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      Sentence-Level Effects of Literary Genre: Behavioral and Electrophysiological Evidence

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          Abstract

          The current study used event-related brain potentials (ERPs) and behavioral measures to examine effects of genre awareness on sentence processing and evaluation. We hypothesized that genre awareness modulates effects of genre-typical manipulations. We manipulated instructions between participants, either specifying a genre (poetry) or not (neutral). Sentences contained genre-typical variations of semantic congruency (congruent/incongruent) and morpho-phonological features (archaic/contemporary inflections). Offline ratings of meaningfulness ( n = 64/group) showed higher average ratings for semantically incongruent sentences in the poetry vs. neutral condition. ERPs during sentence reading ( n = 24/group; RSVP presentation at a fixed per-constituent rate; probe task) showed a left-lateralized N400-like effect for contemporary vs. archaic inflections. Semantic congruency elicited a bilateral posterior N400 effect for incongruent vs. congruent continuations followed by a centro-parietal positivity (P600). While N400 amplitudes were insensitive to the genre, the latency of the P600 was delayed by the poetry instruction. From these results, we conclude that during real-time sentence comprehension, readers are sensitive to subtle morphological manipulations and the implicit prosodic differences that accompany them. By contrast, genre awareness affects later stages of comprehension.

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          Depth of processing and the retention of words in episodic memory.

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            A Rose by Any Other Name: Long-Term Memory Structure and Sentence Processing

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              The processing nature of the n400: evidence from masked priming.

              Abstract The N400 is an endogenous event-related brain potential (ERP) that is sensitive to semantic processes during language comprehension. The general question we address in this paper is which aspects of the comprehension process are manifest in the N400. The focus is on the sensitivity of the N400 to the automatic process of lexical access, or to the controlled process of lexical integration. The former process is the reflex-like and effortless behavior of computing a form representation of the linguistic signal, and of mapping this representation onto corresponding entries in the mental lexicon. The latter process concerns the integration of a spoken or written word into a higher-order meaning representation of the context within which it occurs. ERPs and reaction times (RTs) were acquired to target words preceded by semantically related and unrelated prime words. The semantic relationship between a prime and its target has been shown to modulate the amplitude of the N400 to the target. This modulation can arise from lexical access processes, reflecting the automatic spread of activation between words related in meaning in the mental lexicon. Alternatively, the N400 effect can arise from lexical integration processes, reflecting the relative ease of meaning integration between the prime and the target. To assess the impact of automatic lexical access processes on the N400, we compared the effect of masked and unmasked presentations of a prime on the N400 to a following target. Masking prevents perceptual identification, and as such it is claimed to rule out effects from controlled processes. It therefore enables a stringent test of the possible impact of automatic lexical access processes on the N400. The RT study showed a significant semantic priming effect under both unmasked and masked presentations of the prime. The result for masked priming reflects the effect of automatic spreading of activation during the lexical access process. The ERP study showed a significant N400 effect for the unmasked presentation condition, but no such effect for the masked presentation condition. This indicates that the N400 is not a manifestation of lexical access processes, but reflects aspects of semantic integration processes.
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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                Journal
                Front Psychol
                Front Psychol
                Front. Psychol.
                Frontiers in Psychology
                Frontiers Media S.A.
                1664-1078
                20 November 2017
                2017
                : 8
                : 1887
                Affiliations
                [1] 1Department of Language and Literature, Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics , Frankfurt, Germany
                [2] 2Department of English and Linguistics, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz , Mainz, Germany
                [3] 3School of Psychology, Social Work and Social Policy, University of South Australia , Adelaide, SA, Australia
                Author notes

                Edited by: Guillaume Thierry, Bangor University, United Kingdom

                Reviewed by: Janet Van Hell, Pennsylvania State University, United States; Nina Kazanina, University of Bristol, United Kingdom

                *Correspondence: Stefan Blohm, stefan.blohm@ 123456ae.mpg.de

                This article was submitted to Language Sciences, a section of the journal Frontiers in Psychology

                Article
                10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01887
                5701934
                6ff8a203-1065-483b-b7d2-2c5528018a6a
                Copyright © 2017 Blohm, Menninghaus and Schlesewsky.

                This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

                History
                : 05 April 2017
                : 11 October 2017
                Page count
                Figures: 5, Tables: 7, Equations: 0, References: 107, Pages: 18, Words: 0
                Funding
                Funded by: Max-Planck-Gesellschaft 10.13039/501100004189
                Categories
                Psychology
                Original Research

                Clinical Psychology & Psychiatry
                erp,n400,text type,genre,poetry,implicit prosody,schwa/zero alternation
                Clinical Psychology & Psychiatry
                erp, n400, text type, genre, poetry, implicit prosody, schwa/zero alternation

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