Some Different Kinds of Things You Know as English Speakers  What’s wrong with each of the following? !ort sfort bort ‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimbel in the wabe. The cats won’t bake the meat loaf. The cats won’t eating the meat loaf.

Some ERP Components Related to Language N400 = ERP component related to meaning - Bigger when word’s meaning doesn’t fit context - Bigger for unfamiliar words - May reflect amount of work required to integrate with context Can evoke both at once - But not always as nice as here! - Depending on size of each component & timing of P600, can partially or completely cancel each other out P600 = ERP component related to form - Bigger when word property other than meaning wrong or hard to process - May be a type of P300 - Sometimes called Syntactic Positive Shift (SPS)

Priming in Word Comprehension  A word preceded by something related to it is recognized & understood faster & more easilytreeblanketjob doctorsports nurse Fasternurse Slowerpencilwindow … …

Coulson, Federmeier, Van Petten, & Kutas (2005) How do priming effects of lexical & sentence-level context compare, & do they add or interact? Stimulus Materials: Congruous sentence plus highly associated word: They were truly stuck, since she didn’t have a spare TIRE. Congruous sentence but no associated word: During the test, Ellen leaned over and borrowed my spare PENCIL. Incongruous sentence plus highly associated word: During the test, Ellen leaned over and borrowed my spare TIRE. Incongruous sentence but no associated word: They were truly stuck, since she didn’t have a spare PENCIL.

Word pairs only __ spare tire … spare pencil Word-in-sentence fx __ …stuck… spare tire …test… spare pencil … …stuck … spare pencil …test … spare tire Sentence context fx __ …stuck… tire …test… pencil --- …stuck… pencil …test… tire N400

Conclusions  When a word is at the end of a sentence it fits into well, it doesn’t matter much whether the word right before it is an associate  But out of sentence context, does matter  So, by the end of a sentence, sentence context trumps individual word associations  Word associations (& word familiarity) have more influence for words near the beginnings of sentences

“A University student charged with threatening to kill the President via was arrested Thursday, following issuance of a complaint and warrant, officials said.” - Daily Illini, 2/27/94 Relationships Among Words in Sentences

Being Led “Down the Garden Path” “A University student charged with threatening to kill the President via X Y

A Slightly More Subtle Example “Marge Schott, managing partner of the Cincinnati Reds, at first did not want to apologize for her remark that Hitler‘was good at the beginning but he just went too far’. Under pressure, she finally said that she regretted her remarks ‘offended many people’.” - NY Times, 7/21/96, Tannen, I’m sorry, I won’t apologize

 What did she regret?  Not her remarks, only their consequences  But her choice of wording gives the appearance of expressing regret for what she said  Including an optional that would have made it clearer "Under pressure, she finally said that she regretted her remarks 'offended many people'." that ^

The referees warned the spectators would probably get too rowdy. against heckling the other team.  Ambiguity arises because that optional (in English) that ^  Temporary ambiguity about relationship between the Verb  Is the noun  A Direct Object (DO), or  Subject of an Embedded Clause? Temporary Structural Ambiguity & the Noun after it

Verb Bias  Verbs differ in how often they're used in particular sentence structures  Compare The referees warned the spectators... with The bus driver worried the passengers... warned = Direct-Object Biased Verb worried = Clause-Biased Verb  In English, verb's most likely use guides choices about initial interpretation of words following it

Plausibility of Noun as Direct Object  Plausibility of particular Verb + Noun combinations varies  Compare The referees warned the spectators... with The referees warned the game...  In English, plausibility of a particular Verb + Noun combination sometimes guides initial interpretation

Example Sentences DO-Bias Verbs: ( e.g., warned, discovered, heard...) The referees warned the spectators Clause-Bias Verbs: ( e.g., worried, realized, suspected...) The bus driver worried the passengers EQ-bias Verbs: ( e.g., regretted, predicted, knew,...) The senior senator regretted the decision The referees warned the game would probably go into overtime. The bus driver worried the tires were starting to go flat. The senior senator regretted the reporter had ever seen the report. would probably get too rowdy. were starting to get annoyed. had ever been made public.

Results of Reading Time Studies DO-Bias Verbs: The referees warned the spectators would probably get too rowdy. The referees warned the game would probably go into overtime. Clause-Bias Verbs: The bus driver worried the passengers were starting to get annoyed. The bus driver worried the tires were starting to go flat. The senior senator regretted the reporter had ever seen the report. EQ-Bias Verbs: The senior senator regretted the decision had ever been made public. read slowly

Verb Bias Rules (in English)!  No effect of the Plausibility of the Verb + Noun combination when the Verb had a strong bias  But Plausibility did have an effect when the Verb had no bias  So, the two factors interact, with Verb Bias dominating the interaction

Limitation of Eyetracking Study  Verb Bias & Plausibility both have the same kind of effect on reading time  People slow down when expectations based on either kind of information are violated  Are there other measures that would better distinguish the two kinds of information?  Yes, Event-Related brain Potentials (ERPs)

Stimulus Presentation in ERP Study READY 1 Therefereeswarnedthegamewouldprobablygointoovertime. Were the referees expecting a long game? QUESTION

Summary  In both reading time & ERP studies, Verbs rule  Difficulty at an Implausible Noun only after a Verb that strongly predicts a Direct Object  Difficulty at the disambiguating region only after a Verb that strongly predicts a Direct Object

Why do verbs rule?  Principled reasons:  They provide the most useful information  Information about them may be simply retrieved, while plausibility requires combining information from multiple words  More accidental reasons:  They precede the critical nouns in these sentences [ but, see Trueswell (1996) ]  They generally appear early in English sentences, leading English speakers to rely on them

Individual Differences Osterhout (1997)  Another harder kind of Garden Path sentence  The boat floated down the river sank.  (The evidence examined by the lawyer turned out to be unreliable.)  Stimulus Sentences  The boat floated down the river and sank.  The boat floated down the river and ate.  The boat floated down the river sank. that was ^

Results Across All Subjects N400 P600 N400

Results across just “P600 Subjects” P600

Results across just “N400 Subjects” N400

Individual Differences  So, different people produce different ERP components in response to exactly the same stimuli !  What does that mean both about  How people respond to Garden Path sentences?  & The nature of the different ERP components?

Kim & Osterhout (2005)  Experiment 1 Stimulus Sentences The hearty meal was devoured … The hungry boys were devouring … The hearty meal was devouring …  N400 or P600 at devouring ???

Experiment 1 Results P600

Experiment 2  Stimulus Sentences  The hearty meal was devoured …  The dusty tabletops were devouring …  The hearty meal was devouring …  N400 or P600 at devouring after dusty tabletops ???

Experiment 2 Results P600 N400?

McGurk Effect  Acoustic stimulus = / ba /  Visual stimulus = face / ga /  Hear / da / = fused audiovisual stimulus

Mismatch Negativity (MMN) (Naatanen & many colleagues)  Deviant sound occurring infrequently in train of frequent sounds  Evokes a frontal negativity around 200 msec = MMN  Initially thought to be purely auditory change detection  Source localization points to auditory cortex  e.g., polarity reversal between Fz & Mastoids

Colin et al. (2002, 2005) Auditory-only conditions show MMN MMN

Visual-only conditions show no MMN (as expected)

McGurk conditions do show MMN MMN /gi/Dev = hear /bi/, see /gi/ /bi/Dev = hear /gi/, see /bi/

Conclusions  MMN tracks perception rather than simple acoustics  If generated in auditory cortex,  Shows that visual info influences early sound processing, probably in auditory cortex itself