HUMAN BRAIN POTENTIALS TO READING SYNTACTIC ERRORS IN SENTENCES OF DIFFERENT COMPLEXITY

In order to determine if an event-related brain potential (ERP) effect described for syntactic violations (P600/SPS) varies with the amount of reprocessing entailed by a violation, number incongruencies were pr esented either within simple declarative or within subordinate clauses . ERPs were recorded while 12 German subjects read the stimulus materi als presented word by word on a video monitor. The ERPs showed a P600/ SPS effect for all sentence types, which was smallest in amplitude and earliest in latency for simple declarative sentences. This effect the refore qualifies as a metric for the amount and timing of syntactic re processing entailed by a syntactic error. In addition, a late frontal negativity (1000-1400 ms range) was found for the simple declarative s entences. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd.