Pub Date : 2025-07-07DOI: 10.1016/j.bandl.2025.105612
Elena Nicoladis , Josiah Goetze
When gesturing (with or without speech) actions done with objects, young children and adults with apraxia often produce a body-part-as-object (BPO), like an extended finger for a toothbrush. In contrast, older children and neurotypical adults often produce an imagined object (IO), like pretending to hold a toothbrush. The purpose of this study was to test whether IOs are produced when children have a rich conceptual understanding of the functions of an object. If so, children should produce more IOs (relative to BPOs) with familiar than with unfamiliar objects. Children between three and five years old were asked to demonstrate what to do with either familiar or unfamiliar objects. As predicted, the children produced more IOs with familiar than unfamiliar objects. These results are consistent with the argument that children’s handshape when gesturing reflects the richness of their understanding. Developmental change likely occurs as children develop a rich understanding of many objects.
{"title":"Effects of object familiarity on children’s silent gestures","authors":"Elena Nicoladis , Josiah Goetze","doi":"10.1016/j.bandl.2025.105612","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.bandl.2025.105612","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>When gesturing (with or without speech) actions done with objects, young children and adults with apraxia often produce a body-part-as-object (BPO), like an extended finger for a toothbrush. In contrast, older children and neurotypical adults often produce an imagined object (IO), like pretending to hold a toothbrush. The purpose of this study was to test whether IOs are produced when children have a rich conceptual understanding of the functions of an object. If so, children should produce more IOs (relative to BPOs) with familiar than with unfamiliar objects. Children between three and five years old were asked to demonstrate what to do with either familiar or unfamiliar objects. As predicted, the children produced more IOs with familiar than unfamiliar objects. These results are consistent with the argument that children’s handshape when gesturing reflects the richness of their understanding. Developmental change likely occurs as children develop a rich understanding of many objects.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":55330,"journal":{"name":"Brain and Language","volume":"268 ","pages":"Article 105612"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-07-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144571075","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-07-04DOI: 10.1016/j.bandl.2025.105610
Brittany Lee , Sofia E. Ortega , Priscilla M. Martinez , Katherine J. Midgley , Phillip J. Holcomb , Karen Emmorey
Fingerspelling is a leading predictor of reading ability for deaf people who use a signed language, but few neuroimaging studies have examined how it supports reading. We used event-related potentials to investigate how fingerspelled words prime printed words. Twenty-four skilled deaf adult readers completed a Go/No-Go task while viewing printed English word targets following related and unrelated primes in one of three conditions: printed English words, American Sign Language (ASL) signs, and fingerspelled words. N400 priming effects were strong across all three conditions. Early N400 effects were similar for printed word primes and fingerspelled word primes, suggesting shared orthographic representations. Late N400 effects were strongest for printed word primes, reflecting less effortful processing when primes and targets were in the same printed modality. These findings provide evidence for cross-language and cross-modal priming between fingerspelled and printed words and underscore the importance of fingerspelling in developing word representations for skilled reading.
