| |
Abstract:
One central question in psycholinguistic research is when the
various information types (semantic, syntactic, and phonological
information) involved in speaking and in comprehension become
available. Here we investigated the relative time courses of
semantic and syntactic encoding in two modalities (tacit picture
naming and listening to words) via event-related brain potential
(ERP) recordings. Participants viewed a series of pictures or heard
a series of nouns. They were asked to make dual choice go/nogo
decisions based on each item's semantic features (whether the item
was an animal or an object) and syntactic features (whether the
item's German name had feminine or masculine syntactic gender). We
compared the N200 (related to response inhibition) peak latencies
for semantic and syntactic go/nogo responses in the two modalities.
In support of serial models of speech production, the N200 measures
during tacit picture naming revealed that semantic processing began
about 90 ms earlier than syntactic processing. The results of the
listening experiment showed a comparable pattern: meaning preceded
syntax by 70 ms. Taken together, the results indicate that access
to meaning has temporal precedence over other types of information
in both speaking and comprehension.
|
