Adolescents with hearing loss (HL) often display difficulties in written language processing, yet the contribution of morphosyntax remains uncertain. We examined written German morphosyntax in adolescents with HL, most of whom used cochlear implants, relative to monolingual and multilingual hearing controls. Participants completed a minimal two-word grammaticality-judgment task designed to reduce sentence-level working-memory demands while EEG was recorded at the onset of the second word. Accuracy was near ceiling, but the HL group responded more slowly than both hearing comparison groups, and higher working-memory scores were associated with better accuracy within the HL group. In unified ERP models, incongruent pairs elicited overall N400 and P600 effects without interactions with group or construction. Earlier components showed no reliable HL-specific violation pattern. Under these low working-memory demands, later neural responses to minimal agreement violations were detectable at the sample level, while the HL group showed slower behavioral responding and a within-group association between working memory and accuracy.
Semantic comprehension requires accessing multiple dimensions of meaning, yet the temporal dynamics of these dimensions remain unclear. Previous research has predominantly examined the neural dynamics of lexical semantics as a whole, which is equivalent to investigating the average of neural dynamics across various dimensions of semantic processing. Here, we analyzed openly released electrocorticography (ECoG) recordings from 9 participants listening to naturalistic stories and used time-resolved encoding models to decompose neural responses into six semantic dimensions: vision, motor, space, time, socialness, and emotion. When analyzing all words together, nearly all dimensions showed a common response peaking around 350 ms. However, when neural dynamics of multidimensional semantic access were analyzed separately for concrete and abstract words, a dissociation in access latencies emerged: for concrete words, sensorimotor dimensions reached peak activation earlier than non-sensorimotor dimensions; whereas for abstract words, the social dimension peaked at 225 ms, earlier than other dimensions. These findings demonstrate that the brain dynamically prioritizes semantic dimensions depending on concept type.
Chinese character satiation is a phenomenon whereby prolonged or repeated inspection induces a compelling subjective experience of structural disintegration. Yet, objective neurophysiological evidence for the proposed mechanism of orthographic decomposition has remained elusive. The present study employed representational similarity analysis (RSA) on electroencephalography (EEG) data to bridge this gap. We first established distinct neural templates for holistic (whole-character judgment) and decompositional (component-judgment) processing. Subsequently, during a satiation phase involving repeated character exposure, we measured how the neural representation's relative similarity to the decompositional versus holistic templates changed between early (low-repetition) and late (high-repetition) trials. Results revealed a significant positive correlation between this objectively measured neural shift and participants' subjective satiation ratings, localized to 620-675 ms post character onset: participants reporting stronger satiation experience exhibited a more pronounced neural representational shift, moving away from the holistic template and toward the decompositional template. These findings provide neurophysiological support for the orthographic decomposition hypothesis for Chinese character satiation, indicating that individual differences in the subjective feeling of disintegration are associated with a measurable reorganization of the underlying neural representation.
Irony tends to be processed with greater cognitive effort than literalness. It remains unclear, however, whether bilinguals process irony differently in the native (L1) and second (L2) language. Here, we investigated the neurophysiological correlates of irony comprehension in highly proficient late Polish-English bilinguals reading praise and criticism that were either literal or ironic in both languages. We found an interaction between ironicity and language on the N400, an index of semantic integration effort and processing depth, with ironic statements eliciting greater amplitudes than literal statements in L2, when no such difference was observed in L1. At the stage of semantic reevaluation, indexed by the late positive potential (LPP), amplitudes increased for ironic as compared to literal statements in L1, but not in L2. A follow-up peak-to-peak analysis using the N400 as baseline, however, pointed to comparable reevaluation processes across languages, suggesting that the LPP modulation may partly reflect earlier differences in semantic processing rather than differential reevaluation per se. We interpret the N400 modulation in L2 as an indication that ironic statements are more cognitively taxing than literal statements in L2. The LPP modulation tentatively suggests that irony prompts more reevaluation in L1 than L2, though this interpretation warrants caution in light of the peak-to-peak findings. Our findings provide novel evidence that bilinguals exert greater cognitive effort when processing irony in their second language and that ironic meaning may resonate more strongly in the native language.
