Elsevier

Brain Research

Volume 1446, 29 March 2012, Pages 127-143
Brain Research

Review
Getting real about Semantic Illusions: Rethinking the functional role of the P600 in language comprehension

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brainres.2012.01.055Get rights and content

Abstract

In traditional theories of language comprehension, syntactic and semantic processing are inextricably linked. This assumption has been challenged by the ‘Semantic Illusion Effect’ found in studies using Event Related brain Potentials. Semantically anomalous sentences did not produce the expected increase in N400 amplitude but rather one in P600 amplitude. To explain these findings, complex models have been devised in which an independent semantic processing stream can arrive at a sentence interpretation that may differ from the interpretation prescribed by the syntactic structure of the sentence. We review five such multi-stream models and argue that they do not account for the full range of relevant results because they assume that the amplitude of the N400 indexes some form of semantic integration. Based on recent evidence we argue that N400 amplitude might reflect the retrieval of lexical information from memory. On this view, the absence of an N400-effect in Semantic Illusion sentences can be explained in terms of priming. Furthermore, we suggest that semantic integration, which has previously been linked to the N400 component, might be reflected in the P600 instead. When combined, these functional interpretations result in a single-stream account of language processing that can explain all of the Semantic Illusion data.

Introduction

As a sentence or story unfolds in time, language users incrementally construct an interpretation of the linguistic input. Creating this interpretation draws on various different information sources such as syntactic, semantic, pragmatic, prosodic, and visual information, as well as world knowledge. Exactly when and how these different types of information are combined is a matter of debate. Many theories of language comprehension claim that there is a tight coupling between syntactic and semantic processing (e.g., Frazier, 1987, MacDonald et al., 1994, McRae et al., 1998, van Gompel et al., 2000). According to these theories, it would be impossible to construct an interpretation of language input without immediately taking syntactic information into account. This assumption has been challenged by recent evidence from Event Related brain Potentials (ERPs). Hoeks et al. (2004) for example, studied Dutch sentences in which two plausible verb arguments appeared in a semantically anomalous order, as in ‘De speer heeft de atleten geworpen’ (lit: The javelin has the athletes thrown). Relative to a control sentence ‘De speer werd door de atleten geworpen’ (lit: The javelin was by the athletes thrown), no shift in N400 amplitude (a negative deflection of the ERP signal peaking at about 400 ms after the onset of a critical stimulus) was found. This was surprising because the amplitude of the N400 has been associated with difficulty in semantic integration (see Kutas and Federmeier, 2011, for an overview). Instead, Hoeks et al. (2004) found that the sentence-final verb ‘thrown’ produced a P600-effect (a positive deflection of the ERP signal that reaches maximum around 600 ms post stimulus onset) relative to control. Again, this was unexpected since P600 amplitude has been linked with syntactic revision (see Gouvea et al., 2010, for an overview) but the test items were perfectly grammatical. This phenomenon in which a semantically anomalous, syntactically well-formed sentence elicits a P600-effect, but no N400-effect, has been called a ‘Semantic Illusion’.1 This is because the absence of an N400-effect suggested that participants were temporarily under the illusion that these sentences made sense. The presence of a P600-effect, on the other hand, indicated that participants eventually realized that their interpretations were infelicitous, and that they were trying to resolve this conflict through ‘effortful syntactic processing’ (Hoeks et al., 2004, p. 71).

To account for Semantic Illusions, so-called multi-stream models have been proposed in which a separate semantic analyzer can put forward an interpretation of a sentence that may not be in line with its surface structure (Bornkessel-Schlesewsky and Schlesewsky, 2008, Hagoort et al., 2009, Kim and Osterhout, 2005, Kolk et al., 2003, Kos et al., 2010, Kuperberg, 2007, van Herten et al., 2005, van Herten et al., 2006). In this paper, we critically review five multi-stream architectures and ask whether they can account for the available data on the Semantic Illusion. The review suggests that none of them can explain the full range of relevant results. We argue that this is the case because all of them adopt the view that the amplitude of the N400 indexes the relative difficulty of integrating the meaning of an incoming word into a partial interpretation of a sentence. In contrast, we show that most evidence is consistent with an alternative interpretation of N400-effects in which N400 amplitude reflects the retrieval of the meaning of a word from long-term memory (Federmeier and Laszlo, 2009, Kutas and Federmeier, 2000, Kutas and Federmeier, 2011, Lau et al., 2008, Lau et al., 2009, van Berkum, 2009, van Berkum, 2010). On this view, the absence of an N400-effect in Semantic Illusion sentences follows directly from the workings of the memory system. Crucially, the processes reflected in N400 amplitude are thus not integrative or compositional in nature. We suggest that the process of integration, in which a mental representation of what is being communicated is updated with new information, is reflected in the amplitude of the P600 instead.

Combining this novel view on P600 amplitude with the retrieval perspective on N400 amplitude leads to a parsimonious single-stream account that can explain the full range of Semantic Illusion data. On this account, sentences like ‘De speer heeft de atleten geworpen’ (lit: The javelin has the athletes thrown) do not give rise to a Semantic Illusion. Language users do not perceive such sentences as if they made sense, not even temporarily. There is no N400-effect because participants do not have problems activating the meaning of the anomalous word. A P600-effect is observed instead because the situation or event that is described is difficult to interpret.

Section snippets

Explaining the Semantic Illusion phenomenon

The results of Hoeks et al. (2004) (as well as similar results of Kolk et al., 2003, Kuperberg et al., 2003) raised two critical questions: 1) Why did the thematic violation brought about by the critical verb fail to give rise to an N400-effect effect? and 2) Why did the critical verb produce a P600-effect although these sentences were syntactically well-formed?

According to Hoeks et al. (2004), the absence of an N400-effect suggested that participants had been tricked into some kind of a

Rethinking the functional role of the N400 and the P600

The Semantic Illusion phenomenon suggested that semantic information can to some extent be processed separately and autonomously, causing a shift from single-stream to multi-stream models. What we would like to suggest, however, is that instead of abandoning single-stream models, we should reconsider the functional interpretation of the ERP components that are involved. Following a growing number of studies, we propose to interpret N400 amplitude as reflecting a memory retrieval phase, in which

Semantic Illusions revisited

The ‘Semantic Illusion’ phenomenon has led to a paradigmatic shift from single-stream towards multi-stream models, as it seemed to suggest the existence of an autonomous semantic processing stream. However, from the perspective of the single-stream Retrieval-Integration account outlined above, there is no such thing as a ‘Semantic Illusion’ in any of the SIE studies reported in this paper. Observing a P600-effect instead of an N400-effect in response to sentences such as ‘De speer heeft de

Predictions and future work

On the basis of Retrieval-Integration account, one can make the following predictions:

Conclusion

We have proposed a simple and parsimonious single-stream account of language processing, the Retrieval-Integration account. On this account, the N400 and the P600 component reflect two successive processing stages, in which the output of the retrieval phase (N400 amplitude) serves as input for integration (P600 amplitude). The N400 component thus reflects a retrieval stage in which the syntactic properties and semantic features of a current word are ‘retrieved’ from long-term memory; the N400

Acknowledgments

This research was funded by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) PGW grant 10-26 (HB, HF, and JH), and VENI grant 275-89-008 (HF). We would like to thank Gina Kuperberg and Miriam Kos for providing us with the materials of their experiments.

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