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Ma Y, Buccola B, Wang Z, Cousins S, Godfroid A, Beretta A. Expressions with Aspectual Verbs Elicit Slower Reading Times than Those with Psychological Verbs: An Eye-Tracking Study in Mandarin Chinese. JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLINGUISTIC RESEARCH 2023; 52:179-215. [PMID: 35230571 DOI: 10.1007/s10936-022-09846-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 01/27/2022] [Indexed: 06/14/2023]
Abstract
Research over the last 20 years has investigated the processing costs for sentences such as John began the book. Much of this work has conflated sentences with aspectual verbs, like start or finish, with psychological verbs, like enjoy or tolerate. However, recent studies have reported greater costs for aspectual verbs compared to psychological verbs (e.g., Katsika et al. in Ment Lex 7:58-76, 2012; Lai et al. in Compositionality and concepts in linguistics and psychology, 2017). The present paper reports an eye-tracking study that examined the costs of processing both verb types in Mandarin Chinese. The results revealed greater costs both for aspectual verbs compared to controls (John read the book) and for aspectual verbs compared to psychological verbs, reinforcing the claims of the Structured Individual Hypothesis (Piñango and Deo in J Semant 33:359-408, 2016). Strikingly, there was an early effect at the verb for aspectual verbs but not for psychological verbs. We argue that this result, together with previous findings and other conceptual issues, necessitates a conservative modification of the SIH: aspectual verbs are semantically more complex than psychological verbs. This modification retains the core analysis underlying the SIH, but reconciles the SIH with experimental findings by bringing it in line with the view that lexical semantic complexity has immediate consequences in processing (e.g., Brennan and Pylkkänen in Lang Cogn Process 25:777-807, 2010).
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Affiliation(s)
- Ye Ma
- Department of Linguistics, Languages, and Cultures, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, 48824, USA.
| | - Brian Buccola
- Department of Linguistics, Languages, and Cultures, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, 48824, USA
| | - Zinan Wang
- Department of Entomology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA
- Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior Program, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA
| | - Shannon Cousins
- Department of Linguistics, Languages, and Cultures, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, 48824, USA
| | - Aline Godfroid
- Second Language Studies and TESOL Program, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA
| | - Alan Beretta
- Department of Linguistics, Languages, and Cultures, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, 48824, USA
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Retrieval (N400) and integration (P600) in expectation-based comprehension. PLoS One 2021; 16:e0257430. [PMID: 34582472 PMCID: PMC8478172 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0257430] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/16/2021] [Accepted: 08/31/2021] [Indexed: 11/24/2022] Open
Abstract
Expectation-based theories of language processing, such as Surprisal theory, are supported by evidence of anticipation effects in both behavioural and neurophysiological measures. Online measures of language processing, however, are known to be influenced by factors such as lexical association that are distinct from—but often confounded with—expectancy. An open question therefore is whether a specific locus of expectancy related effects can be established in neural and behavioral processing correlates. We address this question in an event-related potential experiment and a self-paced reading experiment that independently cross expectancy and lexical association in a context manipulation design. We find that event-related potentials reveal that the N400 is sensitive to both expectancy and lexical association, while the P600 is modulated only by expectancy. Reading times, in turn, reveal effects of both association and expectancy in the first spillover region, followed by effects of expectancy alone in the second spillover region. These findings are consistent with the Retrieval-Integration account of language comprehension, according to which lexical retrieval (N400) is facilitated for words that are both expected and associated, whereas integration difficulty (P600) will be greater for unexpected words alone. Further, an exploratory analysis suggests that the P600 is not merely sensitive to expectancy violations, but rather, that there is a continuous relation. Taken together, these results suggest that the P600, like reading times, may reflect a meaning-centric notion of Surprisal in language comprehension.