The causal role of the right inferior frontal gyrus (RIFG) in inhibitory control has previously been identified at the behavioral level using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). To further explore the underlying neural mechanisms, we combined TMS with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in bilingual language switching. Results showed reduced asymmetric switching costs in RIFG activation following continuous theta-burst stimulation (cTBS) compared to sham stimulation, while intermittent theta-burst stimulation (iTBS) caused no improvement. These findings provide neural evidence consistent with disruption of RIFG-related control, although no corresponding behavioral impairment was observed. This work is among the first studies to integrate TMS and fMRI to shed light on the neural mechanisms underlying the causal involvement of a specific brain region in bilingual language control.
The integration of visual letters with corresponding auditory speech sounds is crucial for literacy acquisition in alphabetic languages. Previous research exploring this process has shown that audiovisual (AV) congruency enhances auditory N1 amplitude, particularly in advanced English learners, during second language (L2) reading. In the current study, we investigated how the degree of temporal coincidence between letters and speech sounds influences AV congruency effects, using both behavioral and event-related measures. Native Japanese speakers with an intermediate level of English proficiency completed a priming task in English. During the task, visual letters or symbols preceded auditory sounds across different stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) conditions. The behavioral experiment revealed shorter response times for congruent trials across all SOA conditions, indicating a facilitation effect of congruency. In the electroencephalography experiment, we found an increased early N1 response to congruent AV pairs in the bilateral frontotemporal scalp region during L2 reading, but only in the AV300 condition (with letters preceding speech sounds by 300 ms). Our findings highlight the importance of temporal relationship on N1 congruency effects. Specifically, a slightly longer SOA may help compensate for lower levels of automaticity in intermediate L2 learners, thus facilitating successful integration of letters and sounds during English reading. This study contributes not only to a better understanding of L2 reading mechanisms, but also provides a theoretical basis for examining the role of atypical letter-speech sound integration related to L2 reading difficulties, particularly those with limited proficiency.
Converging evidence from cognitive neuroscience has shown that linguistic information in continuous natural language is processed and integrated across multiple timescales and represented along cortical gradients corresponding to temporal hierarchies. However, most existing studies have focused on monologic language, leaving open the question of whether hierarchical processing also extends to naturalistic conversation. This review synthesizes theoretical frameworks and empirical evidence on the hierarchical processing of continuous natural language. By integrating findings from linguistics, cognitive science, and neuroimaging, we argue that both monologic and conversational language exhibit structured organization across linguistic levels such as words and sentences, while conversational language additionally involves interaction-dependent units such as turns and topics. Conversational processing also depends on interpersonal mechanisms such as alignment, grounding, and prediction between interlocutors. Recent hyperscanning studies provide emerging evidence that, for conversational units such as turns and topics, level-specific neural signatures of conversational organization appear more evident at the dyadic than at the individual level. Together, the available evidence supports the view that hierarchical organization is a general property of continuous natural language, while highlighting important differences in how such organization is neurally expressed in monologic and conversational settings.
In spoken communication, listeners must decode communicative meanings from a speaker's voice, which can either reflect the speaker-listener relationship (listener-oriented) or the speaker's stance toward the topic (content-oriented). However, the neurodynamic mechanisms dissociating online inference of these relational orientations through vocal cues remain poorly understood. The current study combined electroencephalography (EEG) with a cross-splicing paradigm across two experiments (Exp. 1: relational orientation judgment; Exp. 2: passive listening) to investigate the neural dynamics underlying the decoding of listener- vs. content-oriented emotive meanings. Utterances began with a leading phrase encoding relational orientation in its vocal and semantic cues, followed by a main sentence with either congruent or incongruent vocal cues. Phase-locked results revealed consistent late positivities distinguishing listener- and content-oriented cues across both experiments. These components were modulated by congruency in Exp. 1, with greater late positivities for incongruent vs. congruent cues observed only in the listener-oriented condition. Non-phase-locked results showed late alpha synchronization for distinguishing listener- vs. content-oriented voices, with incongruent cues reducing alpha power in listener-oriented conditions in Exp. 1. Multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA) decoded relational orientation using EEG signal across 266-1600 ms and congruency in fragmented windows, revealing stable neural representations for listener/content distinctions. Representational Similarity Analysis (RSA) further confirmed these effects could not be explained by low-level acoustic features, specific vocal expressions, or response-related variability. These findings suggest that decoding listener-oriented vocal cues involves enhanced pragmatic inference and conflict resolution processes. The core neural dissociation generalizes across active judgment and naturalistic passive listening contexts.
