The interaction of discourse context and world knowledge in online sentence comprehension. Evidence from the N400

Fulltext:
56694.pdf
Embargo:
until further notice
Size:
262.7Kb
Format:
PDF
Description:
publisher's version
Source
Brain Research, 1146, (2007), pp. 210-218ISSN
Publication type
Article / Letter to editor

Display more detailsDisplay less details
Organization
SW OZ DCC CO
SW OZ BSI OLO
Former Organization
SW OZ NICI CO
Journal title
Brain Research
Volume
vol. 1146
Languages used
English (eng)
Page start
p. 210
Page end
p. 218
Subject
DI-BCB_DCC_Theme 1: Language and Communication; Learning and Plasticity; PsycholinguisticsAbstract
In an ERP experiment we investigated how the recruitment and integration of world knowledge information relate to the integration of information within a current discourse context. Participants were presented with short discourse contexts which were followed by a sentence that contained a critical word that was correct or incorrect based on general world knowledge and the supporting discourse context, or was more or less acceptable based on the combination of general world knowledge and the specific local discourse context. Relative to the critical word in the correct world knowledge sentences following a neutral discourse, all other critical words elicited an N400 effect that began at about 300 ms after word onset. However, the magnitude of the N400 effect varied in a way that suggests an interaction between world knowledge and discourse context. The results indicate that both world knowledge and discourse context have an effect on sentence interpretation, but neither overrides the other.
This item appears in the following Collection(s)
- Academic publications [227425]
- Electronic publications [107141]
- Faculty of Social Sciences [28413]
Upload full text
Use your RU credentials (u/z-number and password) to log in with SURFconext to upload a file for processing by the repository team.