{"title":"Neural associations between fingerspelling, print, and signs: An ERP priming study with deaf readers","authors":"Brittany Lee , Sofia E. Ortega , Priscilla M. Martinez , Katherine J. Midgley , Phillip J. Holcomb , Karen Emmorey","doi":"10.1016/j.bandl.2025.105610","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.bandl.2025.105610","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Fingerspelling is a leading predictor of reading ability for deaf people who use a signed language, but few neuroimaging studies have examined how it supports reading. We used event-related potentials to investigate how fingerspelled words prime printed words. Twenty-four skilled deaf adult readers completed a Go/No-Go task while viewing printed English word targets following related and unrelated primes in one of three conditions: printed English words, American Sign Language (ASL) signs, and fingerspelled words. N400 priming effects were strong across all three conditions. Early N400 effects were similar for printed word primes and fingerspelled word primes, suggesting shared orthographic representations. Late N400 effects were strongest for printed word primes, reflecting less effortful processing when primes and targets were in the same printed modality. These findings provide evidence for cross-language and cross-modal priming between fingerspelled and printed words and underscore the importance of fingerspelling in developing word representations for skilled reading.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":55330,"journal":{"name":"Brain and Language","volume":"268 ","pages":"Article 105610"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-07-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144548427","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-06-20DOI: 10.1016/j.bandl.2025.105608
Zhenghui Sun , Yajiao Shi , Xiaopu Hou , Dawei Xiang , Yiming Yang
The ability to construct hierarchical structures through syntactic Merge and semantic processes is a cornerstone of human language. Despite decades of debate over serial vs. parallel interaction processing models, the temporal dynamics underlying the interaction between syntax and semantics during even minimal hierarchical structure construction remain unclear. To address this, we employed a 2 (Sequence rules: hierarchical vs. linear) × 2 (Semantics: associated vs. unassociated) design in verb-noun sequences to disentangle syntax and semantics processing. We recorded the EEG data while 48 Chinese speakers read two words successively under a one-word probe task. The results from ERP and multivariate pattern classification analysis demonstrated (1) early syntactic Merge processing, and (2) the progressively intensifying interplay between syntax and semantics, where syntactic processing establishes structure stably from the early-stage while semantic processing incrementally intensifies over time. These findings challenge traditional serial and parallel processing models by uncovering simultaneous yet distinct temporal trajectory of syntactic and semantic processing. By bridging principles of the Minimalist Program with empirical evidence, we propose a dynamic parallel interaction processing model, highlighting the distinct but interdependent roles of syntax and semantics, with syntax serving as a foundational scaffold and semantics contributing the depth and variability needed for meaningful communication.
{"title":"Temporal dynamics of syntax and semantics during minimal hierarchical structure processing","authors":"Zhenghui Sun , Yajiao Shi , Xiaopu Hou , Dawei Xiang , Yiming Yang","doi":"10.1016/j.bandl.2025.105608","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.bandl.2025.105608","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The ability to construct hierarchical structures through syntactic Merge and semantic processes is a cornerstone of human language. Despite decades of debate over serial vs. parallel interaction processing models, the temporal dynamics underlying the interaction between syntax and semantics during even minimal hierarchical structure construction remain unclear. To address this, we employed a 2 (Sequence rules: hierarchical vs. linear) × 2 (Semantics: associated vs. unassociated) design in verb-noun sequences to disentangle syntax and semantics processing. We recorded the EEG data while 48 Chinese speakers read two words successively under a one-word probe task. The results from ERP and multivariate pattern classification analysis demonstrated (1) early syntactic Merge processing, and (2) the progressively intensifying interplay between syntax and semantics, where syntactic processing establishes structure stably from the early-stage while semantic processing incrementally intensifies over time. These findings challenge traditional serial and parallel processing models by uncovering simultaneous yet distinct temporal trajectory of syntactic and semantic processing. By bridging principles of the Minimalist Program with empirical evidence, we propose a dynamic parallel interaction processing model, highlighting the distinct but interdependent roles of syntax and semantics, with syntax serving as a foundational scaffold and semantics contributing the depth and variability needed for meaningful communication.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":55330,"journal":{"name":"Brain and Language","volume":"268 ","pages":"Article 105608"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-06-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144322800","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-05-23DOI: 10.1016/j.bandl.2025.105600
Yanbing Hu , Xiaofeng Ma , Aibao Zhou
In linguistics, the referential target of pronouns can shift depending on context, known as “shifting.” Previous research has mainly focused on how contextual factors affect this shift, without exploring whether different perceptual modalities (e.g., visual and auditory) also influence shifting. To address this, the current study used an oddball paradigm to examine the neural dynamics of different pronouns across perceptual modalities. Results showed that in the visual modality, first-person and third-person pronouns differed significantly in neural activity during the N400 window, indicating self-other separation. MVPA results confirmed this separation in ERP and theta signals. In the auditory modality, second-person and third-person pronouns also exhibited significant separation in the N400 window, similar to the visual pattern. In the alpha band, significant separation between second-person and third-person pronouns was observed only in the auditory modality. These findings suggest that shifting effects are influenced by perceptual modalities in addition to context.
