ERP analysis of cognitive sequencing: a left anterior negativity related to structural transformation processing

A major objective of cognitive neuroscience is to identify those neurocompu tational processes that may be shared by multiple cognitive functions vs th ose that are highly specific. This problem of identifying general vs specia lized functions is of particular interest in the domain of language process ing. Within this domain, event related brain potential (ERP) studies have d emonstrated a left anterior negativity (LAN) in a range 300-700 ms, associa ted with syntactic processing. often linked to grammatical function words. These words have little or no semantic content, but rather play a role in e ncoding syntactic structure required for parsing. In the current study we t est the hypothesis that the LAN reflects the operation of a more general se quence processing capability in which special symbols encode structural inf ormation that, when combined with past elements in the sequence, allows the prediction of successor elements. We recorded ERPs during a non-linguistic sequencing task that required subjects (n = 10) to process special symbols possessing the functional property defined above. When compared to ERPs in a control condition. function symbol processing elicits left anterior nega tive shift between temporal and spatial characteristics quite similar to th e LAN described during function word processing in language, supporting our hypothesis. These results are discussed in the context of related studies of syntactic and cognitive sequence processing. NeuroReport 11:3187-3191 (C ) 2000 Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.