Involvement of cognitive control in sentence comprehension: evidence from ERPs

This study investigates the reanalysis processes as a consequence of conflict between incompatible sentential representations in sentence comprehension. Using the event-related potential (ERP) technique, we examined the situation in which the sentential representation built upon world knowledge (i.e., the plausibility heuristic) conflicts with the one built upon syntactic rules (i.e., the syntactic analysis). We found that sentence processing is constrained both by the complexity of syntactic structure and by the reader's cognitive control ability. For readers with higher control abilities, as measured by the Stroop task, a sustained positivity was observed between 350 and 850 ms when conflicts occurred in complex (i.e., passive) sentences, whereas an anterior negativity was observed between 300 and 600 ms when conflicts occurred in simple (i.e., active) sentences. For readers with lower control abilities, however, brain potentials were not affected by the complexity of syntactic structure, with a sustained positivity obtained between 350 and 750 ms for conflicts occurring in both active and passive sentences. These results suggest that the mechanisms of cognitive control are involved in the reanalysis processes to resolve conflict between incompatible sentential representations. The sustained positivity is possibly associated with detection and resolution of representational conflict, while the anterior negativity is associated with suppression of inappropriate representation or response tendency.