Are the anterior negativities to grammatical violations indexing working memory?

Manuel Martin-Loeches, Francisco munoz, Pilar Casado, A. Melcon, C. Fernandez-frias,

Psychophysiology 42, 2005, 508-519.

Presented by Dora Lu, 09/13/2006

ERP Component: N400 Kutas & Hillyard. (1980).

ERP Component: P600 Osterhout & Nicol (1999)

Anterior Negativities

Neville et al (1991):Semantic anomaly:

The scientist criticized Max’s event of the theorem.

Phrase structure violation: The scientist criticized Max’s of proof the theorem.

Specificity constraint violation: What did the scientist criticize Max’s proof of?

Subjacency Constraint violation:What was a proof of criticized by the scientist?

Neville et al (1991)

N400

N125

N125

P500

Neville et al (1991): difference wave

(early) (left) Anterior Negativities

A negative component that peaks between 150-600ms after stimulus onset, usually with anterior distribution, sometimes lateralized (e.g. Neville et al 1991)

When will (early) (left) Anterior Negativities appear?

Grammatical violations Word category violations (disrupt the building of the phrase structur

e) – early left anterior negativity (e.g. Friederici et al 1996)Syntactic-category violation:

The metal was refined by the goldsmith who was honored.The metal was for refined by the goldsmith who was honored.

Syntactic-category ambiguity:The metal was for refining melted by the goldsmith who was honored.The metal was/became refining melted by the goldsmith who was honored.

Morphosyntactic violations (gender/number agreement, verb inflection violations) – anterior negativity (e.g. Vos et al. 2001)

The tourist have a busy schedule and visit the theater that very famous is.The tourist have a busy schedule and visits the theater that very famous is.The tourist that a busy schedule have, visit the theater that very famous is.The tourist that a busy schedule have, visits the theater that very famous is.

Working memory demand (Kluender & Kutas 1993)

What these anterior negativities represent for? Reflect automatic first-pass parsing process, such as d

etecting morphosyntactic mismatch, inability to build the phrase structure (e.g. Hagoort 2003)

Reflecting working memory operation or working memory load. AN have been found in grammatically well-formed se

ntences that demand large amount of working memory resources. (e.g. Kluender & Kutas 1993)

The amplitude of LAN to morphosyntactic violations was affected by the working memory span of the subjects. (e.g. Vos et al 2001)

Unsettled issues about AN:

When will you see AN? Grammatical violations: morphosyntactic and word cat

egory violations• Do these two grammatical violations reflect the same process?

(Friederici 2002: word category >> morphosyntactic process, but Hagoort 2003: artifacts of the moment when the violation appears)

Different distribution of AN: because of different grammatical violations are used

Whether it is related to working memory operations? Controversial – some studies failed to elicit it, effects

are small, distribution is not consistent

Current Study

Directly compare responses caused by working memory with those caused by grammatical manipulations.Two grammatical violations: word category &

morphosyntactic violationsWorking memory load: relative clauses vs s

hort, SR vs OR (structural difficulties)

Experimental stimuli Short sentence: (The composer edited the opera.)

Correct: El compositor edito la opera. Category violation: El compositor edicion la opera. Morphosyntactic violation: El compositor edite la opera.

Center embedded subject relative clause: (The composer [that hated the singer] edited the opera.) El compositor [que odio al cantante] edito la opera. El compositor [que odio al cantante] edicion la opera. El compositor [que odio al cantante] edite la opera.

Center embedded object relative clause: (The composer [that the singer hated] edited the opera.) El compositor [que el cantante odio] edito la opera. El compositor [que el cantante odio] edicion la opera. El compositor [que el cantante odio] edite la opera.

Methods

Participants: 32 Spanish speakers

Stimuli: 180 sets (60 simple sentences, 60 SR, 60 OR) + 120 fillers (40 ungrammatical sentences with different violations)

Word-by word center presentation, 300ms duration, 500ms SOA, 1500ms between each sentence

Participants perform grammaticality judgment

Recordings: 29 electrodes

Behavioral results

Grammaticality judgment: People did pretty good for the grammaticality

judgments. 93.2% for grammatical and 97.3% for ungrammatical sentences.

