Momsen Jacob Pohaku, Abel Alyson D
Joint Doctoral Program in Language and Communicative Disorders, San Diego State University and UC San Diego.
San Diego State University.
Neurobiol Lang (Camb). 2022;3(1):132-148. doi: 10.1162/nol_a_00052. Epub 2022 Feb 10.
During language processing, people make rapid use of contextual information to promote comprehension of upcoming words. When new words are learned implicitly, information contained in the surrounding context can provide constraints on their possible meaning. In the current study, EEG was recorded as participants listened to a series of three sentences, each containing an identical target pseudoword, with the aim of using contextual information in the surrounding language to identify a meaning representation for the novel word. In half of trials, sentences were semantically coherent so that participants could develop a single representation for the novel word that fit all contexts. Other trials contained unrelated sentence contexts so that meaning associations were not possible. We observed greater theta band enhancement over the left-hemisphere across central and posterior electrodes in response to pseudowords processed across semantically related compared to unrelated contexts. Additionally, relative alpha and beta band suppression was increased prior to pseudoword onset in trials where contextual information more readily promoted pseudoword-meaning associations. Under the hypothesis that theta enhancement indexes processing demands during lexical access, the current study provides evidence for selective online memory retrieval to novel words learned implicitly in a spoken context.
在语言处理过程中，人们会迅速利用上下文信息来促进对后续单词的理解。当新词通过隐性方式学习时，周围上下文中包含的信息可以对其可能的含义提供限制。在当前的研究中，当参与者听一系列三个句子时记录脑电图（EEG），每个句子都包含一个相同的目标伪词，目的是利用周围语言中的上下文信息来确定这个新单词的意义表征。在一半的试验中，句子在语义上是连贯的，这样参与者可以为这个新单词形成一个适用于所有上下文的单一表征。其他试验包含不相关的句子上下文，因此不可能形成意义关联。我们观察到，与不相关的上下文相比，在处理语义相关的上下文时，中央和后部电极上左半球的θ波段增强更大。此外，在上下文信息更容易促进伪词与意义关联的试验中，在伪词出现之前，相对α和β波段的抑制增加。基于θ增强指示词汇访问期间处理需求的假设，当前研究为在口语语境中隐性学习的新单词的选择性在线记忆检索提供了证据。
