| |
Abstract:
Abstract: Recently, Münte, Schiltz, & Kutas (1998,
Nature) found that sentences which presented events out of
chronological order gave rise to an increase in slow-wave EEG
activity. They argued that this slow shift reflected the additional
discourse-level processing that was required. In our present
experiment we wanted to find out whether there is an interaction
between this 'temporal' processing and the process of establishing
reference, which is another kind of semantic processing. We
investigated 'two-event' sentences that were very similar to those
of Münte et al., but instead of having two actors, one in each
event, we had only one. In one condition, this actor was referred
to by a proper noun in the first clause, and by a pronoun in the
second clause, as in 1 (anaphor condition); in the other, more
difficult condition, the pronoun appeared in the first clause, and
the proper noun in the second (cataphor condition), as shown in 2.
1. Before / After Marco had tasted the expensive wine, he looked at
the label. 2. Before / After he had tasted the expensive wine,
Marco looked at the label. We will discuss how the temporal and the
referential factors affect the on- line interpretation of a
sentence, and we will show that multi-word ERPs are a valuable tool
to study the processes of establishing reference and interpreting
chronological order.
|