{"title":"Neural dynamics decoding of the influence of modal properties on referential shifting: A univariate and multivariate EEG analysis","authors":"Yanbing Hu , Xiaofeng Ma , Aibao Zhou","doi":"10.1016/j.bandl.2025.105600","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.bandl.2025.105600","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In linguistics, the referential target of pronouns can shift depending on context, known as “shifting.” Previous research has mainly focused on how contextual factors affect this shift, without exploring whether different perceptual modalities (e.g., visual and auditory) also influence shifting. To address this, the current study used an oddball paradigm to examine the neural dynamics of different pronouns across perceptual modalities. Results showed that in the visual modality, first-person and third-person pronouns differed significantly in neural activity during the N400 window, indicating self-other separation. MVPA results confirmed this separation in ERP and theta signals. In the auditory modality, second-person and third-person pronouns also exhibited significant separation in the N400 window, similar to the visual pattern. In the alpha band, significant separation between second-person and third-person pronouns was observed only in the auditory modality. These findings suggest that shifting effects are influenced by perceptual modalities in addition to context.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":55330,"journal":{"name":"Brain and Language","volume":"267 ","pages":"Article 105600"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-05-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144124730","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-05-20DOI: 10.1016/j.bandl.2025.105592
Ton Dijkstra , David Peeters
The advent of personal computers in the late twentieth century introduced new research methodologies, transforming experimental bilingualism into a robust field. At the time, language research relied on modular, largely monolingual bottom-up approaches like the Language User Framework. Harris’s Cognitive Processes in Bilinguals (1992) marked a turning point, stimulating inquiries into core issues concerning bilingual representation, co-activation, and cross-linguistic interaction. Here, we discuss how the experimental study of bilingualism has both quantitatively and qualitatively evolved since this book’s publication. Some book topics have become mature research foci of their own (e.g., cross-language processing effects, bilingual cognitive control, computational modeling of bilingual processing), while others have shifted direction (e.g., from cerebral laterality to the bilingual brain more broadly). By highlighting advances in research on language membership and markedness, and addressing the value of computational models over recent large language models, we show how cognitive bilingualism research remains highly relevant today.
{"title":"Bilingualism: Not all we know now is old news","authors":"Ton Dijkstra , David Peeters","doi":"10.1016/j.bandl.2025.105592","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.bandl.2025.105592","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The advent of personal computers in the late twentieth century introduced new research methodologies, transforming experimental bilingualism into a robust field. At the time, language research relied on modular, largely monolingual bottom-up approaches like the Language User Framework. Harris’s Cognitive Processes in Bilinguals (1992) marked a turning point, stimulating inquiries into core issues concerning bilingual representation, co-activation, and cross-linguistic interaction. Here, we discuss how the experimental study of bilingualism has both quantitatively and qualitatively evolved since this book’s publication. Some book topics have become mature research foci of their own (e.g., cross-language processing effects, bilingual cognitive control, computational modeling of bilingual processing), while others have shifted direction (e.g., from cerebral laterality to the bilingual brain more broadly). By highlighting advances in research on language membership and markedness, and addressing the value of computational models over recent large language models, we show how cognitive bilingualism research remains highly relevant today.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":55330,"journal":{"name":"Brain and Language","volume":"267 ","pages":"Article 105592"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-05-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144105475","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-05-02DOI: 10.1016/j.bandl.2025.105582
Xuemei Tang , Man Fu , Xiao Wang , Yixin Yao , Lexian Shen
Previous event-related potential (ERP) studies have demonstrated the neural specificity of cognitive processing mechanisms in scientific metaphors. This property makes semantic retrieval and extraction more difficult compared to conventional metaphors. However, the role of context in modulating the comprehension of scientific metaphors remains unclear, and there has been no analysis or categorization of abstract and difficult scientific metaphors. In this study, we used the sentence-final word paradigm to investigate the effects of different contextual conditions on the comprehension of two types of scientific metaphors. We aimed to observe (Experiment 1) whether there are any differences between the processing of the two types of scientific metaphors in the context-free condition and (Experiment 2) whether the context affects the comprehension of the two types of scientific metaphors in the contextualized condition. Additionally, we explored the modulating effects of relevant and irrelevant contexts on the two types of scientific metaphors. Both N400 and late negative component (LN) effects were found in the two experiments. The N400 analysis showed that SMF (SMF refers to scientific metaphors whose source domain and target domain have similarities in functions in present study.) evoked more negative N400 than SMS (SMS refers to scientific metaphors whose source domain and target domain have similarities in shapes in present study) in the context-free condition. The result suggests that the processing of SMF might be more difficult than that of SMS. However, in the relevant-context condition, there was no significant difference in the N400 amplitudes of the two types of scientific metaphors. In contrast, in the irrelevant-context condition, SMS elicited significantly more negative N400 than SMF. Analysis of the LN revealed no significant differences between SMS and SMF in the two experiments. The results indicate that the context might affect information extraction and retrieval, but not the late reasoning stage about scientific knowledge. Moreover, the relevant context might facilitate the comprehension of both types of scientific metaphors, whereas the irrelevant context might hinder the processing of them. More importantly, the interference seems greater for SMS.
