Original Article
Dissociating retrieval interference and reanalysis in the P600 during sentence comprehension
Darren Tanner,
Sarah Grey,
Janet G. van Hell,
Corresponding Author
Darren Tanner
Department of Linguistics, Neuroscience Program, and Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois, USA
Address correspondence to: Darren Tanner, Department of Linguistics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 4080 Foreign Languages Building, MC-168, 707 S. Mathews Ave., Urbana, IL 61801, USA. E-mail: [email protected]Search for more papers by this authorSarah Grey
Department of Psychology and Center for Language Science, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, USA
Department of Modern Languages and Literatures, Fordham University, New York, New York, USA
Search for more papers by this authorJanet G. van Hell
Department of Psychology and Center for Language Science, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, USA
Search for more papers by this authorDarren Tanner,
Sarah Grey,
Janet G. van Hell,
Corresponding Author
Darren Tanner
Department of Linguistics, Neuroscience Program, and Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois, USA
Address correspondence to: Darren Tanner, Department of Linguistics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 4080 Foreign Languages Building, MC-168, 707 S. Mathews Ave., Urbana, IL 61801, USA. E-mail: [email protected]Search for more papers by this authorSarah Grey
Department of Psychology and Center for Language Science, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, USA
Department of Modern Languages and Literatures, Fordham University, New York, New York, USA
Search for more papers by this authorJanet G. van Hell
Department of Psychology and Center for Language Science, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, USA
Search for more papers by this authorWe would like to thank Erika Exton for assistance with data collection. This research was supported by NSF grant BCS-1431324 to DT, NSF grant SMA-1514276 to SG, and NSF grants BCS-1349110, OISE-0968369, and OISE-1545900 to JGvH. Thanks to Kara Federmeier and three anonymous reviewers for valuable comments on an earlier version of this paper. Any remaining errors are our own.
Abstract
We investigated the relative independence of two key processes in language comprehension, as reflected in the P600 ERP component. Numerous studies have linked the P600 to sentence- or message-level reanalysis; however, much research has shown that skilled, cue-based memory retrieval operations are also important to successful language processing. Our goal was to identify whether these cue-based retrieval operations are part of the reanalysis processes indexed by the P600. To this end, participants read sentences that were either grammatical or ungrammatical via subject-verb agreement violations, and in which there was either no possibility for retrieval interference or there was an attractor noun interfering with the computation of subject-verb agreement (e.g., “The slogan on the political poster(s) was/were …”). A stimulus onset asynchrony manipulation (fast, medium, or slow presentation rate) was designed to modulate participants' ability to engage in reanalysis processes. Results showed a reliable attraction interference effect, indexed by reduced behavioral sensitivity to ungrammaticalities and P600 amplitudes when there was an opportunity for retrieval interference, as well as an effect of presentation rate, with reduced behavioral sensitivity and smaller P600 effects at faster presentation rates. Importantly, there was no interaction between the two, suggesting that retrieval interference and sentence-level reanalysis processes indexed by the P600 can be neurocognitively distinct processes.
Supporting Information
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Table S1: ANOVA results from lateral electrode sites in the 500–800 ms time window. Table S2: Step-down ANOVAs over each hemisphere in the 500–800 ms time window. |
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