A topographical study of ERP correlates of semantic and syntactic violations in the Japanese language using the multichannel EEG system

Language processing was investigated using event-related potentials obtaine d using a multichannel (58-channel) EEG with regard to semantic dependency (i.e., selectional restriction between a verb and the arguments it takes; t he SR type) and syntactic dependency between sentence-final particles and i nterrogative phrases (thr WH-Q type) in Japanese. It was found that semanti c violations elicited the conventional N400, which was distributed in the b ilateral occipital and the right temporal regions, and that the syntactic V iolations elicited the P600 in a broad area, predominantly in the centropar ietal regions. Scalp current density mappings suggested that the right temp oral cortex plays a significant role in integrating pieces of contextual in formation, especially when it is difficult to integrated a word in the cont ext of a sentence, and that the P600 was connected to the syntactic process es conceivably indexed by the left temporal current sink with a relatively early onset.