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Abstract:
Abstract: Current investigations point to a relationship
between syntactic and prosodic processes (e.g., Cutler et al.,
1997; Warren ,1996). However, prosody can also be linked to
semantic content and emotional markers of an utterance. We tested
the later option with event-related potentials (ERPs). Our primary
goal was to explore to what extent prosody can be processed
independent of the comprehension of meaning. Forty subjects
listened to sentences in which semantic content was fully crossed
with prosodic intonation (positive, neutral, negative) creating
match and mismatch conditions. Twenty subjects each judged either
the semantic content or the prosodic melody of the sentences on a
five point scale. Results indicate that mismatch conditions (i.e.,
positive content with negative prosody) elicit a combination of two
negativities, at around 200 msec and 500 msec post-stimulus onset
relative to a match condition (i.e., positive content with positive
prosody) at fronto-temporal right hemisphere electrode-sites in the
prosodic judgment condition. In the semantic judgment condition the
later negativity is predominant at centro-parietal electrode-sites.
The nature of the two negativities is discussed in the context of
semantic and prosodic processing models.
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