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Xue W, Liu M. Complement Coercion in Mandarin Chinese: Evidence from a Self-paced Reading Study. JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLINGUISTIC RESEARCH 2021; 50:757-776. [PMID: 33206288 DOI: 10.1007/s10936-020-09744-1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 10/31/2020] [Indexed: 06/11/2023]
Abstract
The study aims to explore the processing pattern of Mandarin Chinese sentences with complement coercion. Complement coercion is a known linguistic phenomenon in which some verbs, semantically requiring an event-denoting complement, are combined with an entity-denoting complement, as in Mary began the book. The combination (i.e., event-selecting verb + entity-denoting noun) has been reported to involve type mismatch, and thus elicits processing difficulty. While the phenomenon has been extensively studied in Indo-European languages, such as English and German, it is debatable if the phenomenon exists in a typologically distinct language from English (e.g., in structural complexity of words), such as Mandarin. To provide empirical evidence, the study conducted a self-paced reading experiment to compare the processing patterns of coercion sentences and non-coercion controls in Mandarin. The results showed longer reading times for the coercion sentences than the non-coercion counterparts, which supported previous findings about the processing difficulty of complement coercion.
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Affiliation(s)
- Wenting Xue
- Department of Linguistics and Translation, City University of Hong Kong, Q78, B7704, Blue Zone, Yeung Kin Man Academic Building, 83, Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR, China.
| | - Meichun Liu
- Department of Linguistics and Translation, City University of Hong Kong, Q78, B7704, Blue Zone, Yeung Kin Man Academic Building, 83, Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR, China
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Xue W, Liu M, Politzer-Ahles S. Processing of Complement Coercion With Aspectual Verbs in Mandarin Chinese: Evidence From a Self-Paced Reading Study. Front Psychol 2021; 12:643571. [PMID: 34135811 PMCID: PMC8201986 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.643571] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/18/2020] [Accepted: 05/03/2021] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
This study examines whether Chinese complement coercion sentences with aspectual verbs will elicit processing difficulty during real-time comprehension. Complement coercion is a linguistic phenomenon in which certain verbs (e.g., start, enjoy), requiring an event-denoting complement, are combined with an entity-denoting complement (e.g., book), as in The author started a book. Previous studies have reported that the entity-denoting complement elicited processing difficulty following verbs that require event argument compared with verbs that do not (e.g., The author wrote a book). While the processing of complement coercion has been extensively studied in Indo-European languages such as English and German, it is relatively under-researched in Sino-Tibetan languages such as Mandarin Chinese. Given the fact that there are many linguistic elements behaving distinctly in the different language families, for instance, verbs with respect to their semantic properties and syntactic representations of the complement, it is meaningful to investigate whether or not the existing linguistic differences have any effect on the processing of complement coercion in Mandarin. With this research goal, we recorded self-paced reading time of 61 native Mandarin speakers to investigate the processing of the entity-denoting complement in sentences with three different verb types (aspectual verbs which require an event-denoting complement, preferred verbs which denote a preferred interpretation of the aspectual expressions, and non-preferred verbs which denote a non-preferred but plausible interpretation of the aspectual expressions), as exemplified in 顾客开始/填写/查看这份问卷 gù-kè kāi-shǐ/tián-xiě/chá-kàn zhè-fèn wèn-juàn “The customer started/filled in/checked the questionnaire.” It was found that the entity noun complement (e.g., 这份问卷 zhè-fèn wèn-juàn “the questionnaire”) elicited significantly longer reading times in coercion sentences than non-coercion counterparts. The results are compatible with the previous findings in English that complement coercion sentences impose processing cost during real-time comprehension. The study contributes empirical evidence to coercion studies cross-linguistically.
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Affiliation(s)
- Wenting Xue
- Department of Linguistics and Translation, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
| | - Meichun Liu
- Department of Linguistics and Translation, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
| | - Stephen Politzer-Ahles
- Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China
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Delogu F, Brouwer H, Crocker MW. When components collide: Spatiotemporal overlap of the N400 and P600 in language comprehension. Brain Res 2021; 1766:147514. [PMID: 33974906 DOI: 10.1016/j.brainres.2021.147514] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/26/2021] [Revised: 03/30/2021] [Accepted: 05/04/2021] [Indexed: 01/23/2023]
Abstract
The problem of spatiotemporal overlap between event-related potential (ERP) components is generally acknowledged in language research. However, its implications for the interpretation of experimental results are often overlooked. In a previous experiment on the functional interpretation of the N400 and P600, it was argued that a P600 effect to implausible words was largely obscured - in one of two implausible conditions - by an overlapping N400 effect of semantic association. In the present ERP study, we show that the P600 effect of implausibility is uncovered when the critical condition is tested against a proper baseline condition which elicits a similar N400 amplitude, while it is obscured when tested against a baseline condition producing an N400 effect. Our findings reveal that component overlap can result in the apparent absence or presence of an effect in the surface signal and should therefore be carefully considered when interpreting ERP patterns. Importantly, we show that, by factoring in the effects of spatiotemporal overlap between the N400 and P600 on the surface signal, which we reveal using rERP analysis, apparent inconsistencies in previous findings are easily reconciled, enabling us to draw unambiguous conclusions about the functional interpretation of the N400 and P600 components. Overall, our results provide compelling evidence that the N400 reflects lexical retrieval processes, while the P600 indexes compositional integration of word meaning into the unfolding utterance interpretation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Francesca Delogu
- Department of Language Science and Technology, Saarland University, Building C7.1, 66123 Saarbrücken, Germany.
