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Event-related brain potentials reflect discourse-referential ambiguity in spoken language comprehension
Jos J A van Berkum1, Colin M Brown, Peter Hagoort
1Department of Psychology, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. berkum@psy.uva.nl
Psychophysiology
|June 25, 2003
Summary
Referential ambiguity in spoken language comprehension, measured by event-related potentials (ERPs), rapidly impacts memory resources. This ERP effect differs from semantic and syntactic processing, enabling selective tracking of discourse comprehension.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Neuroscience
- Psycholinguistics
- Neuroscience
Background:
- Understanding spoken language involves rapidly establishing references to entities in discourse.
- Event-related potentials (ERPs) offer a temporal window into cognitive processes during language comprehension.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the neural processes underlying reference establishment in spoken language.
- To determine if ERPs can selectively track referential processing distinct from semantic and syntactic aspects.
Main Methods:
- Two experiments using event-related brain potentials (ERPs).
- Participants listened to stories with uniquely or ambiguously referring noun phrases.
- Analysis of ERPs time-locked to noun onset.
Main Results:
- Referentially ambiguous nouns elicited a sustained, frontally dominant negative ERP shift (300-400 ms post-onset).
- This effect suggests rapid reference establishment and increased memory load.
- The ERP signature of referential processing is distinct from N400 (semantic) and P600 (syntactic) effects.
Conclusions:
- ERPs can selectively track referential processing during discourse comprehension.
- Referential ambiguity rapidly engages cognitive resources, potentially related to memory.
- This research distinguishes referential processing from other linguistic computations using neurophysiological measures.