Since the 1990s, the fields of numerical cognition and psycholinguistics have evolved largely independently. However, the research since then demonstrates that language and numbers are intrinsically related, particularly in multilingual contexts. Language characteristics (e.g., morpho-syntactic properties) and language status (e.g., monolingual vs. multilingual) influence numerical processing at multiple levels, from number identification and retrieval to advanced mathematical skills. This article builds on the contribution of Frenck-Mestre and Vaid (1992), "Language as a Factor in the Identification of Ordinary Words and Number Words", to further elaborate how language contributes to the learning of numerical concepts, especially the acquisition and representation of number words across development. While their findings provided initial important insights into bilingual number processing, subsequent research, which we discuss in the current article, further shows that language and multilingual experiences can shape lexical, semantic, and lexico-semantic access to numbers. We finish by outlining some future research directions for the study of multilingual number representations.
PURPOSE:Assessing language proficiency in bilingual children is challenging due to linguistic variability and limitations of behavioral language tests. EEG-based neural envelope tracking, which measures neural responses time-locked to the speech envelope during listening, might be a potential future complementary method. However, the relation between neural envelope tracking and language proficiency remains unclear. Therefore, we aim to investigate the relation between neural envelope tracking and language proficiency in children with varying levels of proficiency. METHOD:We determined neural envelope tracking of fifteen monolingual Dutch-speaking and fifteen bilingual Dutch-French-speaking children aged 6 to 8 years while they listened to continuous speech fragments in Dutch, French, and Italian. All participants comprehended the Dutch stories, only the bilingual children understood the French stories, and none of the children comprehended the Italian stories. A parental questionnaire and standardized language tests in Dutch and French provided behavioral language assessments, allowing for comparison with EEG-based tracking. RESULTS:Group differences in neural tracking accuracy revealed higher tracking in comprehensible languages compared to incomprehensible ones, in both monolingual (Dutch > French = Italian) and bilingual children (Dutch = French > Italian). However, no significant correlations were found between neural envelope tracking and behavioral measurements. CONCLUSION:Neural envelope tracking may offer a method to assess language comprehension in children as it distinguishes comprehensible from incomprehensible languages. However, further validation is needed to enhance its sensitivity to individual differences, as neural envelope tracking currently does not reflect children's language proficiency across different languages.
The present experiment examined whether an affective evaluation process contributes to discourse comprehension when participants silently read for comprehension, by analyzing event-related potentials (ERPs). Kunkel, Filik, Mackenzie, and Leuthold (2018) showed that when participants read about emotional events or moral transgressions while performing explicit emotional judgments, a larger late positive potential (LPP) was triggered for negative versus non-negative and immoral versus moral scenarios. They took this LPP effect to reflect the affective evaluation of incoming linguistic information with emotional content. Previous work showing implicit evaluation of morality-based materials (i.e., when participants are simply reading for comprehension) had intermixed these stimuli with emotionally-neutral world knowledge violation materials (Leuthold, Kunkel, Mackenzie, & Filik, 2015). By placing these morality materials with emotion-related materials instead, in the current study, we can more directly evaluate whether similar affective processing occurs for both types of stimuli in the absence of an explicit judgment task. Target sentences from negative versus non-negative emotional scenarios and from moral versus immoral scenarios were presented using rapid serial visual presentation. Importantly, the analysis of single-trial amplitudes using a linear mixed-effects modeling (LME) approach revealed a larger late positive potential (LPP) for negative versus non-negative and immoral versus moral scenarios, displaying a more posterior distribution for emotion versus morality condition effects. We conclude that discourse comprehension involves the implicit affective evaluation (LPP) of the emotional content of incoming linguistic information independent of the material-specific context.