| | - Harm Brouwer
- Department of Language Science and Technology, Saarland University, Building C7.1, 66123 Saarbrücken, Germany
| | - Matthew W Crocker
- Department of Language Science and Technology, Saarland University, Building C7.1, 66123 Saarbrücken, Germany
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Not all arguments are processed equally: a distributional model of argument complexity. LANG RESOUR EVAL 2021. [DOI: 10.1007/s10579-021-09533-9] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/22/2022]
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Rabovsky M, McClelland JL. Quasi-compositional mapping from form to meaning: a neural network-based approach to capturing neural responses during human language comprehension. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 2019; 375:20190313. [PMID: 31840583 DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2019.0313] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/12/2022] Open
Abstract
We argue that natural language can be usefully described as quasi-compositional and we suggest that deep learning-based neural language models bear long-term promise to capture how language conveys meaning. We also note that a successful account of human language processing should explain both the outcome of the comprehension process and the continuous internal processes underlying this performance. These points motivate our discussion of a neural network model of sentence comprehension, the Sentence Gestalt model, which we have used to account for the N400 component of the event-related brain potential (ERP), which tracks meaning processing as it happens in real time. The model, which shares features with recent deep learning-based language models, simulates N400 amplitude as the automatic update of a probabilistic representation of the situation or event described by the sentence, corresponding to a temporal difference learning signal at the level of meaning. We suggest that this process happens relatively automatically, and that sometimes a more-controlled attention-dependent process is necessary for successful comprehension, which may be reflected in the subsequent P600 ERP component. We relate this account to current deep learning models as well as classic linguistic theory, and use it to illustrate a domain general perspective on some specific linguistic operations postulated based on compositional analyses of natural language. This article is part of the theme issue 'Towards mechanistic models of meaning composition'.
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Affiliation(s)
- Milena Rabovsky
- Department of Psychology, University of Potsdam, Karl-Liebknecht-Strasse 24-25, 14476 Potsdam, Germany
| | - James L McClelland
- Department of Psychology, Stanford University, 450 Jane Stanford Way, Stanford, CA 94305, USA
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Predicting (variability of) context effects in language comprehension. JOURNAL OF CULTURAL COGNITIVE SCIENCE 2019. [DOI: 10.1007/s41809-019-00025-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/26/2022]
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Bekemeier N, Brenner D, Klepp A, Biermann-Ruben K, Indefrey P. Electrophysiological correlates of concept type shifts. PLoS One 2019; 14:e0212624. [PMID: 30835763 PMCID: PMC6400391 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0212624] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/19/2018] [Accepted: 02/06/2019] [Indexed: 11/17/2022] Open
Abstract
A recent semantic theory of nominal concepts by Löbner [1] posits that–due to their inherent uniqueness and relationality properties–noun concepts can be classified into four concept types (CTs): sortal, individual, relational, functional. For sortal nouns the default determination is indefinite (a stone), for individual nouns it is definite (the sun), for relational and functional nouns it is possessive (his ear, his father). Incongruent determination leads to a concept type shift: his father (functional concept: unique, relational)–a father (sortal concept: non-unique, non-relational). Behavioral studies on CT shifts have demonstrated a CT congruence effect, with congruent determiners triggering faster lexical decision times on the subsequent noun than incongruent ones [2, 3]. The present ERP study investigated electrophysiological correlates of congruent and incongruent determination in German noun phrases, and specifically, whether the CT congruence effect could be indexed by such classic ERP components as N400, LAN or P600. If incongruent determination affects the lexical retrieval or semantic integration of the noun, it should be reflected in the amplitude of the N400 component. If, however, CT congruence is processed by the same neuronal mechanisms that underlie morphosyntactic processing, incongruent determination should trigger LAN or/and P600. These predictions were tested in two ERP studies. In Experiment 1, participants just listened to noun phrases. In Experiment 2, they performed a wellformedness judgment task. The processing of (in)congruent CTs (his sun vs. the sun) was compared to the processing of morphosyntactic and semantic violations in control conditions. Whereas the control conditions elicited classic electrophysiological violation responses (N400, LAN, & P600), CT-incongruences did not. Instead they showed novel concept-type specific response patterns. The absence of the classic ERP components suggests that CT-incongruent determination is not perceived as a violation of the semantic or morphosyntactic structure of the noun phrase.
