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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Dec 4, 2025

Eye Tracking During Visually Situated Language Comprehension: Flexibility and Limitations in Uncovering Visual Context Effects

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Published on: November 30, 2018

Dynamic EEG analysis during language comprehension reveals interactive cascades between perceptual processing and

McCall E Sarrett¹, Bob McMurray², Efthymia C Kapnoula³

¹Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Neuroscience, 356 Medical Research Center, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, 52242, United States.

Brain and Language

|October 21, 2020

Summary

Brain activity preserves fine-grained acoustic details for up to 900ms. Contextual analysis begins early, influenced by predictions, offering insights into spoken language processing.

Keywords:

Electroencephalography N100 N400 Predictive coding Semantic integration Speech perception Top-down effects

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Last Updated: Dec 4, 2025

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Published on: July 1, 2015

Area of Science:

Neuroscience
Cognitive Science
Psycholinguistics

Background:

Spoken language understanding involves processing acoustic, phonological, and semantic information.
The precise temporal relationship between these processing levels remains unclear.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the interplay between acoustic perception and contextual expectation in spoken language comprehension.
To elucidate the neural dynamics of language processing using electroencephalography.

Main Methods:

Electroencephalography (EEG) recorded from 31 listeners processing sentences with manipulated acoustic ambiguity and sentential expectations.
Mixed-effects modeling applied to EEG data to analyze neural activity over time (millisecond-by-millisecond).

Main Results:

Neural representations of fine-grained acoustic information persist for up to 900 milliseconds.
Contextual analysis initiates early and its strength correlates with the acoustic signal.
Top-down predictions can influence perception but emerge concurrently with the sensory input.

Conclusions:

Neural processing of spoken language integrates acoustic and contextual information dynamically.
Early and simultaneous integration of sensory and predictive information shapes language comprehension.
Findings advance understanding of the neural basis of the cortical language network.