{"title":"Context-modulating effect on processing scientific metaphors: Evidence from ERPs","authors":"Xuemei Tang , Man Fu , Xiao Wang , Yixin Yao , Lexian Shen","doi":"10.1016/j.bandl.2025.105582","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.bandl.2025.105582","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Previous event-related potential (ERP) studies have demonstrated the neural specificity of cognitive processing mechanisms in scientific metaphors. This property makes semantic retrieval and extraction more difficult compared to conventional metaphors. However, the role of context in modulating the comprehension of scientific metaphors remains unclear, and there has been no analysis or categorization of abstract and difficult scientific metaphors. In this study, we used the sentence-final word paradigm to investigate the effects of different contextual conditions on the comprehension of two types of scientific metaphors. We aimed to observe (Experiment 1) whether there are any differences between the processing of the two types of scientific metaphors in the context-free condition and (Experiment 2) whether the context affects the comprehension of the two types of scientific metaphors in the contextualized condition. Additionally, we explored the modulating effects of relevant and irrelevant contexts on the two types of scientific metaphors. Both N400 and late negative component (LN) effects were found in the two experiments. The N400 analysis showed that SMF (SMF refers to scientific metaphors whose source domain and target domain have similarities in functions in present study.) evoked more negative N400 than SMS (SMS refers to scientific metaphors whose source domain and target domain have similarities in shapes in present study) in the context-free condition. The result suggests that the processing of SMF might be more difficult than that of SMS. However, in the relevant-context condition, there was no significant difference in the N400 amplitudes of the two types of scientific metaphors. In contrast, in the irrelevant-context condition, SMS elicited significantly more negative N400 than SMF. Analysis of the LN revealed no significant differences between SMS and SMF in the two experiments. The results indicate that the context might affect information extraction and retrieval, but not the late reasoning stage about scientific knowledge. Moreover, the relevant context might facilitate the comprehension of both types of scientific metaphors, whereas the irrelevant context might hinder the processing of them. More importantly, the interference seems greater for SMS.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":55330,"journal":{"name":"Brain and Language","volume":"266 ","pages":"Article 105582"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-05-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143895548","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-05-02DOI: 10.1016/j.bandl.2025.105580
Jack W Silcox , Brennan R. Payne
In the current paper, we report the results from two event-related brain potential (ERP) experiments that examined the time-course of false hearing (i.e., hearing one word when a different one was presented). Target words were presented in background noise whereas the preceding context (either a semantic prime word or a constraining sentence) was not. Participants routinely experienced false hearing, reporting a predictable word when an incongruent, phonological lure was presented. We found that the N400 to falsely heard words was similar to when a predictable word was presented even though a phonological lure was presented. Additionally, the N400 response to correctly identified phonological lures was significantly delayed compared to the response to incongruent words that shared no phonological relation to predictable words, suggesting the listeners engaged in phonological prediction. Altogether, the findings from the current study provide evidence that listeners’ engagement in phonological prediction can lead to misperception.
