How important is the ability to freely control eye movements for reading comprehension? And how does the parser make use of this freedom? We investigated these questions using coregistration of eye movements and event-related brain potentials (ERPs) while participants read either freely or in a computer-controlled word-by-word format (also known as RSVP). Word-by-word presentation and natural reading both elicited qualitatively similar ERP effects in response to syntactic and semantic violations (N400 and P600 effects). Comprehension was better in free reading but only in trials in which the eyes regressed to previous material upon encountering the anomaly. A more fine-grained ERP analysis revealed that these regressions were strongly associated with the well-known P600 effect. In trials without regressions, we instead found sustained centro-parietal negativities starting at around 320ms post-onset; however, these negativities were only found when the violation occurred in sentence-final position. Taken together, these results suggest that the sentence processing system engages in strategic choices: In response to words that don't match built-up expectations, it can either explore alternative interpretations (reflected by regressions, P600 effects, and good comprehension) or pursue a "good-enough" processing strategy that tolerates a deficient interpretation (reflected by progressive saccades, sustained negativities, and relatively poor comprehension).

Functional significance of the semantic P600: evidence from the event-related brain potential source localization.

Previous event-related potentials studies of sentence comprehension have usually associated syntactic repair/reanalysis processes with the P600 component. However, the functional significance of the P600 was recently questioned on the basis of the observation of P600 effects in response to the processing of semantically anomalous sentences. In the present study, we investigated the functional significance of the 'semantic P600' using a semantic violation paradigm with a focus-on-syntax instruction. Using a source localization analysis, we tested three alternative hypotheses on the function of the P600: (i) a syntactic function, (ii) an executive function, and (iii) a semantic/integrational function. We assumed that distinct neuronal generators should reflect each of these functions. Although the syntactic generators are expected to be mainly located in the left inferior frontal gyrus, the semantic generators should be observed in the left superior temporal gyrus as well as in the right anterior prefrontal cortex (semantic retrieval); moreover, the generator of executive function (conflict monitoring) should be found in the anterior cingulate cortex. Critically, we defined a dipole model using 17 dipoles, 14 of which were placed in the three regions of interest corresponding to our hypotheses, namely, syntactic, executive, and semantic regions. Our data showed that the P600 effect was significant in the anterior cingulate cortex and marginally significant in the right anterior prefrontal cortex. This finding suggests that the P600 might reflect more general mechanisms of conflict monitoring and semantic reinterpretation leading to a retrieval of world knowledge from long-term memory rather purely syntactic processes.

Oscillatory Brain Dynamics during Sentence Reading: A Fixation-Related Spectral Perturbation Analysis.

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.

Tell me sweet little lies: An event-related potentials study on the processing of social lies.

In reading tasks, words that convey a false statement elicit an enhanced N400 brainwave response, relative to words that convey a true statement. N400 amplitude reductions are generally linked to the online expectancy of upcoming words in discourse. White lies, contrary to false statements, may not be unexpected in social scenarios. We used the event-related potential (ERP) technique to determine whether there is an impact of social context on sentence processing. We measured ERP responses to target words that either conveyed a social "white" lie or a socially impolite blunt truth, relative to semantic violations. Word expectancy was controlled for by equating the cloze probabilities of white lying and blunt true targets, as measured in previous paper-and-pencil tests. We obtained a classic semantic violation effect (a larger N400 for semantic incongruities relative to sense making statements). White lies, in contrast to false statements, did not enhance the amplitude of the N400 component. Interestingly, blunt true statements yielded both a late frontal positivity and an N400 response in those scenarios particularly biased to white lying. Thus, white lies do not interfere with online semantic processing, and they do not engage further reanalysis processes, which are typically indexed by subsequent late positivity ERP effects. Instead, an N400 and a late frontal positivity obtained in response to blunt true statements indicate that they were treated as unexpected events. In conclusion, unwritten rules of social communicative behavior influence the electrical brain response to locally coherent but socially inappropriate statements.

The impact of Chitosan Lecithin on the mild cognitive impairment patients' semantic understanding by event-related potential N400

Objective To study the impact of Chitosan Lecithin on the mild cognitive impairment(MCI) patients′ semantic understanding by event-related potential N400. Methods 32 patients with MCI were screened from 500 elder people aged Court in Weifang by mini-mental state examination(MMSE) scale, and were divided into two groups: the observation group (n=16) and the control group (n=16) by the table of random numbers.The observation group were given Chitosan Lecithin while the control group were given an equal dose of placebo.The intervention time was 2 months.The subjects were asked to conduct semantic judgement by semantic violation experiment.Thirty-two channels electroencephalogram(EEG)was recorded by Neuroacan Nuamps Systerm and analyzed data. Results 1) Specific component N400 was found in both groups, which was distributed at the frontal, central and parietal regions.2) The observation group reaction time and correct rate were respectively (965.13±178.07)ms and (92.56±2.36)% , while the control group were respectively (1126.13±252.77)ms and (85.28±5.73)%, with significant difference(P<0.05 ).3) Compared with N400 in control group, N400 latency was shorter ( (425.28±47.26) ms vs (456.19±37.75)ms, F=6.01, P<0.05) and amplitude was higher((4.79±2.18)μV vs (3.59±1.33)μV, F=5.96, P<0.05). Conclusion Chitosan lecithin has the effect of N400 latency and amplitude, it may be helpful for the patients of MCI in semantic understanding. Key words: Chitosan Lecithin; Mild cognitive impairment; Event-related potentials(ERP); N400

Song Perception by Professional Singers and Actors: An MEG Study.

