S. Coulson et al., EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED - EVENT-RELATED BRAIN RESPONSE TO MORPHOSYNTACTIC VIOLATIONS, Language and cognitive processes, 13(1), 1998, pp. 21-58
Arguments about the existence of language-specific neural systems and
particularly arguments about the independence of syntactic and semanti
c processing have recently focused on differences between the event-re
lated potentials (ERPs) elicited by violations of syntactic structure
(e.g. the P600) and those elicited by violations of semantic expectanc
y (e.g. the N400). However, the scalp distribution of the P600 compone
nt elicited by syntactic violations appears to resemble that elicited
by rare categorical events (''odd-balls'') in non-linguistic contexts,
frequently termed the P3b. The relationship between the P600 and the
P3b was explored by manipulating the grammaticality of sentences read
for comprehension, as well as two factors known to influence P3b ampli
tude: odd-ball probability and event saliency. Oddball probability was
manipulated by varying the frequency of morphosyntactic violations wi
thin blocks of sentences, and event saliency was manipulated by using
two types of morphosyntactic violations, one of which was more strikin
g than the other. The results indicate that the amplitude of the P600,
like the P3b, was sensitive to both the probability and saliency mani
pulations, and that the scalp distributions for the effect of probabil
ity and grammaticality are essentially similar. An unexpected, but not
wholly surprising, finding was the elicitation of an anterior negativ
ity between 300 and 500 msec post-word onset, which may index working
memory operations involved in sentence processing.