{"title":"Did you say brain or brave? event-related potentials reveal the central role of phonological prediction in false hearing","authors":"Jack W Silcox , Brennan R. Payne","doi":"10.1016/j.bandl.2025.105580","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.bandl.2025.105580","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In the current paper, we report the results from two event-related brain potential (ERP) experiments that examined the time-course of <em>false hearing</em> (i.e., hearing one word when a different one was presented). Target words were presented in background noise whereas the preceding context (either a semantic prime word or a constraining sentence) was not. Participants routinely experienced false hearing, reporting a predictable word when an incongruent, phonological lure was presented. We found that the N400 to falsely heard words was similar to when a predictable word was presented even though a phonological lure was presented. Additionally, the N400 response to correctly identified phonological lures was significantly delayed compared to the response to incongruent words that shared no phonological relation to predictable words, suggesting the listeners engaged in phonological prediction. Altogether, the findings from the current study provide evidence that listeners’ engagement in phonological prediction can lead to misperception.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":55330,"journal":{"name":"Brain and Language","volume":"267 ","pages":"Article 105580"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-05-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143895677","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-04-25DOI: 10.1016/j.bandl.2025.105581
Jane A. Brown , Gavin M. Bidelman
The “cocktail party problem” challenges our ability to understand speech in noisy environments and often includes background music. Here, we explored the role of background music in speech-in-noise listening. Participants listened to an audiobook in familiar and unfamiliar music while tracking keywords in either speech or song lyrics. We used EEG to measure neural tracking of the audiobook. When speech was masked by music, the modeled temporal response function (TRF) peak latency at 50 ms (P1TRF) was prolonged compared to unmasked. Additionally, P1TRF amplitude was larger in unfamiliar background music, suggesting improved speech tracking. We observed prolonged latencies at 100 ms (N1TRF) when speech was not the attended stimulus, though only in less musical listeners. Our results suggest early neural representations of speech are stronger with both attention and concurrent unfamiliar music, indicating familiar music is more distracting. One’s ability to perceptually filter “musical noise” at the cocktail party also depends on objective musical listening abilities.
{"title":"Attention, musicality, and familiarity shape cortical speech tracking at the musical cocktail party","authors":"Jane A. Brown , Gavin M. Bidelman","doi":"10.1016/j.bandl.2025.105581","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.bandl.2025.105581","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The “cocktail party problem” challenges our ability to understand speech in noisy environments and often includes background music. Here, we explored the role of background music in speech-in-noise listening. Participants listened to an audiobook in familiar and unfamiliar music while tracking keywords in either speech or song lyrics. We used EEG to measure neural tracking of the audiobook. When speech was masked by music, the modeled temporal response function (TRF) peak latency at 50 ms (P1<sub>TRF</sub>) was prolonged compared to unmasked. Additionally, P1<sub>TRF</sub> amplitude was larger in unfamiliar background music, suggesting improved speech tracking. We observed prolonged latencies at 100 ms (N1<sub>TRF</sub>) when speech was not the attended stimulus, though only in less musical listeners. Our results suggest early neural representations of speech are stronger with both attention and concurrent unfamiliar music, indicating familiar music is more distracting. One’s ability to perceptually filter “musical noise” at the cocktail party also depends on objective musical listening abilities.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":55330,"journal":{"name":"Brain and Language","volume":"266 ","pages":"Article 105581"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-04-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143868291","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-04-22DOI: 10.1016/j.bandl.2025.105578
Keng-Yu Lin , Edith Kaan
Language processing has been hypothesized to engage domain-general cognitive control processes. Studies supporting such an assumption have revealed that performing tasks that engage conflict resolution in an experiment could facilitate the disambiguation of garden-path sentences. While this modulation has typically been found between cognitive inhibition and disambiguation of garden-path sentences, it is unclear whether similar effects occur in other types of cognitive control or sentence structure. To address this, we conducted an EEG study to examine whether and how domain-general proactive control influences the processing of English wh-dependency sentences. We looked into both event-related brain potentials and time-frequency representations in the present study. During the experiment, each participant was asked to do one of the two versions of the AX-continuous performance task (AX-CPT), right after which they performed a sentence reading task containing English wh-dependency sentences. Participants were grouped based on the version of the AX-CPT they performed and different versions of the AX-CPT varied in the demand on proactive control. Seventy functionally monolingual and neurologically healthy native English speakers without any reading disorder participated in the study. Our results confirmed that the AX-CPT successfully induced different levels of proactive control across groups. Importantly, we found evidence for a modulatory effect between domain-general proactive control and language-specific processing under our experimental manipulations. This finding suggests that domain-general proactive control and language-specific processing may share overlapping neural mechanisms, and that changes in proactive control levels can influence language-specific processing.