The cortical correlates of speech and music perception are essentially overlapping, and the specific effects of different types of training on these networks remain unknown. We compared two groups of vocally trained professionals for music and speech, singers and actors, using recited and sung rhyme sequences from German art songs with semantic and/ or prosodic/melodic violations (i.e. violations of pitch) of the last word, in order to measure the evoked activation in a magnetoencephalographic (MEG) experiment. MEG data confirmed the existence of intertwined networks for the sung and spoken modality in an early time window after word violation. In essence for this early response, higher activity was measured after melodic/prosodic than semantic violations in predominantly right temporal areas. For singers as well as for actors, modality-specific effects were evident in predominantly left-temporal lateralized activity after semantic expectancy violations in the spoken modality, and right-dominant temporal activity in response to melodic violations in the sung modality. As an indication of a special group-dependent audiation process, higher neuronal activity for singers appeared in a late time window in right temporal and left parietal areas, both after the recited and the sung sequences.

Is there a difference between stripy journeys and stripy ladybirds? The N400 response to semantic and world-knowledge violations during sentence processing

The distinction between linguistic and non-linguistic knowledge is particularly relevant because it is related to the principle of compositionality during sentence comprehension. Hagoort, Hald, Bastiaansen, and Petersson (2004) challenged the distinction between linguistic and non-linguistic knowledge. Here, we investigate how linguistic and non-linguistic violations are processed in a setting adapted from Hagoort et al., whilst in contrast to Hagoort, keeping the critical word identical. In line with the findings by Hagoort et al., our results showed largest N400 amplitudes for semantic violations (‘Journeys are stripy’), followed by non-linguistic world-knowledge violations (‘Ladybirds are stripy’) and contingent sentences (‘Trousers are stripy’), and finally by correct sentences (‘Zebras are stripy’). Traditional fractional area and relative criterion measures of peak and onset latencies showed no effect of violation type. Interestingly, the semantic violation condition crossed a fixed criterion earlier than the word-knowledge violation condition. In conclusion, our data suggests that the question regarding the distinction between linguistic- and non-linguistic knowledge in terms of language integration remains open. Implications for future studies addressing the difference between linguistic and non-linguistic knowledge are discussed.

Language prediction in aging and aphasia

Language prediction in aging and aphasia

Ways of making-sense: Local gamma synchronization reveals differences between semantic processing induced by music and language

Similar to linguistic stimuli, music can also prime the meaning of a subsequent word. However, it is so far unknown what is the brain dynamics underlying the semantic priming effect induced by music, and its relation to language. To elucidate these issues, we compare the brain oscillatory response to visual words that have been semantically primed either by a musical excerpt or by an auditory sentence. We found that semantic violation between music–word pairs triggers a classical ERP N400, and induces a sustained increase of long-distance theta phase synchrony, along with a transient increase of local gamma activity. Similar results were observed after linguistic semantic violation except for gamma activity, which increased after semantic congruence between sentence–word pairs. Our findings indicate that local gamma activity is a neural marker that signals different ways of semantic processing between music and language, revealing the dynamic and self-organized nature of the semantic processing.

How culture gets embrained: Cultural differences in event-related potentials of social norm violations

Humans are unique among all species in their ability to develop and enforce social norms, but there is wide variation in the strength of social norms across human societies. Despite this fundamental aspect of human nature, there has been surprisingly little research on how social norm violations are detected at the neurobiological level. Building on the emerging field of cultural neuroscience, we combine noninvasive electroencephalography (EEG) with a new social norm violation paradigm to examine the neural mechanisms underlying the detection of norm violations and how they vary across cultures. EEG recordings from Chinese and US participants (n = 50) showed consistent negative deflection of event-related potential around 400 ms (N400) over the central and parietal regions that served as a culture-general neural marker of detecting norm violations. The N400 at the frontal and temporal regions, however, was only observed among Chinese but not US participants, illustrating culture-specific neural substrates of the detection of norm violations. Further, the frontal N400 predicted a variety of behavioral and attitudinal measurements related to the strength of social norms that have been found at the national and state levels, including higher culture superiority and self-control but lower creativity. There were no cultural differences in the N400 induced by semantic violation, suggesting a unique cultural influence on social norm violation detection. In all, these findings provided the first evidence, to our knowledge, for the neurobiological foundations of social norm violation detection and its variation across cultures.