Early sensitivity to phonotactic probabilities and restrictions suggests that infants may also perceptually repair illegal sequences, as do adult speakers, demonstrating attunement to their language-specific speech input. Here, we report, for the first time, neural evidence for phonotactic repair in French-learning 7-, 11-, and 14-month-old infants, investigating the */tl/>/kl/ repair. Infants were presented with /pla/-/tla/ (different), /kla/-/tla/ (repair), and /tla/-/tla/ (same) trials using a precursor-target (habituation-dishabituation) paradigm. The ERPs were analyzed in response to /tla/ targets. The repair effect was defined as no difference in ERP amplitudes between repair and same trials, together with a significant difference between repair and different trials. Our results demonstrated that both age and amplitude polarity (in response to different versus same trials) interacted with the repair effect. Infants with more positive amplitudes in response to different than same trials within a 100-300 ms time window (positive responders) demonstrated a repair effect independent of their age. In contrast, for infants with more negative amplitudes in response to different than same trials (negative responders), the repair effect emerged only at 14 months of age. Our findings establish that the neural mechanisms underpinning phonotactic development are in place earlier than previously thought (in some infants), further emphasizing that individual maturation and age are in interplay in early language development.
This study investigated how newly learned L2 emotional words are processed in sentential contexts and how individual differences in emotional resonance modulate those processes. 23 native Mandarin Chinese speakers and 20 Chinese-as-L2 speakers completed a learning session in which Chinese pseudowords were paired with faces expressing disgust or sadness; on the following day participants' ERPs were recorded while they judged the emotional congruency between emotional sentences and learned pseudowords. L2 participants also completed the Reduced Emotional Resonance in LX questionnaire (RER-LX) to index self-perceived L2 emotional competence. ERPs were analyzed in the N400 (250-430 ms) and LPC (450-700 ms) time windows. Results showed reliably larger N400 and LPC amplitudes for incongruent than congruent trials, confirming successful learning of associations between pseudowords and specific emotion categories. Compared with L1 speakers, L2 speakers exhibited reduced N400 and enhanced LPC amplitudes overall. However, the N400 congruency effects were more pronounced for L2 than L1 speakers, suggesting weaker prediction-driven processing in L2. Emotion categories produced distinct temporal signatures as sadness incongruity modulated the LPC to a larger extent. Critically, individual differences in emotional resonance among L2 speakers predicted neural patterns: participants with greater emotional resonance showed more robust congruency effects for disgusting pseudowords. These findings highlight that L2 processing of learned emotion category mappings depends both on emotion category and on speakers' self-reported emotional resonance in L2, with implications for theories of bilingual emotion and for emotion-aware L2 pedagogy.
Two experiments using the same stimuli were performed to examine whether verb transitivity processing proceeds even when phrase structure building based on syntactic categories (noun, verb, etc.) fails during Chinese sentence reading. The sentences contained (a) no violations, (b) transitivity violations, (c) syntactic category violations, or (d) combined syntactic category and transitivity violations. Event-related brain potentials were recorded in Experiment 1, in which participants performed a sentence acceptability task. Transitivity violations elicited an N400 effect in an early (200-450-ms) time window, no matter whether there was a simultaneous syntactic category violation or not. This finding suggests an independence of transitivity processing from local phrase structure building using syntactic category information. In Experiment 2, participants were asked to make speeded responses upon detecting an anomaly. The detection latencies were longer for the transitivity than for the syntactic category violations, which reduces the possibility that the independence of transitivity is due to the relative temporal point at which syntactic category and transitivity violations are detected. Overall, these results reveal a functional independence of transitivity from syntactic category, at least for Chinese.
The present study used event-related potentials to investigate the neural mechanisms underlying second language noun-noun metaphor (L2 NNM) comprehension, focusing on semantic distance and metaphorical constituent position. Forty Chinese English majors who had passed TEM-8 completed a 2 (semantic distance: large vs. small) × 2 (metaphorical constituent position: modifier vs. head) within-subjects experiment. English NNMs were presented alongside literal and nonsensical fillers in a metaphor (non)sense judgment task. Results revealed a biphasic N400-LPC pattern in NNM processing, indicating early semantic incongruity detection followed by meaning reanalysis. Both semantic distance and metaphorical constituent position exerted reliable main effects on ERP responses. Larger semantic distance (LSD) increased integration complexity and induced shallower semantic processing, while metaphorical modifiers (MM) triggered higher structural integration costs. Notably, only semantic distance exerted significant effect on late LPC, suggesting that L2 processing involves stronger semantic analysis but shallower structural analysis. In addition, the scalp distribution of these effects was right-lateralized, supporting the right-hemispheric view in metaphor resolution. No interaction effect was observed at early stage, suggesting that the two factors make largely independent contributions. However, significant interaction was observed on late posterior LPC. The effect of semantic distance was attenuated in MM constructions, and the effect of metaphorical constituent position was absent in LSD conditions, suggesting less elaborated processing due to the integration difficulties. Overall, these findings clarify the crucial roles of semantic distance and metaphorical constituent position in L2 NNM processing and offer pedagogical implications for L2 metaphor instruction.
