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The Phonological Mapping Negativity (PMN) is an event-related potential component thought to index pre-lexical phonological processing. The response has long been considered distinct from the temporally-proximate Mismatch Negativity (MMN) – a distinction that primarily rests on the assumption that the PMN, unlike the MMN, cannot be elicited in inattentive contexts, thus implying differing underlying auditory-cortex mechanisms. Despite this, no study to date has established whether elicitation of an inattentive PMN response is possible. Here, we tested this assumption in two experiments during which participants heard phonological mismatches whilst engaging in a distractor task (experiment 1) or watching a film (experiment 2). Our results showed no consistent evidence for an inattentive PMN. Though attention may indeed serve to distinguish the two components, our results highlight consistent discrepancies in the temporal, topographical, and functional characteristics of the PMN that undermine efforts to establish its significance in the electrophysiological timeline of speech processing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One factor that is commonly thought to influence MMN amplitude is lexicality; multiple studies have shown that real-word deviants elicit larger MMNs than pseudoword deviants. Here, however, we report data from two experiments challenging this assumption. In the first experiment (N = 48), real-word deviants did not elicit more negative MMNs than pseudoword deviants; the acoustic difference between standard and deviant was identical across these comparisons. In this experiment, the pseudoword deviant [pʰa˨˩] differed from a real-word [pʰa˧˥] in tone only; therefore, to test the possibility that the lexicality effect is real but is restricted to pseudowords that differ from real words by at least one segment, we ran a second experiment which included different items and participants, and also included a control comparison in which the pseudoword ([tsʰei˨˩]) differs from all real words by at least one segment (there is no existing Mandarin morpheme pronounced [tsʰei] in any tone). In the second experiment (N = 36), both types of pseudowords failed to elicit less negative MMNs than real words. These findings, together with other recent studies failing to show lexicality effects in MMN, challenge the assumption that wordhood reliably influences MMN amplitude. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sentence-initial temporal clauses headed by before, as in "Before the scientist submitted the paper, the journal changed its policy", have been shown to elicit sustained negative-going brain potentials compared to maximally similar clauses headed by after, as in "After the scientist submitted the paper, the journal changed its policy". Such effects may be due to either one of two potential causes: before clauses may be more difficult than after clauses because they cause the two events in the sentence to be mentioned in an order opposite the order in which they actually occurred, or they may be more difficult because they are ambiguous with regard to whether the event described in the clause actually happened. The present study examined the effect of before and after clauses on sentence processing in both sentence-initial contexts, like those above, and in sentence-final contexts ("The journal changed its policy before/after the scientist submitted the paper"), where an order-of-mention account of the sustained negativity predicts a negativity for after relative to before. There was indeed such a reversal, with before eliciting more negative brain potentials than after in sentence-initial clauses but more positive in sentence-final clauses. The results suggest that the sustained negativity indexes processing costs related to comprehending events that were mentioned out of order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The present study examines the online realization of pragmatic meaning using event-related potentials (ERPs). Participants read sentences including the English quantifier some, which has both a semantic meaning (at least one) and a pragmatic meaning (not all). Unlike previous ERP studies of this phenomenon, sentences in the current study were evaluated not in terms of their truth with respect to the real world, but in terms of their consistency with a picture presented before the sentence. Sentences (such as “The boy cut some of the steaks in this story”) were constructed such that either (1) both the semantic and pragmatic interpretations were true with respect to the preceding picture (when the boy in fact cut some but not all of the steaks); (2) neither interpretation was true (when the boy in fact cut none of the steaks); or (3) the semantic interpretation was true but the pragmatic interpretation false (when the boy in fact cut all of the steaks). ERPs at the object word, which determined whether the sentence was consistent with the story, showed the largest N400 effect for objects that made the sentence false, whereas they showed an intermediate effect for objects that made the sentence false under the pragmatic interpretation but true under the semantic interpretation. The results suggest that this pragmatic aspect of meaning is computed online and integrated into the sentence model rapidly enough to influence comprehension of later words. