An ERP study

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is frequently associated with communicative impairment, regardless of intelligence level or mental age. Impairment of prosodic processing in particular is a common feature of ASD. Despite extensive overlap in neural resources involved in prosody and music processing, music perception seems to be spared in this population. The present study is the first to investigate prosodic phrasing in ASD in both language and music, combining event-related brain potential (ERP) and behavioral methods. We tested phrase boundary processing in language and music in neuro-typical adults and high-functioning individuals with ASD. We targeted an ERP response associated with phrase boundary processing in both language and music – i.e., the Closure Positive Shift (CPS). While a language-CPS was observed in the neuro-typical group, for ASD participants a smaller response failed to reach statistical significance. In music, we found a boundary-onset music-CPS for both groups during pauses between musical phrases. Our results support the view of preserved processing of musical cues in ASD individuals, with a corresponding prosodic impairment. This suggests that, despite the existence of a domain-general processing mechanism (the CPS), key differences in the integration of features of language and music may lead to the prosodic impairment in ASD

ERPs and task effects in the auditory processing of gender agreement and semantics in French

We investigated task effects on violation ERP responses to Noun-Adjective gender mismatches and lexical/conceptual semantic mismatches in a combined auditory/visual paradigm in French. Participants listened to sentences while viewing pictures of objects. This paradigm was designed to investigate language processing in special populations (e.g., children) who may not be able to read or to provide stable behavioral judgment data. Our main goal was to determine how ERP responses to our target violations might differ depending on whether participants performed a judgment task (Task) versus listening for comprehension (No-Task). Characterizing the influence of the presence versus absence of judgment tasks on violation ERP responses allows us to meaningfully interpret data obtained using this paradigm without a behavioral task and relate them to judgment-based paradigms in the ERP literature. We replicated previously observed ERP patterns for semantic and gender mismatches, and found that the task especially affected the later P600 component

Neurophysiological correlates of musical and prosodic phrasing: shared processing mechanisms and effects of musical expertise

The processing of prosodic phrase boundaries in language is immediately reflected by a specific event-related potential component called the Closure Positive Shift (CPS). A component somewhat reminiscent of the CPS in language has also been reported for musical phrases (i.e., the so-called ‘music CPS’). However, in previous studies the quantification of the music-CPS as well as its morphology and timing differed substantially from the characteristics of the language-CPS. Therefore, the degree of correspondence between cognitive mechanisms of phrasing in music and in language has remained questionable. Here, we probed the shared nature of mechanisms underlying musical and prosodic phrasing by (1) investigating whether the music-CPS is present at phrase boundary positions where the language-CPS has been originally reported (i.e., at the onset of the pause between phrases), and (2) comparing the CPS in music and in language in non-musicians and professional musicians. For the first time, we report a positive shift at the onset of musical phrase boundaries that strongly resembles the language-CPS and argue that the post- boundary ‘music-CPS’ of previous studies may be an entirely distinct ERP component. Moreover, the language-CPS in musicians was found to be less prominent than in non-musicians, suggesting more efficient processing of prosodic phrases in language as a result of higher musical expertise

Growing Random Forests reveals that exposure and proficiency best account for 2 individual variability in L2 (and L1) brain potentials for syntax and semantics

Late second language (L2) learners report difficulties in specific linguistic areas such as syntactic processing, presumably because brain plasticity declines with age (following the critical period hypothesis). While there is also evidence that L2 learners can achieve native-like online-processing with sufficient proficiency (following the convergence hypothesis), considering multiple mediating factors and their impact on language processing has proven challenging. We recorded EEG while native (n = 36) and L2-speakers of French (n = 40) read sentences that were either well-formed or contained a syntactic-category error. a lexical-semantic anomaly, or both. Consistent with the critical period hypothesis, group differences revealed that while native speakers elicited a biphasic N400-P600 in response to ungrammatical sentences, L2 learners as a group only elicited an N400. However, individual data modeling using a Random Forests approach revealed that language exposure and proficiency are the most reliable predictors in explaining ERP responses, with N400 and P600 effects becoming larger as exposure to French as well as proficiency increased, as predicted by the convergence hypothesis

Verbing nouns and nouning verbs: Using a balanced design provides ERP evidence against “syntax-first” approaches to sentence processing

In this event-related potential (ERP) study we reevaluate syntax-first approaches to sentence processing by implementing a novel paradigm in French that includes correct sentences, pure syntactic category violations, lexical-semantic anomalies, and combined anomalies. Our balanced design systematically controlled for target word (noun vs. verb) and the context immediately preceding it. Group results from 36 native speakers of Quebec French revealed that, up to 300 ms, ERPs elicited by syntactic category violations were comparable with ERP responses to correct sentences, showing that there is no early activation reflecting syntactic category identification. Instead, in response to all anomalous conditions, we observed an N400 followed by a P600. Combined anomalies yielded additive effects of syntactic category and lexical-semantic anomalies on the N400, and a large P600 effect similar to the one observed in the pure syntactic condition. These results provide strong evidence against the hypothesis that (i) syntactic categories are processed first, and (ii) that syntactic category errors “block” lexical-semantic processing. Further, the N400 effect in response to pure syntactic category violations reflects a mismatch detection between a predicted word-stem and the actual target. This mechanism takes place simultaneously (and potentially in parallel) with lexical-semantic processing. In contrast, an interaction of syntax and semantics for the P600 reveals that the same neurocognitive resources are recruited for syntactic and semantic integration, both promoted by the implementation of an acceptability judgement task in our design. Additional analyses of individual data complemented these observations: during sentence processing, participants did not rely on one single cognitive mechanism reflected by either the N400 or the P600 effect but on both, suggesting that the biphasic N400-P600 ERP wave can indeed be considered to be an index of phrase-structure violations in most individuals, at least if they are realized on content words