The sensory/neural Temporal Sampling (TS) theory of developmental language disorder (DLD) is based on the sensory and linguistic impairments in rhythm processing that are found in children with both developmental dyslexia (DD) and DLD. These sensory/linguistic impairments include decreased sensitivity to amplitude rise times (ARTs, the sensory triggers related to automatic cortical speech tracking), syllable stress patterns and speech rhythm. At the neural level TS theory predicts impairments in the cortical tracking of different rates of amplitude modulation (AM) in the speech signal <10 Hz. To date, the accuracy of low-frequency cortical tracking in natural continuous speech has not been measured in children with DLD. Here, EEG was recorded during story listening from children with and without DLD aged around 9 years, and decoding analyses in the delta, theta and alpha (control) bands were carried out. EEG power was computed in the delta, theta and gamma bands, and phase-amplitude coupling and phase-phase coupling (PAC, PPC) were also computed between bands. Whole-brain analyses showed that the accuracy of low-frequency decoding (delta, theta) did not differ between groups. However, region-specific analyses revealed significantly reduced delta-band speech tracking in the right temporal cortex in the children with DLD. PAC and PPC dynamics did not differ between groups. The data suggest that low-frequency cortical tracking impairments in DLD may be spatially constrained to the right hemisphere rather than globally present as in DD. The data are discussed using TS theory.
The Reusing Inhibition for Negation (RIN) hypothesis proposes that linguistic negation recruits neural mechanisms involved in inhibitory control. Previous research has shown that processing existential negation can influence response inhibition. The present study examines the reciprocal relationship, testing whether inhibitory states modulate the processing of existential negation. In this event-related potentials (ERP) study, each trial began with a Go/NoGo task, followed by an affirmative or a negative existential sentence (e.g., "Now there are bracelets" vs. "There are no bracelets") and a probe recognition task targeting the noun ("bracelets"). The NoGo condition was designed to induce an inhibitory state before the affirmed or negated noun was processed. Negated concepts presented under inhibitory NoGo trials elicited an enhanced anterior P2 component, suggesting increased early attentional engagement, and a reduced frontal N400-like negativity, indicating modulation of semantic processing. Source localization linked this N400-like modulation to the right middle frontal gyrus, a region associated with inhibitory control. In addition, probe recognition for negated concepts elicited larger response-locked readiness potentials, with generators in the right anteromedial superior frontal gyrus, reflecting increased preparatory demands when maintaining negated concepts prior to response execution. Together, these ERP findings suggest that inhibitory states modulate the neural processing of negated concepts and provide additional electrophysiological evidence relevant to the RIN hypothesis.
We examined event-related potentials to determine whether familiar voices facilitate lexical-semantic processing in 14-month-olds. Particularly, we measured the N400 effect (greater negative-going amplitudes for semantic incongruences). Prior work suggests the importance of familiarity in infant cognition. Thus, we expected to find greater N400 effects for incongruent target words presented by a familiar as opposed to an unfamiliar voice. Infants were familiarized with one voice at home the week preceding the experiment. Brain activity of 30 monolingual infants was recorded while they listened to familiar and unfamiliar voices presenting audio-recordings of randomly ordered taxonomically related and unrelated word pairs. Participants showed a fronto-central N400 effect for the unfamiliar voice, and no difference between trial types for the familiar voice. This study provides novel evidence that 14-month-olds process taxonomic relatedness between spoken words without visual referents. Interestingly, infants of this age may be more engaged in language processing for unfamiliar voices.
