TY - JOUR A1 - Hodapp, Alice A1 - Rabovsky, Milena T1 - The N400 ERP component reflects an error-based implicit learning signal during language comprehension JF - European journal of neuroscience N2 - The functional significance of the N400 evoked-response component is still actively debated. An increasing amount of theoretical and computational modelling work is built on the interpretation of the N400 as a prediction error. In neural network modelling work, it was proposed that the N400 component can be interpreted as the change in a probabilistic representation of meaning that drives the continuous adaptation of an internal model of the statistics of the environment. These results imply that increased N400 amplitudes should correspond to greater adaptation, which can be measured via implicit memory. To investigate this model derived hypothesis, the current study manipulated expectancy in a sentence reading task to influence N400 amplitudes and subsequently presented the previously expected vs. unexpected words in a perceptual identification task to measure implicit memory. As predicted, reaction times in the perceptual identification task were significantly faster for previously unexpected words that induced larger N400 amplitudes in the previous sentence reading task. Additionally, it could be demonstrated that this adaptation seems to specifically depend on the process underlying N400 amplitudes, as participants with larger N400 differences during sentence reading also exhibited a larger implicit memory benefit in the perceptual identification task. These findings support the interpretation of the N400 as an implicit learning signal driving adaptation in language processing. KW - adaptation KW - EEG KW - expectancy KW - implicit learning KW - prediction error Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1111/ejn.15462 SN - 0953-816X SN - 1460-9568 VL - 54 IS - 9 SP - 7125 EP - 7140 PB - Wiley CY - Oxford ER - TY - GEN A1 - Marimon Tarter, Mireia A1 - Hofmann, Andrea A1 - Veríssimo, Joao Marques A1 - Männel, Claudia A1 - Friederici, Angela Dorkas A1 - Höhle, Barbara A1 - Wartenburger, Isabell T1 - Children’s Learning of Non-adjacent Dependencies Using a Web-Based Computer Game Setting T2 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - Infants show impressive speech decoding abilities and detect acoustic regularities that highlight the syntactic relations of a language, often coded via non-adjacent dependencies (NADs, e.g., is singing). It has been claimed that infants learn NADs implicitly and associatively through passive listening and that there is a shift from effortless associative learning to a more controlled learning of NADs after the age of 2 years, potentially driven by the maturation of the prefrontal cortex. To investigate if older children are able to learn NADs, Lammertink et al. (2019) recently developed a word-monitoring serial reaction time (SRT) task and could show that 6–11-year-old children learned the NADs, as their reaction times (RTs) increased then they were presented with violated NADs. In the current study we adapted their experimental paradigm and tested NAD learning in a younger group of 52 children between the age of 4–8 years in a remote, web-based, game-like setting (whack-a-mole). Children were exposed to Italian phrases containing NADs and had to monitor the occurrence of a target syllable, which was the second element of the NAD. After exposure, children did a “Stem Completion” task in which they were presented with the first element of the NAD and had to choose the second element of the NAD to complete the stimuli. Our findings show that, despite large variability in the data, children aged 4–8 years are sensitive to NADs; they show the expected differences in r RTs in the SRT task and could transfer the NAD-rule in the Stem Completion task. We discuss these results with respect to the development of NAD dependency learning in childhood and the practical impact and limitations of collecting these data in a web-based setting. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe - 766 KW - non-adjacent dependencies KW - rule learning KW - web-based KW - implicit learning KW - serial reaction time (SRT) task KW - SRT Y1 - 2022 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-550834 SN - 1866-8364 VL - 12 SP - 1 EP - 15 PB - Universitätsverlag Potsdam CY - Potsdam ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Marimon Tarter, Mireia A1 - Hofmann, Andrea A1 - Veríssimo, Joao Marques A1 - Männel, Claudia A1 - Friederici, Angela Dorkas A1 - Höhle, Barbara A1 - Wartenburger, Isabell T1 - Children’s Learning of Non-adjacent Dependencies Using a Web-Based Computer Game Setting JF - Frontiers in Psychology N2 - Infants show impressive speech decoding abilities and detect acoustic regularities that highlight the syntactic relations of a language, often coded via non-adjacent dependencies (NADs, e.g., is singing). It has been claimed that infants learn NADs implicitly and associatively through passive listening and that there is a shift from effortless associative learning to a more controlled learning of NADs after the age of 2 years, potentially driven by the maturation of the prefrontal cortex. To investigate if older children are able to learn NADs, Lammertink et al. (2019) recently developed a word-monitoring serial reaction time (SRT) task and could show that 6–11-year-old children learned the NADs, as their reaction times (RTs) increased then they were presented with violated NADs. In the current study we adapted their experimental paradigm and tested NAD learning in a younger group of 52 children between the age of 4–8 years in a remote, web-based, game-like setting (whack-a-mole). Children were exposed to Italian phrases containing NADs and had to monitor the occurrence of a target syllable, which was the second element of the NAD. After exposure, children did a “Stem Completion” task in which they were presented with the first element of the NAD and had to choose the second element of the NAD to complete the stimuli. Our findings show that, despite large variability in the data, children aged 4–8 years are sensitive to NADs; they show the expected differences in r RTs in the SRT task and could transfer the NAD-rule in the Stem Completion task. We discuss these results with respect to the development of NAD dependency learning in childhood and the practical impact and limitations of collecting these data in a web-based setting. KW - non-adjacent dependencies KW - rule learning KW - web-based KW - implicit learning KW - serial reaction time (SRT) task KW - SRT Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.734877 SN - 1664-1078 VL - 12 SP - 1 EP - 15 PB - Frontiers CY - Lausanne, Schweiz ER -