Identifying linguistic markers of French-speaking teenagers with developmental language disorder : which tasks matter?

Purpose:This research aimed to identify reliable tasks discriminating French-speaking adolescents with developmental language disorder (DLD) from theirpeers with typical language (TL) and to assess which linguistic domains repre-sent areas of particular weakness in DLD. Unlike English, morphosyntax has notbeen identified as a special area of weakness when compared with lexicose-mantics in French preschoolers with DLD. Since there is evidence that subject–verb number agreement is consolidated in later childhood, one might expectmorphosyntax to be a particular weakness and marker of French DLD only in(pre)adolescence.Method:We administered 20 subtasks that assessed linguistic and phonolo-gical working memory skills of two groups: 17 adolescents clinically identifiedas having DLD (M= 14.1 years) and 20 (pre)teens with TL (M= 12.2 years).Using robust statistics that are less affected by outliers, we selected the mostdiscriminating subtasks between our groups, calculated their optimal cutoffscore, and derived diagnostic accuracy statistics. We combined these subtasksin a multivariable model to identify which subtasks contributed the most to theidentification of DLD.Results:Seven subtasks were selected as discriminating between our groups,and three showed outstanding diagnostic accuracy: Recalling Sentences, a multi-word task assessing lexicosemantic skills, and a subject–verb number agreementproduction task. When combined, we found that the latter contributed the mostto our multivariable model.Conclusion:This study provides evidence that the most relevant markers toidentify DLD in French teenagers are tasks assessing lexicosemantics and mor-phosyntactic domains, and that morphosyntax should be considered an impor-tant area of weakness in French-speaking teenagers with DLD

Eliciting ERP components for morphosyntactic agreement mismatches in perfectly grammatical sentences

The present event-related brain potential (ERP) study investigates mechanisms underlying the processing of morphosyntactic information during real-time auditory sentence comprehension in French. Employing an auditory-visual sentence-picture matching paradigm, we investigated two types of anomalies using entirely grammatical auditory stimuli: (i) semantic mismatches between visually presented actions and spoken verbs, and (ii) number mismatches between visually presented agents and corresponding morphosyntactic number markers in the spoken sentences (determiners, pronouns in liaison contexts, and verb-final “inflection”). We varied the type and amount of number cues available in each sentence using two manipulations. First, we manipulated the verb type, by using verbs whose number cue was audible through subject (clitic) pronoun liaison (liaison verbs) as well as verbs whose number cue was audible on the verb ending (consonant-final verbs). Second, we manipulated the pre-verbal context: each sentence was preceded either by a neutral context providing no number cue, or by a subject noun phrase containing a subject number cue on the determiner. Twenty-two French-speaking adults participated in the experiment. While sentence judgment accuracy was high, participants’ ERP responses were modulated by the type of mismatch encountered. Lexico-semantic mismatches on the verb elicited the expected N400 and additional negativities. Determiner number mismatches elicited early anterior negativities, N400s and P600s. Verb number mismatches elicited biphasic N400-P600 patterns. However, pronoun + verb liaison mismatches yielded this pattern only in the plural, while consonant-final changes did so in the singular and the plural. Furthermore, an additional sustained frontal negativity was observed in two of the four verb mismatch conditions: plural liaison and singular consonant-final forms. This study highlights the different contributions of number cues in oral language processing and is the first to investigate whether auditory-visual mismatches can elicit errors reminiscent of outright grammatical errors. Our results emphasize that neurocognitive mechanisms underlying number agreement in French are modulated by the type of cue that is used to identify auditory-visual mismatches

The temporal dynamics of inflected word recognition: a masked ERP priming study of French verbs

Morphological aspects of human language processing have been suggested by some to be reducible to the combination of orthographic and semantic effects, while others propose that morphological structure is represented separately from semantics and orthography and involves distinct neuro-cognitive processing mechanisms. Here we used event-related brain potentials (ERPs) to investigate semantic, morphological and formal (orthographic) processing conjointly in a masked priming paradigm. We directly compared morphological to both semantic and formal/orthographic priming (shared letters) on verbs. Masked priming was used to reduce strategic effects related to prime perception and to suppress semantic priming effects. The three types of priming led to distinct ERP and behavioural patterns: semantic priming was not found, while formal and morphological priming resulted in diverging ERP patterns. These results are consistent with models of lexical processing that make reference to morphological structure. We discuss how they fit in with the existing literature and how unresolved issues could be addressed in further studies