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In this article, we present an ERP study investigating the neurophysiological correlates of the interplay between prosodic phrasing and case information in head-final sentence processing. We examine German DP1-DP2-V constructions, in which the second DP can either be interpreted as a possessive modifier of the first DP (one-participant reading), or as a verbal argument (two-participant reading). An N400 on the determiner of the second DP is observed when either case information or prosodic phrasing biased toward the establishment of a two-participant reading, thus reflecting local processing costs associated with the introduction of a transitive event. By contrast, when the DPs are integrated with the logical structure of the clause-final verb, a general advantage for the two-argument interpretation is observed: An N400 for intransitive as opposed to transitive verbs is found. This argument preference is even stronger when prosodic phrasing information rules out a transitive interpretation. The results are discussed with regard to current ERP data from head-final constructions in other languages, such as Japanese. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we use register-based genetic programming with memory-with memory to discover probabilistic membership functions that are used to divide up data-sets of event-related potentials recorded via EEG in psycho-physiological experiments based on the corresponding response times. The objective is to evolve membership functions which lead to maximising the statistical significance with which true brain waves can be reconstructed when averaging the trials in each bin. Results show that GP can significantly improve the fidelity with which ERP components can be recovered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present results from an online experiment designed to probe the cognitive underpinnings of intra-sentential pronoun resolution. Event-related brain potentials were used to test the hypothesis that the processing of anaphoric links established between pronouns and non commanding antecedents demands more cognitive resources than the processing of anaphoric links to commanding antecedents. The experimental results obtained show, among others, a major N400-like effect elicited by the pronouns resolved to the non-commanding antecedent. This enhanced negativity suggests that, as hypothesized, resolving a pronoun to a non commanding antecedent is a more resource demanding process than resolving it to an antecedent in a commanding position. Our results can be interpreted within a theoretical framework for anaphor resolution that distinguishes two processing routes: a more resource-demanding discourse-based route and a less taxing syntax-only route. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]