People did worse for correct sentences with an object-relative clause (86.4%).

Reaction time: People spent 100ms more to respond to

correct OR clauses. (683ms for short, 792ms for OR, 618 for SR)

ERP results: Relative Clause regionS: The composer edited the opera.

SR: The composer [that hated the singer] edited the opera.

OR: The composer [that the singer hated] edited the opera.

Onset of 1st word

1000ms, 3rd word

AN: both SR & OR

ERP results: Relative Clause regionS: The composer edited the opera.

SR: The composer [that hated the singer] edited the opera.

OR: The composer [that the singer hated] edited the opera.

Frontal distribution, slightly lateralized

ERP results: Relative Clause regionSR: The composer [that hated the singer] edited the opera.

OR: The composer [that the singer hated] edited the opera.

4th word, 1500ms after sentence onset, OR has increasing AN, and more centrally distributed

ERP results: Main verb region (short)

S: El compositor edito la opera.

WV: El compositor edicion la opera.

MV: El compositor edite la opera.

AN

P600

More bilateral

ERP results: Main verb region (SR)C: El compositor [que odio al cantante] edito la opera.

WV: El compositor [que odio al cantante] edicion la opera.

MV: El compositor [que odio al cantante] edite la opera.

Only WC has posterior negativity!

P600 larger for MV

ERP results: Main verb region (OR)C: El compositor [que el cantante odio] edito la opera.

WV: El compositor [que el cantante odio] edicion la opera.

MV: El compositor [que el cantante odio] edite la opera.

No AN

P600

ERP results: Main verb of relative clause S: The composer edited the opera.

SR: The composer [that hated the singer] edited the opera.

OR: The composer [that the singer hated] edited the opera.

SR vs short:

Long duration effect, wide frontal or frontal-central start about 200ms

SR vs OR: long duration effect has parietal distribution

Comparing working memory related and syntactical related negativities

4 frontal negativities related to working memory 2 frontal negativities related to grammatical violations Frontal negativities related to grammatical violations has

narrower distribution (Fig. 2)

Discussion

Frontal negativities related to grammatical violation and working memory are qualitatively different in terms of topography and duration. Left lateralization is more reliable for grammatical related

negativities Negativities related to working memory has wider distribution,

involving most of the anterior part Duration could be one criterion to dissociate the two types of

negativities. Working memory related negativities display longer duration.

The syntactic operations involved in grammatical violation and working memory may not be independent.

When working memory resources are demanded, the AN that reflects grammatical violations is reduced. two types negativities are different but might from the same resource.

Discussion Two types of grammatical violations do not differ significantly. N

o latency difference. Found parietal negativities in SR word category violation. pro

bably because local structural differences. There is an ambiguity about whether the wrong noun should be an adjective or a verb. C: El compositor [que odio al cantante] edito la opera.WV: El compositor [que odio al cantante] edicion la opera

Coulson et al (1998)Pronoun Case:

The plane took *we to paradise and back. The plane took us to paradise and back.

Verb agreement: Every Monday he *mow the lawn. Every Monday he mows the lawn.

Discussion

Why bilateral parietal long duration negativities rather than AN in SR and OR’s main verb region? could be grammatical and themantic role assignment in OR

The P600 is larger in morphosyntactic violation than word category violation. Morphosyntactic violations induce reanalysis and repair operation.

So, are you convinced?

Negativities reflect at least two different cognitive processes.

Although processes are different, they might use the same resources.

But…will different types of grammatical violations yield the same results? Different degrees of grammatical violations. For example, verb/noun violation vs noun/preposition violations.

Can we generalize that AN functions as a grammatical mismatch detector? Or just a detector for processing difficulties? Or could it reflect attention shift?