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The present study examines the brain-level representation and composition of meaning in scalar quantifiers (e.g., some), which have both a semantic meaning (at least one) and a pragmatic meaning (not all). We adopted a picture-sentence verification design to examine event-related potential (ERP) effects of reading infelicitous quantifiers for which the semantic meaning was correct with respect to the context but the pragmatic meaning was not, compared to quantifiers for which the semantic meaning was inconsistent with the context and no additional pragmatic meaning is available. In the first experiment, only pragmatically inconsistent quantifiers, not semantically inconsistent quantifiers, elicited a sustained posterior negative component. This late negativity contrasts with the N400 effect typically elicited by nouns that are incongruent with their context, suggesting that the recognition of scalar implicature errors elicits a qualitatively different ERP signature than the recognition of lexico-semantic errors. We hypothesize that the sustained negativity reflects cancellation of the pragmatic inference and retrieval of the semantic meaning. In our second experiment, we found that the process of re-interpreting the quantifier was independent from lexico-semantic processing: the N400 elicited by lexico-semantic violations was not modulated by the presence of a pragmatic inconsistency. These findings suggest that inferential pragmatic aspects of meaning are processed using different mechanisms than lexical or combinatorial semantic aspects of meaning, that inferential pragmatic meaning can be realized rapidly, and that the computation of meaning involves continuous negotiation between different aspects of meaning. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The understanding of alternation is a key goal in phonological research. But little is known about how phonological alternations are implemented in speech production. The current study tested the hypothesis that the production of words that undergo a highly productive alternation, Mandarin Tone 3 sandhi, is supported by a computation mechanism, which predicts that this alternation is subserved by neural activity in a time-window associated with post-lexical phonological and phonetic encoding regardless of word frequency. ERPs were recorded while participants sub-vocally produced high- and low-frequency disyllabic words that do or do not require sandhi. Sandhi words elicited more positive ERPs than non-sandhi words over left anterior channels around 336–520 ms after participants saw the cue instructing them to initiate sub-vocal production, but this effect was not significantly modulated by word frequency. These findings are consistent with predictions of the computation mechanism and have implications for current psycholinguistic models of speech production. (150 words) • ERPs during covert word production can shed light on nature of production process. • T3 sandhi status regulates the ERPs during covert production of Mandarin words. • T3 sandhi effect is observed in time window of phonological and phonetic encoding. • T3 sandhi effect does not interact with word frequency. • Production of productive phonological alternation involves a computation mechanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pronunciation of words or morphemes may vary systematically in different phonological contexts, but it remains unclear how different levels of phonological information are encoded in speech production. In this study, we investigated the online planning process of Mandarin Tone 3 (T3) sandhi, a case of phonological alternation whereby a low-dipping tone (T3) changes to a Tone 2 (T2)-like rising tone when followed by another T3. To examine the time course of the encoding of the abstract category-level (underlying form) and context-specific phonological form (surface form) of T3, we conducted an electroencephalographic (EEG) study with a phonologically-primed picture naming task and examined the event-related potentials (ERPs) time-locked to the stimulus onset as well as speech response onset. The behavioral results showed that targets primed by T3 or T2 primes yielded shorter naming latencies than those primed by control primes. Importantly, the EEG data revealed that T3 primes elicited larger positive amplitude over broad frontocentral regions roughly in the 320–550 ms time window of stimulus-locked ERP and −500 to −400 ms time window of response-locked ERP, whereas T2 primes elicited larger negative amplitude over left frontocentral regions roughly in the −240 to −100 ms time window of response-locked ERP. These results indicate that the underlying and the surface form are encoded at different processing stages. The former presumably occurs in the earlier phonological encoding stage, while the latter probably occurs in the later phonetic encoding or motor preparation stage. The current study offers important implications for understanding the processing of phonological alternations and tonal encoding in Chinese word production. • This study investigates the time-course of producing the 3rd tone sandhi form in Mandarin Chinese. • Shorter naming latencies of Mandarin T3 sandhi words for both T3 and T2 primes. • More ERP positivity for T3 primes in frontocentral sites in 320–550 ms after picture onset and 500–400 ms before speech onset. • More ERP negativity for T2 primes mostly in left frontocentral sites in 240–100 ms before speech onset • The underlying and surface form of T3 are encoded at different stages in T3 sandhi word production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]