Antecedent access mechanisms in pronoun processing
- Previous cross-modal priming studies showed that lexical decisions to words after a pronoun were facilitated when these words were semantically related to the pronoun's antecedent. These studies suggested that semantic priming effectively measured antecedent retrieval during coreference. We examined whether these effects extended to implicit reading comprehension using the N400 response. The results of three experiments did not yield strong evidence of semantic facilitation due to coreference. Further, the comparison with two additional experiments showed that N400 facilitation effects were reduced in sentences (vs. word pair paradigms) and were modulated by the case morphology of the prime word. We propose that priming effects in cross-modal experiments may have resulted from task-related strategies. More generally, the impact of sentence context and morphological information on priming effects suggests that they may depend on the extent to which the upcoming input is predicted, rather than automatic spreading activation betweenPrevious cross-modal priming studies showed that lexical decisions to words after a pronoun were facilitated when these words were semantically related to the pronoun's antecedent. These studies suggested that semantic priming effectively measured antecedent retrieval during coreference. We examined whether these effects extended to implicit reading comprehension using the N400 response. The results of three experiments did not yield strong evidence of semantic facilitation due to coreference. Further, the comparison with two additional experiments showed that N400 facilitation effects were reduced in sentences (vs. word pair paradigms) and were modulated by the case morphology of the prime word. We propose that priming effects in cross-modal experiments may have resulted from task-related strategies. More generally, the impact of sentence context and morphological information on priming effects suggests that they may depend on the extent to which the upcoming input is predicted, rather than automatic spreading activation between semantically related words.…
Author details: | Sol LagoORCiD, Anna NamystORCiD, Lena Ann JägerORCiDGND, Ellen Lau |
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DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1080/23273798.2019.1566561 |
ISSN: | 2327-3798 |
ISSN: | 2327-3801 |
Title of parent work (English): | Language, cognition and neuroscience |
Subtitle (English): | evidence from the N400 |
Publisher: | Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group |
Place of publishing: | Abingdon |
Publication type: | Article |
Language: | English |
Year of first publication: | 2019 |
Publication year: | 2019 |
Release date: | 2021/05/19 |
Tag: | Coreference; N400; event-related potentials; semantic priming; sentence comprehension |
Volume: | 34 |
Issue: | 5 |
Number of pages: | 21 |
First page: | 641 |
Last Page: | 661 |
Funding institution: | German Research CouncilGerman Research Foundation (DFG) [LA 3774/1-1, 317633480 - SFB 1287] |
Organizational units: | Humanwissenschaftliche Fakultät / Strukturbereich Kognitionswissenschaften / Department Psychologie |
DDC classification: | 1 Philosophie und Psychologie / 15 Psychologie / 150 Psychologie |
4 Sprache / 40 Sprache / 400 Sprache | |
Peer review: | Referiert |
Publishing method: | Open Access / Bronze Open-Access |
License (German): | CC-BY - Namensnennung 4.0 International |
External remark: | Zweitveröffentlichung in der Schriftenreihe Postprints der Universität Potsdam : Postprints der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe ; 568 |