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Affiliation(s)
- Natalia Bekemeier
- Department of Linguistics, Heinrich Heine University, Düsseldorf, Germany
| | - Dorothea Brenner
- Department of Linguistics, Heinrich Heine University, Düsseldorf, Germany
| | - Anne Klepp
- Institute of Clinical Neuroscience and Medical Psychology, Medical Faculty, Heinrich Heine University, Düsseldorf, Germany
| | - Katja Biermann-Ruben
- Institute of Clinical Neuroscience and Medical Psychology, Medical Faculty, Heinrich Heine University, Düsseldorf, Germany
| | - Peter Indefrey
- Department of Linguistics, Heinrich Heine University, Düsseldorf, Germany.,Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics and Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
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Hasson U, Egidi G, Marelli M, Willems RM. Grounding the neurobiology of language in first principles: The necessity of non-language-centric explanations for language comprehension. Cognition 2018; 180:135-157. [PMID: 30053570 PMCID: PMC6145924 DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2018.06.018] [Citation(s) in RCA: 75] [Impact Index Per Article: 12.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/08/2017] [Revised: 06/05/2018] [Accepted: 06/24/2018] [Indexed: 12/26/2022]
Abstract
Recent decades have ushered in tremendous progress in understanding the neural basis of language. Most of our current knowledge on language and the brain, however, is derived from lab-based experiments that are far removed from everyday language use, and that are inspired by questions originating in linguistic and psycholinguistic contexts. In this paper we argue that in order to make progress, the field needs to shift its focus to understanding the neurobiology of naturalistic language comprehension. We present here a new conceptual framework for understanding the neurobiological organization of language comprehension. This framework is non-language-centered in the computational/neurobiological constructs it identifies, and focuses strongly on context. Our core arguments address three general issues: (i) the difficulty in extending language-centric explanations to discourse; (ii) the necessity of taking context as a serious topic of study, modeling it formally and acknowledging the limitations on external validity when studying language comprehension outside context; and (iii) the tenuous status of the language network as an explanatory construct. We argue that adopting this framework means that neurobiological studies of language will be less focused on identifying correlations between brain activity patterns and mechanisms postulated by psycholinguistic theories. Instead, they will be less self-referential and increasingly more inclined towards integration of language with other cognitive systems, ultimately doing more justice to the neurobiological organization of language and how it supports language as it is used in everyday life.
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Affiliation(s)
- Uri Hasson
- Center for Mind/Brain Sciences, The University of Trento, Trento, Italy; Center for Practical Wisdom, The University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, United States.
| | - Giovanna Egidi
- Center for Mind/Brain Sciences, The University of Trento, Trento, Italy
| | - Marco Marelli
- Department of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca, Milano, Italy; NeuroMI - Milan Center for Neuroscience, Milano, Italy
| | - Roel M Willems
- Centre for Language Studies & Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands; Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
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Venhuizen NJ, Crocker MW, Brouwer H. Expectation-based Comprehension: Modeling the Interaction of World Knowledge and Linguistic Experience. DISCOURSE PROCESSES 2018. [DOI: 10.1080/0163853x.2018.1448677] [Citation(s) in RCA: 15] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/17/2022]
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