{"title":"How domain-general proactive control modulates the processing of English wh-dependencies: An EEG study","authors":"Keng-Yu Lin , Edith Kaan","doi":"10.1016/j.bandl.2025.105578","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.bandl.2025.105578","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Language processing has been hypothesized to engage domain-general cognitive control processes. Studies supporting such an assumption have revealed that performing tasks that engage conflict resolution in an experiment could facilitate the disambiguation of garden-path sentences. While this modulation has typically been found between cognitive inhibition and disambiguation of garden-path sentences, it is unclear whether similar effects occur in other types of cognitive control or sentence structure. To address this, we conducted an EEG study to examine whether and how domain-general proactive control influences the processing of English wh-dependency sentences. We looked into both event-related brain potentials and time-frequency representations in the present study. During the experiment, each participant was asked to do one of the two versions of the AX-continuous performance task (AX-CPT), right after which they performed a sentence reading task containing English wh-dependency sentences. Participants were grouped based on the version of the AX-CPT they performed and different versions of the AX-CPT varied in the demand on proactive control. Seventy functionally monolingual and neurologically healthy native English speakers without any reading disorder participated in the study. Our results confirmed that the AX-CPT successfully induced different levels of proactive control across groups. Importantly, we found evidence for a modulatory effect between domain-general proactive control and language-specific processing under our experimental manipulations. This finding suggests that domain-general proactive control and language-specific processing may share overlapping neural mechanisms, and that changes in proactive control levels can influence language-specific processing.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":55330,"journal":{"name":"Brain and Language","volume":"266 ","pages":"Article 105578"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-04-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143854403","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-04-15DOI: 10.1016/j.bandl.2025.105579
Kaile Zhang, Gang Peng
Extrinsic normalization, wherein listeners utilize context cues to adapt to speech variability, is essential for maintaining perceptual constancy. In daily communication, distractions are ubiquitous, raising questions about the influence of cognitive load on this process, particularly at the cortical level. This study investigates how cognitive load modulates extrinsic normalization using electroencephalography (EEG). Native Cantonese speakers were asked to perceive Cantonese tones from multiple speakers with context cues in both single- and dual-task conditions. The secondary task did not hinder listeners’ normalization process at the behavioral level. However, EEG data revealed significant modulations of extrinsic normalization under cognitive load. Extrinsic normalization elicited P2, N400, and LFN, suggesting that extrinsic normalization encompasses multiple perceptual adjustments at stages of phonological processing, lexical retrieval, and decision-making. Cognitive load influenced extrinsic normalization at all these stages, as evidenced by smaller P2, larger N400, and larger LFN, highlighting the active and controlled nature of this process.
{"title":"The modulation of cognitive load on speech normalization: A neurophysiological perspective","authors":"Kaile Zhang, Gang Peng","doi":"10.1016/j.bandl.2025.105579","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.bandl.2025.105579","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Extrinsic normalization, wherein listeners utilize context cues to adapt to speech variability, is essential for maintaining perceptual constancy. In daily communication, distractions are ubiquitous, raising questions about the influence of cognitive load on this process, particularly at the cortical level. This study investigates how cognitive load modulates extrinsic normalization using electroencephalography (EEG). Native Cantonese speakers were asked to perceive Cantonese tones from multiple speakers with context cues in both single- and dual-task conditions. The secondary task did not hinder listeners’ normalization process at the behavioral level. However, EEG data revealed significant modulations of extrinsic normalization under cognitive load. Extrinsic normalization elicited P2, N400, and LFN, suggesting that extrinsic normalization encompasses multiple perceptual adjustments at stages of phonological processing, lexical retrieval, and decision-making. Cognitive load influenced extrinsic normalization at all these stages, as evidenced by smaller P2, larger N400, and larger LFN, highlighting the active and controlled nature of this process.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":55330,"journal":{"name":"Brain and Language","volume":"266 ","pages":"Article 105579"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-04-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143829245","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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