Experimental Neurolinguistics Group, Collaborative Research Center "Alignment in Communication" (SFB 673), Bielefeld University Bielefeld, Germany.
Front Hum Neurosci. 2014 May 27;8:296. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2014.00296. eCollection 2014.
Knowing when it is convenient to take a turn in a conversation is an important task for dialog partners. As it appears that this decision is made before the transition point has been reached, it seems to involve anticipation. There are a variety of studies in the literature that provide possible explanations for turn-end anticipation. This study particularly focuses on how turn-end anticipation relies on syntactic and/or semantic information during utterance processing, as tested with syntactically and semantically violated sentences. With a combination reaction time and EEG experiment, we used the onset latencies of the readiness potential (RP) to uncover possible differences in response preparation. Although the mean anticipation timing accuracy (ATA) values of the behavioral test were all within a similar time range (control sentences: 108 ms, syntactically violated sentences: 93 ms and semantically violated sentences: 116 ms), we found evidence that response preparation is indeed different for syntactically and semantically violated sentences in comparison with control sentences. Our preconscious EEG data, in the form of RP results, indicated a response preparation onset to sentence end interval of 1452 ms in normal sentences, 937 ms in sentences with syntactic violations and 944 ms in sentences with semantic violations. Compared with control sentences, these intervals resulted in a significant RP interruption for both sentence types and indicate an interruption of preconscious response preparation. However, the behavioral response to sentence types occurred at comparable time points.
知道何时方便在对话中转换角色是对话伙伴的一项重要任务。由于似乎在到达转换点之前就做出了这个决定，因此这似乎涉及到预期。文献中有许多研究为角色转换的预期提供了可能的解释。本研究特别关注在话语处理过程中，角色转换的预期如何依赖于句法和/或语义信息，方法是使用句法和语义违反的句子进行测试。通过组合反应时和 EEG 实验，我们利用准备电位（RP）的起始潜伏期来揭示可能在反应准备方面的差异。尽管行为测试的平均预期时间准确性（ATA）值都在相似的时间范围内（控制句子：108ms，句法违反句子：93ms，语义违反句子：116ms），但我们发现证据表明，与控制句子相比，句法和语义违反句子的反应准备确实不同。我们的无意识 EEG 数据（以 RP 结果的形式）表明，正常句子的句子结尾间隔的反应准备起始时间为 1452ms，句法违反句子为 937ms，语义违反句子为 944ms。与控制句子相比，这两种句子类型的 RP 中断都导致了显著的反应准备中断，并表明无意识反应准备的中断。然而，对句子类型的行为反应发生在可比的时间点。
