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Abstract:
We explored the timecourse and topography of processing of
"the" in a story and nonsense context in children. Event-related
potentials (ERPs) were recorded to the function word "the" at the
onset of meaningful sentences or strings of meaningless syllables.
In a previous investigation with adults, "the" was processed over
anterior-lateral cortex. This anterior-lateral focus was maintained
throughout the processing of the words following "the" in the
story. In the nonsense condition, this focus of activity
disappeared within 200 ms of the onset of the nonsense syllables.
The adults also showed greater right-than-left hemisphere
processing of "the", which may be related to its discourse
function. In the present study, ERPs to "the" in these two
conditions were collected in young children between the ages of 4
and 7 years. Different patterns of ERP responses were found in the
children, which are related to age, story comprehension, and
language abilities. The obligatory ERP components to "the" were
larger and found at later latencies in the children compared to the
adults. The younger children, who showed poor comprehension,
exhibited great variability in topography for later ERP responses.
We propose that the topography of the obligatory ERP response
reflects phonological and grammatical processing of "the", and the
later ERP responses reflect semantic and discourse
processing.
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